Opportunity lost

The Spokane Chiefs were up two goals in the third period and seemingly cruising to a Western Hockey League win on Friday night at the Arena.

But the Calgary Hitmen persevered and came back with a pair of goals late in regulation, forcing the game into overtime and earning an eventual 4-3 shootout win.

In the 53rd game of their 72-game regular season, the Chiefs got a feel of what it’s going to take to have success down the stretch.

The Chiefs haven’t made it to the playoffs the past two seasons, yet are all but guaranteed to do so this year. They are still learning how to do the little things in big games – like closing down an opponent in your home rink.

“It’s time to start playing playoff-style hockey,” said Chiefs coach Bill Peters. “That’s what this game had was a playoff-type feel and it’s going to be that way every night.”

Spokane (27-20-3-3, 60 points) earned a point in this game for living until overtime, but it was clearly a wasted opportunity to take two points and not lose further ground in the U.S. Division standings.

The Chiefs remain in third place, but are five points behind archrival Tri-City – a winner over division-leading Everett on Friday. The Ams visit the Arena tonight, when Spokane can finally forget about this one.

“We showed some character, down 1-0 then coming back, then getting up 3-1 in playoff-type atmosphere,” said assistant captain Chris Bruton. “We’ve just got to learn to put those away. We just let it slip down the stretch and it was just an all-around poor effort in the last five minutes.”

The Chiefs rallied from an initial 1-0 deficit in this one, taking a 2-1 lead after an up-tempo first period. Then, after a scoreless second period, the Chiefs added to their lead.

J.P. Szaszkiewicz scored for the second straight game, at the 4:56 mark, to give Spokane a 3-1 lead and it looked in control.

But Calgary scored goals just 1:12 apart in the final 6 minutes of the game to force overtime.

Neither team scored in the extra period, so they went to a shootout. Freddie Pettersson of Calgary, the first of six shooters, was the only one with a make.

That ultimately was the difference in the game.

Derek LeBlanc had two goals for Calgary and Karl Alzner had the other. LeBlanc gave his team the lead just 1:36 into the game to put the Chiefs on their heels.

The Chiefs regained their composure, however, and former Calgary player Justin Falk evened the score for Spokane when he blasted in a shot from the blue line that rattled in the top right corner of the pipes. His unassisted goal at the 7:28 mark tied it at 1.

Then, as the Chiefs stepped up their play in the final 5 minutes, Drayson Bowman continued his scoring tear with a power-play goal at the 16:26 mark.

He put in a loose puck from just outside the right post after Ondrej Roman put a shot on net from behind the goal and it was deflected out front by rookie Calgary goalie Martin Jones.

The teams played a scoreless second period, as both goalies made some key saves. The hitting also stepped up and the teams had a couple of shoving incidents after the whistle.

Spokane suffered a loss 8 minutes into the period when Seth Compton was injured on a hard hit at the blue line.

Compton got off the ice on one leg and appeared to be in extreme pain as he made it to the bench and was helped back to the locker room.

After the game, Peters said he was unaware of Compton’s condition but said it was a leg injury of some kind.

“I just didn’t think our forwards as a group got the job done,” said Peters. “I just thought we ended up on the wrong side of puck battles. That allowed them to have a lot of speed through the neutral zone.”

Jones finished with 26 saves in net for Calgary to outduel Spokane’s Kevin Armstrong. Armstrong had 32 saves and made some big saves to keep his team ahead, but got beat on the two goals that tied the game in the third.

The first came when LeBlanc skated around the Spokane defense and beat Armstrong up high on the near side. Then, just 72 seconds later, Alzner’s blast from the blue line eluded his grasp.

Hitmen 4, Chiefs 3 (SO)

Calgary wins shootout 1-0

First Period—1, Cgy, LeBlanc 10 (Sonne, Covington) 1:36; 2, Spo, Falk 3 7:28; 3, Spo, Bowman 21 (Ryan, Roman) 16:26 (pp). Second Period—None. Third Period—4, Spo, Szaszkiewicz 6 4:56; 5, Cgy, LeBlanc 11 (Alzner) 13:47; 6, Cgy, Alzner 6 (Sonne, Frere) 14:59. OT—None. Shootout—Calgary 1 (Pettersson, make; Figren, miss; White, miss); Spokane 0 (Bowman, miss; Ryan, miss; Grabner, miss). Power-play Opp.—Calgary 0 of 5; Spokane 1 of 5. Saves—Calgary, Jones 26. Spokane, Armstrong 32. A—6,483.