Fired-up Blazers power past Chiefs at Arena

The Spokane Chiefs entered Friday night’s interdivisional game at the Spokane Arena as one of the two least-penalized teams in the Western Hockey League.

They ran smack into a fired-up power play from the Kamloops Blazers.

The Blazers, the fifth-place team in the Western Conference’s B.C. Division, scored four power-play goals to upset the first-place team in the U.S. Division, 4-3.

Kamloops came into Spokane after a week of change. The team fired general manager and head coach Dean Clark on Wednesday and replaced him with interim coach Greg Hawgood. The next day the team shipped 19-year-old defenseman Keaton Ellerby to Moose Jaw for 19-year-old right wing Brady Calla.

The changeover fired up a team ranked ninth out of 10 Western Conference teams.

Still, the Chiefs charged out to a 2-0 lead early. Chris Langkow scored on a nifty feed from Tyler Johnson, beating Kamloops goalkeeper Justin Leclerc low on his glove side.

Less than two minutes later, Curtis Kelner turned the same trick to Leclerc’s stick side, whipping home a feed from Drayson Bowman.

But Chiefs defenseman Jared Spurgeon went off midway through the period and did not return.

“That hurt us,” Spokane coach Bill Peters said. “We tried to go with five defensemen after that and we couldn’t get it done.”

Kamloops got its first goal following a questionable tripping call against rookie defenseman Jace Coyle.

Darcy Huisman scored for Kamloops 47 seconds later.

Spokane again pushed its lead to two goals when Johnson poked home a rebound in front of Leclerc 3:55 into the second period, but gave up a self-inflicted power-play goal.

Bowman was called for cross-checking in addition to a coincidental major for fighting and Kamloops needed just 19 seconds of the power play to make it 3-2.

But the real damage came in the final minute of the second period.

Kelner was given a 5-minute match penalty and a game misconduct for what appeared to be a routine play in Kamloops end. With five players digging for the puck in the corner, Kamloops’ Jimmy Bubnik went down with a bloody cut to his forehead after hitting a Plexiglas seam.

“We’ll have to wait and see what the tape shows,” Peters said. “They said he turned his head back into the play to make the hit. There’s an automatic review of plays like that and hopefully the league will overturn the penalty.”

By rule, major penalties must be killed. They are not waved off when the opposing team scored.

So not only did the Chiefs open the third period tied with Kamloops at 3-3 after surrendering a third power-play goal, they still played the first 4:04 of the period short-handed.

Before the penalty expired, the Blazers had taken the lead for good.

Center C.J. Stretch whipped a wrist shot high over Spokane goalkeeper Kevin Armstrong’s shoulder 3:30 into the final period.