Chiefs Start Season With Comeback Win

The third-period comeback was the one prominent short-coming last season in the Spokane Chiefs run to the Western Hockey League West Division championship.

They wasted no time rectifying that Friday night.

Trailing by one after two periods, the Chiefs tied the Kelowna Rockets on Derek Schutz’s third-period goal, then won it in overtime 4-3 when Greg Leeb stripped the puck behind the Rockets’ net and slid it out front to Mike Haley for the game-winner at 4:22 of the 10-minute sudden-death extra period.

The Chiefs - 5-11-1 last year when trailing after two periods - are 1-0 in that department and looking for a weekend sweep on the road tonight at Tri-City.

Haley came in with only 6 goals in two seasons, but coach Mike Babcock said the 19-year-old right wing would inherit a leadership role this year.

Haley was up to the challenge.

So was Leeb, who had a goal and a pair of assists to ruin Pete Anholt’s debut as Rockets head coach. Anholt was a late-season hire as an assistant last March.

The revamped Rockets - bigger, stronger and better suited to their smaller, 180-foot ice sheet - held 2-1 and 3-2 leads over the defending West Division-champion Chiefs.

With goaltender Kim Dillabaugh rejecting 30 shots, the Rockets had enough to satisfy 1,800 in Memorial Arena until Schutz and Haley took it away from them.

Haley had a hand in the tying goal, digging the puck out of the right corner and centering it to Schutz, who was alone in front of the net.

The Chiefs scored first, 66 seconds into the second period with Adam Magarrell in the penalty box. Trent Whitfield backhanded a rebound inside the right pipe for the short-handed goal.

But Kelowna’s Scott Hannan tied it on the power play and the Rockets jumped on a Chiefs turnover to take a 2-1 lead. Jordan Walker forced the mistake in the Spokane zone and left the puck for Trevor Lornson, whose blast from the right circle got through the pads of Spokane goaltender Aren Miller. Miller stopped 20 shots.

Leeb tied it at 2 on the power play, knocking the puck off Dillabaugh’s pads from the right circle.

The tie lasted all of 44 seconds, Walker redirecting a shot by Derek Diener to give the Rockets their 3-2 lead..

Scott Parker, the third-round draft pick of the New Jersey Devils, and a May graduate of Deer Park High School, had an assist and was involved in an early scrap with Chiefs tough guy Kris Graf. It was one of five second-period tussles.

, DataTimes