Ready To Take Portland To School Chiefs Begin Postseason Quest Against Team They Beat Six Of Eight Times In Regular Season

Best in the West after 72 games of the Western Hockey League regular season, the Spokane Chiefs have to prove it all over again starting tonight.

The Chiefs (50-18-4) and the Portland Winter Hawks (30-39-3) play Game 1 of the West Division playoffs tonight at 7 in the Arena.

Neither the opener nor Game 2 on Saturday night was sold out as of Thursday noon, when 3,400 tickets remained for tonight’s game and 2,000 were available Saturday night.

The Chiefs took six of eight games from sixth-place Portland, but only one was lopsided, a 6-1 blowout on Nov. 26, when the Hawks had No. 1 goaltender Brent Belecki on the bench.

Two games were decided by one goal, four by only two goals.

Still, West Division coach of the year Mike Babcock wore his what-me-worry? face to practice Thursday.

“Am I concerned?” the Chiefs coach said. “No. Do I think Portland is a good team? Yes. But we’re going about our business.”

Business is good. The Chiefs went 35-9-3 after Nov. 25 to beat the Kamloops Blazers and Tri-City Americans to the wire in the wild scramble for the West Division title, Spokane’s first in the 11-year history of the franchise.

“Our guys will tense up - first game, the pressure’s on us, there’s absolutely none on them - but we’ve played a playoff-style game since September, just because of the way we play,” Babcock added. “Because of the tight competition in our division we had to play high-pressure games. I don’t know what we could have done in practice to prepare us like our season has prepared us.”

Spokane won the West with goaltender of the year David Lemanowicz, with depth up front and strength and experience on the blue-line.

It’s a team wih no apparent weakness. The Chiefs win key faceoffs. The penalty-killers are the league’s best, the power play among the league’s most potent.

The front office came through on Jan. 25, when general manager Tim Speltz brought center Jan Hrdina into the rich mix of talent in a trade with Seattle.

Hrdina centers a line with John Cirjak and Joe Cardarelli.

Spokane usually starts with most valuable player Darren Sinclair at center, flanked by Dmitri Leonov on the left and Jay Bertsch.

Trent Whitfield, Spokane’s top scorer against Portland with four goals and eight assists, has skated with Jason Podollan and Greg Leeb.

The Chiefs can go four lines deep with veteran Randy Favaro, who’s having a career year, teamed with rookies Derek Schutz and probably, for tonight, Ty Jones. Mike Haley was suspended for two games on Thursday in the wake of Sunday night’s butting incident with Prince George.

Players Babcock will scratch tonight due to numbers will see playoff ice time in the days to come.

“We haven’t decided 100 percent what we’re doing on our back end,” said Babcock, who usually pairs captain Sean Gillam with alternate captain Adam Magarrell, and Hugh Hamilton - with the league’s best plus-minus rating at plus-59 - with Joel Boschman or John Shockey.

“We’ll only have one matchup on the front end,” Babcock said, referring to Sinclair’s line on Portland center Todd Robinson. “Matching is very important, yet you don’t want to match yourself into a loss. I don’t want my guys thinking too much.”

Robinson usually teams with Colin Forbes and Brad Isbister.

Portland right wing Richard Zednik - the leading scorer in the series with 11 goals and five assists - comes out with center Dave Scatchard, with Sinclair one of the league’s top defensive forwards, and Matt Davidson.

“They’ve got talent,” Babcock said.

If he had to state a case for his club with statistics, Portland coach Brent Peterson could point to special teams. Portland’s statistics show the Winter Hawks at 20.6 percent on the power play against the Chiefs. The Chiefs were only 11 of 60 on the power play (18.3 percent) against Portland.

A prediction?

Portland broadcaster Dean Vrooman says it’s Spokane in five games.

“One key is depth,” Vrooman said. “Can Portland get offensive contributions from their top six forwards? The other question is, can Portland win at home?”

The Chiefs went 4-0 with the Hawks in the Arena and 1-0 with them in the Portland Rose Garden.

The Hawks were 9-4 in their last 13 road games but bombed in their last 13 at home, going 2-9-2 and getting outscored 57-38.

“This is the weirdest team I’ve covered in 14 years,” Vrooman said. “When they play well, they look like they can beat anybody. When they lay an egg, they lay a big one. And usually the biggest ones are at home.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. PORTLAND VS. SPOKANE Schedule for the Spokane Chiefs’ best-of-seven series with the Portland Winter Hawks. Tonight: At Spokane, Arena, 7 p.m. Saturday: At Spokane, Arena, 7 p.m. Tuesday: At Portland, Rose Garden, 7 p.m. Wednesday: At Portland, Rose Garden, 7 p.m. March 29: At Spokane, Arena, 7 p.m.* March 31: At Portland, Memorial Coliseum, 6 p.m.* April 2: At Spokane, Arena, 7 p.m.* *-if necessary

2. SEASON SERIES Scores from this season’s Chiefs-Portland regular-season season: Oct. 6, SPOKANE 5, Portland 3 Oct. 11, PORTLAND 10, Chiefs 8 Oct. 18, SPOKANE 5, Portland 4 (OT) Nov. 15, Spokane 4, PORTLAND 1 Nov. 26, SPOKANE 6, Portland 1 Jan. 5, PORTLAND 5, Chiefs 4 Jan. 27, SPOKANE 4, Portland 2 Feb. 21, Spokane 4, PORTLAND 2 (Home team in CAPS.)