West Wins In A Shootout Seattle Standouts Settle Whl All-Star Game

He had to play his way back into the good graces of his coach in Seattle. He did that, and four months later, the highs keep piling up for Thunderbird Tyler Willis, the unlikely all-star.

The 5-foot-7, 150-pound right wing set up three goals in the West’s 7-5 comeback win over the Eastern Conference Wednesday night in the Cavanaugh’s Western Hockey League all-star game.

It was a two-goal night for hometown boys John Cirjak and Trent Whitfield of the Spokane Chiefs, but the inspired play of Willis captured the fancy of press-box voters who were swayed by his role in an all-star comeback.

They named Willis the West’s player of the game.

The announcement came as sweet music to Willis, who went to Seattle late last season in a trade with Swift Current.

He showed up slowed by injury and never got untracked.

He showed up healthy and in shape this summer, his career taking on momentum as he works with Patrick Marleau, who had two goals including the game-winner at 5:41 of the third period.

The play was set up by the diminuitive Willis, known throughout the league more as an agitator than a scorer.

“It’s easy to get assists with that guy,” Willis said of the 17-year-old Marleau. “Youo just have to work hard and get the puck to him. He knows what to do with it.”

The West trailed 4-2 but won going away, breaking a tie at 4 with a furious third period in which it outshot the favored East 23-11.

Willis attributed some of it to a return to basics.

“Pete (Portland coach Brent Peterson) just said go out there and take the body a little bit,” Willis said. “When we started doing that it helped the defensive part of the game.”

The West started and finished with a flurry, jumping on goaltender Ryan Hoople of the Lethbridge Hurricanes to the delight of a sold-out Arena crowd of 10,455.

After Cirjak came off the right wall on a 2-1 break to deposit the first West shot over Hoople’s shoulder, Cerven - the former Spokane Chief now with Seattle - made it a two-goal lead, flipping the West’s second shot over the outstretched glove of Hoople.

Sergei Varlomov of the Swift Current Broncos cut the West lead to 2-1 at 4:11 of the first period. Other than that, goaltender Randy Petruk of the Kamloops Blazers was impenetrable, sweeping aside 15 of 16 East first-period shots.

Petruk wasn’t as fortunate in the second. In just less than 2 minutes of the first period the West had two shots and two goals. The East would stage an even quicker scoring burst in the second.

Peter Schaefer, Chris Phillips and Shane Willis scored in just over 2 minutes as the East went up 4-2. Phillips took a breakout pass from Derek Morris and launched a hard slap shot 10 feet inside the blue line that Petruk could only wave at.

That came at 5:32 of the second. Twelve seconds later, Willis of the Prince Albert Raiders scored and the East was up by two.

The West got the two goals back with Tri-City’s Zenith Komarniski contributing to both scoring plays. Komarniski’s centering pass hit Whitfield’s tape as the Chiefs center was beating the defense with a move at the top of the left circle. Whitfield’s backhander brought the West to within 4-3.

Marleau tied the game at 4 at 9:48 of the second period, after Tyler Willis took care of preliminaries. Another timely centering pass made the play.

Then came the change in goal that brought Tri-City’s Brian Boucher on for the West. Boucher knocked down all 14 shots he faced.

Prince Albert defenseman Chris Phillips, last year’s Eastern Conference player of the game, received the honor again this year with a goal and an assist.

West 7, East 5

East 1 3 1 - 5

West 2 2 3 - 7

First period - 1, West, Cirjak 1 (Kwiatkowski) :42. 2, West, Cerven 1 (Ty Willis, Tetarenko) 2:32. 3, East, Varlamov 1 (Young, Asham) 4:11. Key penalties - None.

Second period - 4, East, Schaefer 1 (Morris, Phillips) 2:41. 5, East, Phillips 1 (Morris) 5:32. 6, East, Shane Willis 1 (Ritchie) 5:44. 7, We, Whitfield 1 (Komarniski) 6:21. 8, West, Marleau 1 (Ty Willis, Komarniski) 9:48. Key penalties - None. shot - Shane Willis, Ea, saved by Boucher, 11:00.

Third period - 9, West, Marleau 2 (Ty Willis) 5:41. 10, West, Whitfield 2 (Leeb) 11:49. 11, West, Cirjak 2 (Morrow) 18:22. 12, East, Cherneski 1 (Wallin, Schaefer) 19:04. Key penalties - West bench (too many men on) 6:42;

Power play opportunities - East 0 of 1, West 0 of 0.Saves - East, Hoople (Lethbridge) 10-2-x-12, Elder (Brandon) x-9-20-29. West, Petruk 15-5-x-20, Boucher x-4-10-14.A - 10,455

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: Changed from the Idaho edition