Portland keeps Chiefs at bay

PORTLAND – Ninety-five seconds of productive offense wasn’t enough for the Spokane Chiefs to abandon their losing ways.

After spotting Portland a three-goal lead through two periods Monday afternoon despite outshooting the Winter Hawks, the Chiefs rallied early in the third period only to drop a 3-2 Western Hockey League decision in Memorial Coliseum and see their losing streak reach five games.

Spokane (17-23-4-0), which had a 23-18 shot margin the first two periods and finished with a 37-21 edge, condensed its scoring into 1 minute, 35 seconds of the third when newcomer Evan Haw snapped in a rebound of a David Linsley shot at 5:30 and Chris Bruton stole the puck and walked in to score his 10th goal of the season at 7:05.

It was the first goal as a Chief for Haw, a defenseman acquired from Saskatoon last week, where he had nine goals.

Stanislav Balan had a goal and an assist for Portland (21-18-2-2) and Dustin Butler made 35 saves in goal for the Winter Hawks, 12 in the third period to thwart the Chiefs.

Thomas Stehr made 18 saves for Spokane. The Chiefs pulled him with 32 seconds to play for an extra attacker, but couldn’t tie it up.

The first two periods were spiced up by a couple of fights between Spokane’s Jason Lynch and Portland’s Frazer McLaren.