Six wins and counting
The Spokane Chiefs have had some sluggish moments to go with their overall success on the ice in October.
They had more than a few of those moments on Tuesday night.
There’s a bottom line, though: The Chiefs are winning.
Drayson Bowman scored two goals, including the winner, and added an assist in the Chiefs’ 4-3 Western Hockey League victory over the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings in front of 3,629 fans at the Arena.
“I didn’t think we were solid in any stretch of the game,” Chiefs coach Bill Peters said. “They are a good team with a lot of speed that works hard, so we knew we were going to have our hands full all night, and that’s how it turned out. With four games in five nights, we showed a little of our youth tonight and were a little worn down.
“We weren’t very sharp tonight, but we found a way to get it done.”
With the victory, the Chiefs (9-2-1-1, 20 points) extended their winning streak to six games (their longest in four years) and moved into a tie for first place with the Tri-City Americans (10-3-0-0) in the U.S. Division standings.
Bowman extended his team-leading points to 17, nine of those points from goals.
“We let a couple of games slip against (Tri-City) when we were on our four-game slide,” said Bowman, “so that’s good that we’ve caught them and we’ll make sure and beat them when we play again.”
Coming off a 2-0 win on the road over the defending Memorial Cup champion Vancouver Giants on Sunday, the Chiefs put up two quick goals in the first period, led off by a short-handed score from Chris Bruton at 2 minutes, 34 seconds on assists from Jared Spurgeon and Bowman.
Mitch Wahl, who finished with a goal and two assists, extended the Chiefs’ lead to 2-0 with an even-strength goal 2 minutes later.
Bowman scored his first goal of the night midway through the second period as the Chiefs took a 3-0 lead.
The Wheat Kings got on the board during a 5-on-3 power play at 15:06 in the second when Colby Robak slotted a shot past Chiefs netminder Kevin Armstrong on a feed from Andrew Clark and Matt Lowry. Armstrong’s shutout streak ended at 124 minutes, 53 seconds.
Two third-period Brandon goals – Cale Jefferies at 5:52 and Tyler Dittmer at 11:11 – tied the game at 3.
Wahl fed Bowman, who tried to center himself out front, and ended up banking his shot off Brandon goalie Andrew Hayes’ skate and through the five hole.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Chiefs will take it.
“We hadn’t played all that well all night,” said Bowman, “so we can’t let that happen in the future, but it’s good that we found a way to win.”
Up next for Spokane is Seattle. The Chiefs host the Thunderbirds, the only U.S. Division team they haven’t faced this season, on Saturday night at the Arena before hitting the road for a Sunday night game at Portland.
“We’re 13 games in and haven’t played a team in our division, which is a little bit rare.” said Peters. “We’ll get prepared for them, but we’ve got to get our team back to the way it was over the weekend – and we’ll do that – and it’ll be exciting to see (Seattle) for the first time.”
Notes
The Chiefs have scored the first goal in 10 of their 13 games this season and are 8-2 when doing so. … Chiefs forward David Rutherford was scratched from the game and continues to be sidelined, day-to-day, with a nagging groin injury.