Kamloops Slips By Spokane In Frantic Finish

The extremes of an extreme game were written all over Brett Draney’s face Saturday night.

Draney had just engineered a most improbable finish, setting up the tying goal with 31 seconds left and scoring the game-winner with a tenth of a second showing in the Kamloops Blazers’ 5-4 win over the Spokane Chiefs.

The Blazers got off only three shots in the third period, but two went in late before 9,443 in the Arena.

“I played in some strange ones in bantam hockey but never anything like this,” Draney said.

There he was, standing outside the locker room, his tongue and lips puffed and two lower front teeth missing. The facial damage came from a first-period hit delivered by Spokane’s Kyle Rossiter.

“It was a cross-check in the mouth,” Draney said.

“My teeth don’t hurt right now , but my tongue’s cut underneath. It’s a little sore, but no big deal. I was forechecking and Rossiter, I think, got his stick up on me. It’s part of the game.”

To say he had the last laugh would be stretching it a bit, since the 18-year-old left winger probably hurt too much to laugh. But he was smiling as widely as his abused oral equipment would allow.

Draney had shoveled a superb pass to Konastin Panov, who was left alone in the low slot for a straight-on shot that tied the game at 4.

“Walker (Blazers’ center Jordan) and I had a little 2-on-1 down in the corner,” Draney explained. “We’d pulled the goaltender and had the extra attacker on the ice. Panny just read it well, snuck down and got open.”

That, after Spokane had battled back from a 3-2 second-period deficit to lead by one in the third period, on goals by Lynn Loyns and Roman Tvrdon.

Draney pointed out that luck had a lot to do with turning what could have been a horrible night for him into one to remember.

“I knew I didn’t have much time,” he said. “I just threw it on net. Sometimes you get a break. I didn’t see it go in but I think it might have hit a defenseman’s skate. We’ll take it. It was a big one.”

It was the Blazers’ third straight win, and their second decision over the Chiefs in as many games. Now, only seven points - three wins and a tie - separate the first-place Chiefs from the fifth-place Blazers in the crowded WHL West Division.

It was a tough way for the Chiefs to have a seven-game home-ice win streak go down.

“They didn’t get much of anything in the third,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “They got one chance, which was their tying goal. Their last goal, that’s not even a (scoring) chance. We had a great chance of our own in front of the net with 10 seconds left. They pick it up with 9.4 seconds left and it’s in our net.

“When you cheat (for position), sometimes those things happen. We played a lot better in the third tonight than we did last night in the third … ”

Yet they lose at home for the first time in a month.

“Mick (goaltender Tyler MacKay) would like to have this game back, for sure, but that’s part of the game,” Babcock said. “The streak’s over. We’ll start a new one.”

With two assists, Spokane’s Derek Schutz ran his scoring streak to eight straight games while playing in his 279th game, two shy of the club’s career record.