Chiefs’ playoff bid put on Ice
CRANBROOK, British Columbia – In the end, it came down to a great player making a great play.
Kootenay’s Nigel Dawes scored consecutive goals, the final one breaking a tie with 6 minutes, 27 seconds remaining, to give his Ice team a 3-2 victory over the Spokane Chiefs in a Western Hockey League game on Friday night before a Rec-Plex Center record crowd of 4,657.
The Chiefs were officially eliminated from contention for the fourth and final playoff spot from the U.S. Division of the Western Conference when Tri-City (25-34-8-3, 61 points) earned a point by earning a 2-all tie at Everett on Friday night.
Spokane (24-37-8-2, 58 points) closes out its season tonight at home against the Ice.
“I thought for three periods we worked real hard. We really didn’t give them anything,” said Chiefs coach Al Conroy. “You’ve got a skilled guy in Dawes and he finds a way to score and he did that tonight.”
The final goal by Dawes, his club record-tying 49th of the season, came after the teams had battled for 2½ periods to a 2-all tie and the goaltenders staged a spectacular duel Dawes received a puck high between the circles and blasted a wrist shot past Spokane goalie Kevin Opsahl that was the game-winner.
The difference in the game was Dawes, who did the same thing for his team on Wednesday night at Tri-City, and has scored a point in 19 straight games.
In this game, the Chiefs gave a full effort and built a 2-0 lead in the second period – only to see it erased by the end of the period on two Ice goals in the final 5:27.
Leading 1-0 after one period, Danny Lapointe gave Spokane a 2-0 lead at the 13:48 mark of the second with a backhander that beat Kootenay goalie Jeff Glass. The goal came after the Chiefs had killed off two short-handed situations in the period.
It wouldn’t stay that way for long, as Kootenay got its first goal at the 14:29 mark on an Adam Taylor goal that came 4 seconds after the teams went into a four-on-four situation because of offsetting penalties.
At that point, the Chiefs had lost a little of the confidence they had shown in the first 30 minutes of the game. The Kootenay crowd roared to life and started its chant of: “Ice, Ice, Ice.”
Their call was answered by their leading scorer and most valuable player, Dawes, at the 18:57 mark of the second period to tie the game at 2. Dawes led a rush up the ice and skated in on the Chiefs defense, who allowed Dawes to put a hard-to-handle wrister on net which grazed off the glove of Opsahl.
Opsahl was spectacular all night and the Chiefs’ first period was one of their best of the season.
In the period, rookie forward Chris Bruton put Spokane up 1-0 with just 20 seconds remaining on a beautiful individual effort. Bruton controlled the puck near the right circle, put a shot on net, then followed his own rebound with a backhander to the glove side of Glass.
It was Spokane’s first goal in two-plus games, as the Chiefs had been the victims of back-to-back shutouts entering the game.
Ice chips
The Chiefs played without leading scorer Chad Klassen, who sustained a season-ending knee injury on Wednesday night in Spokane, and defenseman Gustav Engman. Engman, who is listed as day to day with a concussion sustained in a pregame incident last week, may play tonight. … The Chiefs’ 20-year-old players will be recognized at tonight’s game. They are: captain Jevon Desautels, Gary Gladue, and Danny Lapointe.