Chiefs Hope Cisar Stays Hot Spokane’s Sharpshooter On Torrid Scoring Pace
Marian Cisar is on a tear.
The Spokane Chiefs right winger heads into tonight’s game on home ice with the Lethbridge Hurricanes leading the Western Hockey League in almost every important scoring category.
The 19-year-old from Bratislova, Slovakia, is first in goals (14) and shares the lead in points (23) with four other players, including former Chiefs center John Cirjak.
Impressively, Cisar has done it in only 10 games. Two of the four co-leaders have played in 13 games. The other two have had 14 games to run up 23 points.
Cisar is on an incredible pace to score 98 goals and 161 points. Only Rob Brown (212 in ‘86-87) and Cliff Ronning (197 in ‘84-85) ever logged more WHL points.
Perhaps the most impressive statistic in Cisar’s phenomenal start is the timing of his output. Six of Spokane’s seven wins have Cisar’s stamp on them. He has four game-winning goals and two game-winning assists.
Club officials all over North America overlooked Cisar. He was the 25th pick of the ‘96 import player draft. The eight WHL clubs that drafted before the Chiefs that year had a shot at Cisar, a second round draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings.
Cisar and the Chiefs are back at it tonight against the Hurricanes, who are supposed to be rebuilding after trading heavily on their way to the ‘97 WHL championship.
But former Chiefs coach Bryan Maxwell - taking advantage of a steady diet of home games - has the Hurricanes back on top of the WHL Central. Heading into Tuesday night’s game at Tri-City, the ‘Canes were surprising more than a few WHL observers, who expected the young and smallish (by Maxwell’s standards) club to stumble.
They’ve gone to the front with defense and goaltending. WHL all-star goalie Ryan Hoople plays behind a solid corps of blueliners led by Evgeni Tsybouk, a fifth-round draft pick of the NHL Dallas Stars. Tsybouk was injured most of last season.
Maxwell coached the Chiefs to the ‘91 Memorial Cup championship. He resigned unexpectedly in late January ‘94.
The Hurricanes beat the Chiefs in Maxwell’s initial return to Spokane, in the ‘94-95 season.
“It’s amazing the way he builds through trades,” said Lethbridge Herald beat writer Trevor Kenney. “He never seems to come out on the short end of a deal.”
Speaking of the short end …
There were some parting shots fired when Bob Loucks was removed as Tri-City Americans coach.
When former NHL defenseman and Surrey (B.C.) Eagles coach Rick Lanz took over last Wednesday, Loucks said, “It’s only six games into the season. We were playing without (goalie) Aaron Baker, (defenseman) Zenith Komarniski and (tough guy) Craig Stahl. We opened with a one-goal loss at Spokane. We lost 5-4 in OT to Portland, tied Kelowna and lost 4-3 at Prince George. If Komarniski had been in the lineup maybe we’re 4-2.”
They were 0-5-1 when Loucks was dismissed.
Other than the timing, Loucks took issue with directions he said he received from on high. The day he was canned the Ams announced that they had released veterans Curtis Capjack and Kris Waltze.
Loucks claimed he was told to play the older players for evaluation purposes.
“The bottom line is I wasn’t doing the things to make things better, but when he (Brown) wants to make the decisions on who plays and then decides they’re not good enough, how do you saddle a coach with that?”
Brown told the Tri-City Herald that he never told Loucks who to play.
After the Americans ran into Seattle’s Jeremy Reich Sunday - Reich scored a T-Birds’ club-record six goals in a 12-7 win over Tri-City - the Americans let it be known that a Vancouver sports psychologist, Saul Miller, would come in for a week to counsel the struggling club.
“I wonder,” mused Tri-City Herald beat writer Eric Degerman, “if exorcism is part of his repertoire?”
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