Regular Season Not Chief Concern For Best In West

If you’re scoring at home, the Spokane Chiefs’ magic number is four.

Same as if you’re scoring at Mike Babcock’s home, but only because four is what it takes to win a best-of-seven playoff series.

Actually, three wins and a tie will have the team seamstress busy stitching another banner to hang in the Arena no matter what the Kamloops Blazers do - and Western Hockey League history tells us the Blazers will do whatever it takes. Ten times in the last 12 regular seasons, Kamloops has won the West Division.

The Chiefs, on the other hand, never have.

So now each night seems to have something of a Game 7 boil to it - which their coach tries to simmer to pregame-practice-for-Game 7 temperature.

“No practice I could prepare could be equal to the four games we have left,” said Babcock. “You want to lift your game and prepare for the playoffs, but there’s something more important than the outcome of these four. There are a lot of teams that have had good regular seasons and never been heard from again.”

This is Babcock forechecking furiously, in much the way his team does - and that’s why we do figure to hear from the Chiefs beyond March 17, when the curtain falls on the WHL’s first act.

Defense wins, as long as it’s not just played a few feet in front of the net.

And it’s instructive to note that Spokane’s candidate for the league’s MVP award is not the leading scorer, the WHL’s top goaltender, the all-star defenseman or the gold medalist.

“I’d have figured one of those guys,” admitted Darren Sinclair, the 19-year-old center who was “shocked” when the club nominated him.

Will he win? Not likely - unless there’s been a massive mood swing among the same voters who didn’t send him to the WHL All-Star Game.

No matter, said Babcock. “I guarantee the opposition knows who he is,” he said.

They know him as a capable scorer in his own right, but mostly as the best defensive center in the WHL matched each game at home with Dmitri Leonov and Jay Bertsch against the opposition’s best. This is Spokane’s “checking line,” though Leonov leads the team in scoring and Sinclair is third - and has almost twice as many game-winners as anyone else on the team.

“Because of that, we can have these people on the ice a lot,” Babcock said, “but what they tend to do is shut down the other team’s best line - and when the other team tries to avoid the matchup, it’s really to our advantage.

“Matching lines is such a huge part of coaching - even at the pro level, but especially in junior, where there’s such a variation in age and talent.”

Except perhaps in Spokane. When the Chiefs can trade for a 100-point scorer like Jan Hrdina and put him to work on the third line, that’s depth.

Sort of makes it hard for anyone to stand out night after night. In Babcock’s eyes, Sinclair manages.

“He’s a dominant player - a 70-to-80-point guy who’s a plus-25 or -26 against the best people in the league every night,” Babcock said. “We have a lot of great players, but this guy has distinguished himself as the most consistent.”

That is to say, the most consistent with Babcock’s concept of team defense.

“He tells us we’re a defensive line,” Sinclair said, “but really our line just goes out and plays hockey.”

But they play it differently than before. The Chiefs will break the club record for fewest goals allowed by 35 or so, and barring a real swoon will lead the WHL. In the last 20 years, only seven WHL clubs have put up stingier numbers; for amusement purposes only, four of those (Kamloops in 1992, ‘94 and ‘95 and New Westminster in ‘77) won Memorial Cups.

“Defense will be there every night,” Sinclair said.

And there may have been no better example than the otherwise routine romp over hapless Prince George on Wednesday. The Chiefs bombed poor Chris Mason with 54 shots, but only five made it through. PG, meanwhile, got off just 14 shots.

“If you don’t have defense in the playoffs,” said Sinclair, “you won’t go far.”

Never mind the regular season. Which is just what Babcock would prefer.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

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