Chiefs continue season-long dominance of Winter Hawks

The Spokane Chiefs needed a practice game as they try to heal and prepare for the Western Hockey League playoffs.

Luckily, the reeling Portland Winter Hawks were on the schedule and fit the bill as Spokane posted a 3-0 win Saturday night at the Arena before an announced crowd of 9,043.

Spokane (33-24-4-3, 73 points) remained perfect against last-place Portland (32).

The tough-luck Winter Hawks worked hard on this night but couldn’t break through against the home team.

The Chiefs needed to pick up two points in the U.S. Division race and get some quality ice time for their rookies as the team wraps up the regular season without some of their injured veterans.

Spokane accomplished both of its goals and the rookie in net got his second shutout of the season as Dustin Tokarski stopped 27 shots. The Chiefs remain tied with Seattle for third place in the U.S. Division.

Tokarski ended a short losing streak with the win, getting help from a defense which was down to five players on this night.

“The guys on the back end, yeah, we’re a little short staffed, but we’re hanging in there still,” said 20-year-old assistant captain Evan Haw. “We’re doing a good job in just keeping it simple and being successful doing that.”

Tokarski sure appreciated the help. He made some difficult saves to keep the game close in the first two periods and saw clearly all the shots he stopped.

“It was a complete team effort – we had every one of those guys working their butts off,” said Tokarski. “It was a great effort and I don’t know what else to say.”

Spokane took a 2-0 lead after one period on two power-play goals against a Portland team that was, alternately, undisciplined and mismatched. The Chiefs added an empty-net goal by Michael Grabner with just 2:40 remaining for the final margin.

Spokane’s first goal, at the 4:54 mark of the first, was Levko Koper’s first WHL goal. Chris Langkow picked up a turnover behind the Portland net and passed it out to Koper in the slot. He walked in on Portland goalie Kurtis Mucha and buried it into the net.

“I can’t explain it, really,” said Koper. “I’ve never had a goal on this high of a level – anything like it. It’s kind of starting to pay off, all the hard work from this year.”

Koper got a lot of ice time earlier in the season and showed promise, but as older injured players returned he had to bide his time for a game like this one.

“I knew I had to work for all the ice I got,” Koper said. “The last couple of games, getting some regular shifts, it’s been going pretty good.”

After Koper’s goal, the Chiefs extended their lead to 2-0 at the 15:55 mark of the first on a goal by another rookie. But it was Mitch Wahl’s 13th goal of the season, and he put it in from just inside the blue line with a top-shelf wrister through some traffic.

Meanwhile, Tokarski made some spectacular saves at the other end of the ice to keep the Winter Hawks off the board.

That’s the way the score remained through two periods, despite three power-play chances for the Chiefs. They didn’t manage a shot on two of those, but continued to hold down the visitors by taking the body with some big hits.

“It’s nice to get the win here at home,” said coach Bill Peters. “You’d like to get all three wins (this week), but we went 2-1 and had a shot (to get all three).”

Chiefs 3, Winter Hawks 0

First Period—1, Spo, Koper 1 (Langkow) 4:54 (pp); 2, Spo, Wahl 13 (Grabner, Spurgeon) 15:55 (pp). Second Period—None. Third Period—3, Spo, Grabner 36 (un) (en) 17:20. Power-play Opp.—Portland 0 of 4; Spokane 2 of 8. Saves—Portland, Mucha 26. Spokane, Tokarski 27. A—9,043.