Chiefs stray a bit

The concept behind the Spokane Chiefs’ success so far has been pretty simple: Play humble hockey, see success on the ice.

It’s not only simple, it has worked.

The Western Hockey League’s top team, however, has hit a bump in the road.

“For the most part this year, we’ve really lived by the phrase ‘humble hockey’ and have done a good job of that,” Chiefs head coach Bill Peters said. “Now we’ve had a lot of individual accolades and a lot of individual attention and I think that it’s affected our group in a negative way.

“Our group as a whole has been distracted by themselves and we’ve handled it up to this point, but right now we’re not the same group.”

The individual attention Peters speaks of includes several WHL and Canadian Hockey League awards.

Sniper Drayson Bowman was named WHL and CHL Player of the Week in back-to-back weeks and WHL Player of the Month for November, and league-leading goalie Dustin Tokarski was the CHL Goaltender of the Week.

Beyond that, Peters said, the recent Central Division trip through Alberta, in which the Chiefs played five games in six nights and went 3-2, included many homecomings for players.

Captain Chris Bruton returned to Calgary and scored the game-winning goal as the Chiefs defeated the Hitmen in overtime to kick off the road trip.

Rookie defenseman Brett Bartman played in front of his hometown crowd in the Chiefs’ 4-3 loss to Medicine Hat the following night, and Jared Spurgeon, Chris Langkow and Levko Koper returned to Edmonton on Tuesday and, between the three of them, played in front of 500 of their family and friends as the Chiefs defeated the expansion Oil Kings 5-2.

The trip ended with a 2-1 loss in Lethbridge, forward Judd Blackwater’s hometown.

So how does Peters plan to remedy the situation? He looks at it as a test for his young team.

Aside from things like improving on the power play, avoiding careless penalties and killing off the penalties that they do take, Peters still sees it as a simple concept for the group – get back within their own systems.

“We’re definitely not playing the way we were earlier in the year,” said Peters. “At one point in the season we were very unselfish and proud and happy for guys when they were doing well. We’re just not quite there.

“We’ve got to get back to ourselves and not this imposter group we’ve paraded around here for the last two weeks.”

They have a little more than a week to do so before they break for the holidays. In that stretch, which begins tonight against Swift Current, they play four games within the U.S. Division.

“We’re a group that’s got to get back to our foundation,” said Peters, “and it will be interesting to see if we’re mature enough to do that prior to Christmas.”

Notes

The Chiefs host the Swift Current Broncos tonight at the Arena for Teddy Bear Toss night. The Broncos are third in the East Division with a 16-10-0-5 record. … The Chiefs have a four-point lead over the Tri-City Americans (21-6-1-0, 43 points) atop the U.S. Division. … Dustin Tokarski’s 1.66 goals-against average continues to lead the league. … Drayson Bowman is third in WHL scoring with 48 points, but leads the league with 26 goals. … In the latest installment of the CHL poll, the Chiefs held on to their No. 2 ranking, the highest of the four WHL clubs ranked inside the Top 10.