Chiefs fall with the help of a Giants hat trick

The Spokane Chiefs dropped their first exhibition contest of the at the hands of the Vancouver Giants, 6-2, on Sunday afternoon at the Everett Silvertips pre-season tournament.

Spokane finished the weekend 2-1 with wins on Friday and Saturday over Kamloops and Seattle, respectively.

Vancouver’s Spencer Machacek recorded a hat-trick by scoring even-strenghted, on the power play and shorthanded to lead the Giants to the victory.

Craig Cunningham scored first at 7:57 of the first and was followed up by the first two Machacek tallies to make it 3-0. Machacek’s first, at 14:04 of the first, was on the power play while his second, 3:40 into the middle frame, came shorthanded.

Mitch Wahl, the Chiefs 16-year-old rookie forward, then scored two of his own to pull Spokane within one. Wahl’s first was on the power play at 7:37 and was set up by Justin Falk and goaltender Darcy Kuemper. His second came at 14:35 from 15-year- old Burke Gallimore.

Machacek completed his hat-trick on the power play at 2:55 of the third and Vancouver added two more, at 9:45 from Tim Kraus and 15:12 from Mario Bliznak, for the final margin.

Kuemper finished with 32 saves as Vancouver outshot the Chiefs 36-29.

Spokane was 1-12 on the power play and 10-12 on the penalty kill.