Tri-City Overpowers Chiefs 3 Goals By Americans On Power Play Prove Too Much For Spokane

Everybody has a sponsor and a promotion for its power play. Here it’s called a Tri-City Snickers power play, after the candy bar, not for the fact that usually the Tri-City power play is a joke.

Aptly named, as it turned out, for the power play was sweet Friday night for the Tri-City Americans.

Down 2-0, the Americans stormed back with five goals - three on the power play - to beat the Spokane Chiefs 5-2 and remain in the hunt for the final playoff spot in the Western Hockey League West.

When the two clubs resume their interminable series tonight with their 15th game at 7 in the Arena, the Chiefs will still be in third place, thanks to Kelowna’s 5-4 loss to Kamloops Friday night. And the Americans will still be 12 points behind for a playoff berth, since sixth-place Prince George held off Portland 5-3.

But at least the Americans haven’t quit after a disastrous February in which they went 2-9-2.

“It’s to the point where we have to win games,” Americans defenseman Chris Anderson said, “and tonight everybody realized it.”

After Joe Cardarelli put the Chiefs up by two with his 30th and 31st goals of the season, the Americans - losers of their previous seven games and winless in their last 11 - began to take advantage of Spokane penalties and rebounds that caromed off Chiefs goaltender Aren Miller.

Mike Hurley scored on the wrap-around with 2 minutes left in the first period. Ken McKay policed up a rebound off Miller’s chest and put it in the back of an empty net to tie it 3:53 into the second. Both came on the power play.

Kris Waltze rebounded Peter Sachl’s drive at 6:43 of the second period for the game-winner. Craig Stahl scored on yet another rebound with the Americans on the power play at 14:09 of the second, and Brent Ascroft playing in his 197th consecutive game closed with his 24th goal of the year 5:29 into the third period.

The Ams improved to 19-38-6 without standout defenseman Zenith Komarniski (groin injury) - the quarterback of their power play - and Scott McCallum (flu). They were also without key forwards Roman Pylner (shoulder) and Jody Lapeyre, who for religious reasons does not play on Friday nights.

The patchwork lineup Bob Loucks threw together was good enough to give him his 100th win in his third season as Tri-City coach. It was also good enough to beat the Chiefs, who came out flying and quickly went flat without captain Hugh Hamilton, who might have been in position to pick up some of the rebounds that led to Tri-City power-play goals.

“Hayser (Darrell Hay) and Flynn (Chris, both 16-year-old defensemen) did a real good job back there (on the point of the power play),” Anderson said. “With Ascroft shooting the puck all the time, we banged ‘em in. They weren’t pretty goals but they went in.”

Hamilton took a puck to the toes and another to the ankle in Tuesday night’s game in Prince George and has a swollen foot.

The Chiefs jumped on the fragile Americans early, Cardarelli drilling his first from the left circle over the blocker of goaltender Aaron Baker with Spokane on the power play. Cardarelli scored again at 14:56 and the Chiefs seemed to have the Ams on the ropes.

But the Americans cashed in on three of their 10 power-play chances while the Chiefs, who fell back to .500 at 30-30-4, were only 1 of 5.

Chiefs coach Mike Babcock kept his team in the locker room for more than 25 minutes after the game and was unavailable for comment.

Loucks said, “We needed it - we needed this a long time ago, actually. When we were down 2-0 I didn’t think we were playing that badly. Their first goal was on the power play that came from what I thought was a very bad call (a roughing on McKay) that put us down. The shots were 11-11 in the first period and we’re down 2-0. It’s not like they outplayed us territorially.”

Americans 5, Chiefs 2

Spokane 2 0 0 - 2

Tri-City 1 3 1 - 5

First period-1, Spokane, Cardarelli 30 (Jones, Ference), 2:32 (pp). 2, Spokane, Cardarelli 31 (Evans, Cisar), 14:56. 3, Tri-City, Hurley 33 (Stahl, Gyori), 18:00 (pp). Key penalties-McKay, TC, 1:14; Waltze, TC, 7:05; Jones, Spo, 8:43; Schutz, Spo, 12:34; Leeb, Spo, 16:31.

Second period-4, Tri-City, McKay 15 (Orr, Smith), 3:53 (pp). 5, Tri-City, Waltze 3 (Sachl, Legault), 6:43. 6, Tri-City, Stahl 21 (Ascroft), 14:09 (pp). Key penalties-Dewaele, Spo, 2:11; Hay, TC, 8:20; Cisar, Spo, 11:40; Lane, Spo, 14:02; Ference, Spo, 14:39; Dewaele, Spo, 16:26.

Third period-7, Tri-City, Ascroft 24 (McKay), 5:29. Key penalties- Whitfield, Spo, :08; Flynn, TC, 14:10; Suter, Spo, 17:59.

Power-play opp.-Spokane 1 of 5; Tri-City 3 of 10. Saves-Spokane, Miller 10-13-9-32. Tri-City, Baker 10-10-15-35. A-4,978. , DataTimes