Chiefs outwork Cougars

It was old-fashioned lunch-pail hockey Wednesday night at the Spokane Arena.

The Spokane Chiefs scratched and scrapped their way to a 5-3 Western Hockey League victory over the visiting Prince George Cougars. Nothing fancy. Nothing flashy.

“I think we came out and established our work ethic early,” Chiefs coach Bill Peters said. “But what was nice was that we got better every 20 minutes. We got more structure, we played smarter hockey as the game went along.”

The leading scrapper was Michael Grabner, who scored his second hat trick against Prince George this season. The first-round draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks scored three goals, including the game winner in overtime at Prince George Dec. 27, then added two more goals the following night in a 6-2 win.

“We came out and we just tried to play hard,” Grabner said. “We have to treat these games as if they’re playoff games and keep up the intensity.”

The right winger, who was benched by Peters in Everett 12 days ago, has been on fire since – and picked up where he left off in British Columbia against the Cougars. Grabner has scored nine goals in his past four games, a number surpassed only by his eight goals in three games against the Cougars.

“They’ve caught us on a couple of nights when Michael has been hot,” Peters said. “We only play them four times a year. If we played them more often, I’m sure it would even out some.”

Prince George opened the scoring on a short-handed goal. Spokane goalkeeper Kevin Armstrong skated forward to help out on a power play, but cleared the puck directly to Jared Walker, who stroked the puck into an empty net.

Grabner brought the Chiefs right back, scoring just 22 seconds later to even the game at 1-all.

Spokane got caught cheating against the Prince George power play midway through the first period, giving up the lead when the Cougars’ Dana Tyrell whipped an uncontested pass across the ice in the Spokane end to a wide-open Eric Hunter, who had time to wait for Armstrong, standing high in the crease, to commit himself before sticking a wrist shot underneath his glove.

Grabner found himself open briefly in the Prince George end on the power play and beat Prince George goalkeeper Real Cyr at the 8:18 mark to tie the score, then set up the go-ahead goal 5 minutes later, rifling a shot at Cyr, with Chris Bruton there to put away the rebound for the short-handed goal.

Prince George came back with a power-play goal at 13:52 to keep the score tied after two periods, 3-3.

The third period belonged to Spokane.

Grabner created two power plays when Prince George resorted to holding to keep the winger from out-skating them.

Mitch Wahl scored the game’s only even-strength goal when he beat Cyr 1:13 into the period to give Spokane the lead.

Grabner capped the night by outhustling the Cougars in their own end, then took a bow as a bevy of hats flew onto the hometown ice.

Peters expects Prince George to come out fired up Friday, when the teams meet for the final time.

“Let’s face it, this was a team that played a game last night and we didn’t,” Peters said. “They’re going to come back out here with fresh legs. We established something now for this three-game homestand, but we have to keep it up.”

Chiefs 5, Cougars 3

First Period—1, P.G., Walker 21 6:51 (sh); 2, Spo, Grabner 33 (Zimmerman, Spurgeon) 7:13 (pp); 3, P.G., Hunter 21 (Tyrell, Dudas) 11:04 (pp). Second Period—4, Spo, Grabner 34 (Blackwater) 8:18 (pp); 5, Spo, Bruton 8 (Grabner) 13:17 (sh); 6, P.G., Tyrell 23 (Hunter, Gardner) 13:52 (pp).

Third Period—7, Spo, Wahl 12 (Ryan, Spurgeon) 1:17; 8, Spo, Grabner 35 (Blackwater, Hobson) 16:01 (pp).

Power-play Opp.—Prince George 2 of 3; Spokane 3 of 7. Saves—Prince George, Cyr 32. Spokane, Armstrong 24. A—4,435.