Spokane falls on road to Kamloops on late goal by Gutierrez
KAMLOOPS, British Columbia – The Spokane Chiefs will get a good test of their endurance and focus tonight when they host the Prince Albert Raiders, their third game in four nights.
The Chiefs lost a tough, physical Western Hockey League road game to the Kamloops Blazers 2-1 on Friday night as right-winger Moises Gutierrez scored his first goal of the season at 18 minutes, 2 seconds of the third period. A crowd of 4,834 was in attendance.
The winner came a 2-on-1 break, as Guitierrez took a pass from teammate C.J. Stretch in the right slot and put it high under the crossbar and over the glove of Spokane goalie Jim Watt.
The goal came as the result of a determined effort by the Blazers (5-2-0-0), who outshot Spokane (2-2-0-0) by a 20-10 margin over the last two periods.
The game was marred by some 202 penalty minutes, most of which occurred in the first 1 1/2 periods.
Spokane had taken the initial lead in the game at 7:01 of the first period on captain Jeff Lynch’s first goal of the season. On a power play, rookie Drayson Bowman put a shot on net and it deflected off Lynch and past Kamloops goalie Devan Dubnyk.
Things would stay that way on the scoreboard until Kamloops’ Kris Versteeg evened the score at 1 with his fifth goal of the season as the second period came to an end, at the 18:31 mark.
Dubnyk stopped 19 shots for Kamloops. Watt turned aside 26 shots for Spokane.