Chiefs heat up against Ice

CRANBROOK, British Columbia – The Spokane Chiefs were a give-and-take team in opening the second half of the Western Hockey League season on Friday night.

They gave little, and took a lot.

Led by two goals from Mitch Wahl, four Spokane players scored as the Chiefs rolled to a 5-2 victory to open the weekend home-and-home series with the Kootenay Ice.

After Spokane’s Seth Compton opened the scoring off a Curtis Kelner pass for his sixth goal of the season, Kootenay’s Michael Stickland scored on a power play to even the score at 1.

Wahl netted his 12th goal of the season on a Chiefs’ power play at 17 minutes, 37 seconds and the Chiefs’ latest acquisition, Luke Betts, scored his first goal in a Spokane sweater 16 seconds later as the Chiefs (27-6-1-2) took a 3-1 lead after the first period.

After Steve DaSilva scored the lone goal of the second period to pull the Ice within one, Spokane got insurance goals in the third period from Chris Langkow and Wahl.

Spokane, which continued its stingy defensive ways, outshot Kootenay 36-21.

The Chiefs were on point without a key rookie in 16-year-old defenseman Jared Cowen, who begins play today with Team West at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in London, Ontario, against Germany.

That’s a good sign, considering Spokane will be without Cowen until at least Friday – the final day of the tournament. It’s not likely Cowen will play in the Chiefs’ Jan. 5 game at Tri-City, so the next time he will skate with Spokane will probably be Jan. 9, when the Chiefs play host to Kamloops.

Goalie Dustin Tokarski’s workload was kept relatively light as he turned away 19 shots for the Chiefs and improved to 15-2-0-1. He continues to lead the league with a 1.71 goals-against average.

Drayson Bowman, who assisted on Wahl’s goals, held his ground at third in the league in scoring with 54 points, and leads the WHL with 27 goals.

Import forward Ondrej Roman, the game’s first star, had two assists for Spokane, including a stellar centering feed on Langkow’s goal.

The Chiefs’ weekend series with the Ice (21-12-3-0) wraps up tonight at the Arena.

Spokane is 2-0 against Kootenay this season.