Chiefs enter crossroads, look for map

Fixated as it is on the guy who has to stand behind the bench – the better to absorb the slurs and spittle lobbed his way – the local hockey clientele has been content to overlook another likely issue with the Spokane Chiefs:

They haven’t had enough good players.

So while the firing of coach Al Conroy on Monday was surely cheered on the bloodlust level and will probably salve a few hundred season ticket holders – and thus was probably necessary – the Chiefs’ decline into a third-tier team in the Western Hockey League has been a true ensemble piece.

And they still don’t have enough good players.

Maybe a summer’s maturation and a fresh voice in their ears will amend their outside-looking-in status the next time the WHL playoffs roll around, but is that really enough for a franchise that for the longest time fancied itself as one of junior hockey’s jewels?

Is there a 100-point season in this team’s future? Or just more treading Zamboni water?

Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz acknowledged on Tuesday that the franchise is “at a little crossroads in a couple of areas,” even though it seems more like a cul-de-sac.

In the last five seasons, the Chiefs have won 150 games, which if you toss out the expansion teams is fewer than everyone but Tri-City and Prince George in the Western Conference, and 13th out of 18 league wide. The coach-obsessed among the hockey set will note, of course, that this coincides precisely with Mike Babcock’s graduation from the Chiefs to the pros, and there’s probably something to that.

“We’ve always had the approach that this is a developmental league and that part of that meant developing young coaches to a certain degree,” Speltz said. “We’re finding now that with the experiences of the coaches in our division, and in our league, we have to look a little bit more for experience. We don’t time for a learning curve.

“You’ve seen coaches come back to our league from the NHL, like Kevin Constantine in Everett and Don Hay (Vancouver). We’ll look at things a little differently in that regard.”

So it at least appears that Speltz expects the coaching change to solve the club’s problem in finding a forward gear and is less troubled about the other 24 guys in the dressing room, even if some seemed to be following their own TripTik this past season.

Maybe that’s not quite fair. Speltz is concerned.

“We have some good people,” he said, “but some of them are players who have more than they’ve given us so far.”

He just doesn’t conclude that major rosters moves are in order – even if that doesn’t seem completely realistic for a team that finished last in its division.

“We only lose three players,” said Speltz, talking of the overage 20-year-olds whose spots, at this point, will be taken by the three 19-year-olds on the Chiefs roster. “We have a wealth of experience, a good returning core. If we can add some players to the existing rosters, young players we’re hoping will have more of an impact than we’ve had in the past, we should be improved. Roster moves in the off-season aren’t the way teams usually go.”

But as the joke goes, is the whole team coming back good news or bad news?

Maybe the memory is faulty, but it seems the Chiefs have been trying to fill their straight with the young-team card for several seasons now. The promise seen by the scouts and Speltz himself simply hasn’t been realized, and while you can blame the developmental hand of Conroy or his predecessor, Perry Ganchar, that’s pretty simplistic.

Even Speltz, while defending the talent level, cops to a shortcoming.

“I think we’ve had good players that are definitely talented enough,” he said. “Chad Klassen is one of our first overall picks (in the bantam draft) and has more points than any player in the Western Conference the last three seasons. We’re obviously satisfied there. This year we honestly expected Brad Schell would be back, the front line center we missed all year – but those are things that can happen any year. Those guys have upside talent.

“On the whole, though, I don’t know if we’ve been as deep as we’ve been in the past. That is an area of some concern. That’s reflective of not doing a good enough job of identifying players all the way through.”

There’s another way to reflect that – not foolproof, by any means, but revealing in its own way.

In the last seven years, no WHL team has had fewer players selected in the National Hockey League entry draft than the Chiefs, who have had 11 – the same as Lethbridge and Kootenay (which happens to be one of the most successful franchises over the same time). Likewise, every WHL team has had a No. 1 pick since the Chiefs had their last pair – Brad Ference and Ty Jones in 1997.

For what it’s worth, Seattle in the same span has had 25 different players chosen – and is only a handful more wins to the good than the Chiefs.

Speltz’s point about depth is well taken, but it appears the Chiefs have been short on the top-end, as well.

Are junior teams really looking for a different skill set and upside than their big brothers?

In Spokane’s case, the answer has often been yes.

“We’ve always tried to identify, back to the Trent Whitfield days and Derek Schutz and Brandin Cote, guys who have high and strong character,” Speltz said, “and maybe we’ve overlooked some players because we’ve gone for character guys. Maybe they haven’t been the prototypical NHL picks.

“Brandin Cote is the perfect example. He was a great Spokane Chief, with great longevity, a solid talent, consistent, a great ambassador for the team. He was the perfect junior player in my mind. Now, if we were picking for the NHL draft, we might have picked someone else.”

But if this year’s Chiefs were full of character guys, they still managed to go south when it counted the most – at season’s end when a 5-5 finish would have landed them a playoff berth, but turned into 2-8 instead. Whether they’d tuned out Conroy or were let down by ineffective leadership from their own, the fact is character – at least as it manifested itself in the Chiefs clubhouse – didn’t prevail.

And there wasn’t enough talent to compensate.

Even Speltz pointed out that “we didn’t’ win any games this year, really, when you could walk away saying, ‘Whew, we got away with one.’ When we played well, we won, period.”

Better players get you some of those “whew” wins.

Otherwise, you get fired.