Chiefs Finally Finish With A Flair Magarrell, Whitfield Help Fuel Late Comeback In 6-4 Victory
The Spokane Chiefs play host to Moose Jaw at the Arena at 7 p.m.
At last, that rarity of Spokane Chiefs’ rarities of late, a driving finish. Down a goal in the third period Friday night, the Chiefs rallied behind standout play at the blue line by Adam Magarrell and the crunch-time scoring of Trent Whitfield to turn back the Prince George Cougars 6-4.
The Cougs scored four unanswered goals to lead 4-3 early in the third period, before Whitfield registered his 29th and 30th goals of the year to keep the Chiefs (29-27-4) in third place in the Western Hockey League West heading into tonight’s 7:05 visit by the Moose Jaw Warriors.
Whitfield scored the game-winner midway in the final period, hacking at the puck at the doorstep before punching it between the pads of goaltender Scott Myers.
“We haven’t been good at home, we’ve been finding ways to lose, but tonight we had a finish,” said Chiefs coach Mike Babcock, whose team had gone into overtime in five of its previous nine games. Spokane has lost 13 of 22 games decided by one goal, including a loss to Kamloops on Wednesday night when the Chiefs led after two periods.
This was big in that Babcock wants to build momentum over the Chiefs’ final 12 regular-season games.
“I didn’t think Whitfield was good early,” the coach said, “but he was great at the end.”
Prince George fell to 7-20-2 on the road despite two goals and an assist from Ronald Petrovicky. His Slovakian countryman, Marian Cisar of the Chiefs, also had three points.
Jared Smyth, Blake Evans, Marc Brown and Curtis Suter - rookies and mostly strangers to the scoring summary - had their hands in first-period scoring plays.
The Chiefs in the second period had no more defense than Evander Holyfield’s heavy bag, although Babcock said it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked. Down 3-0 after one, Prince George left for the second intermission tied at 3.
“We didn’t finish as many checks and weren’t as intense in the second period but they scored on the three opportunities they got - and we didn’t score on the 15 opportunities we had,” Babcock said. “We were all over them and couldn’t score.”
Smyth’s slap shot from the top of the left circle sailed over Myers’ glove 3 minutes into the game. It was the 17-year-old left winger’s first WHL goal.
Cisar got his 20th on a 2-1 break with Chad Reich. Cisar carried it in, hesitated, got Myers down on the ice and beat him with the backhand to give the Chiefs a two-goal lead.
Going hard to the net to pick up his own rebound, Evans scored his third goal of the year to put the Chiefs up 3-0.
The Cougars stormed back with four consecutive goals, Petrovicky putting them up 4-3 early in the third. Brad Mehalko and Joel Kwiatkowski also scored in the Cougars’ four-goal run.
Magarrell sent a shot from the left point into the back of the net at 3:59 of the third period to tie it at 4. The goal, his fourth of the year, capped one of his finest games in Spokane.
“He was a plus-four (the Chiefs scored four more goals with him on the ice than they gave up) and was awesome,” Babcock said of the 20-year-old defenseman.
Chiefs 6, Cougars 4
Prince George 0 3 1 - 4 Spokane 3 0 3 - 6
First period - 1, Spokane, Smyth 1 (Cisar) 3:02. 2, Spokane, Cisar 20 (Reich, Boschman) 12:13. 3, Spokane, Evans 3 (Brown, Suter) 14:18. Key penalties - Lane, Spo, 6:54.
Second period - 4, Prince George, Kwiatkowski 15 (Petrovicky, Low) 6:35 (power play). 5, Prince George, Petrovicky 30 (Betts) 8:53. 6, Prince George, Mehalko 12 (Smith, Myers) 17:00. Key penalties - Hamilton, Spo, 5:26; Jones, Spo, 9:19; Kwiatkowski, PG, 9:56; Dewaele, Spo, 19:52.
Third period - 7, Prince George, Petrovicky 31 (Roed, McKay) 1:58. 8, Spokane, Magarrell 4 (Cisar) 3:59. 9, Spo, Whitfield 29 (Leeb, Jones) 9:59. 10, Spokane, Whitfield 30 (Leeb) 19:35. Key penalties - Brewer, PG, :10; Reich, 1:11.
Power plays opportunities - PG 1 of 5. Spokane 0 of 2.Saves - Prince George, Myers 18-14-5-37. Spokane, Miller 9-5-12-26.A - 7,444
, DataTimes