John Blanchette: This is one hot series

Face-off at 7. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why the Spokane Arena hadn’t been evacuated by about 7:30 Monday night.

One, there was an electrical fire in the wiring somewhere above the west-end video screen – brief and quickly contained, but with flames momentarily licking outward. The guess here is the Women of Faith event booked into the joint last weekend must have overtaxed the scoreboard for souls saved and so it gave up the ghost.

Two, a goal had already been scored. So game over, right?

Isn’t this the Sudden-Death Series? Or the Shutout Series?

The only thing I can think of is that the 5,921 on hand – firemen not included – were sticking around in the hope of witnessing an honest-to-goodness power play goal.

Delusional, yes, but perhaps all that smoke inhalation clouded their thinking.

Like the two double- overtime marathons that preceded it, the relative sprint that was Spokane’s 2-0 victory over the Tri-City Americans in Game 3 of their Western Hockey League conference final was a testament to both will and repressive geometry, and the only conclusion to be drawn thus far is that the Chiefs – now up 2-1 – have been better at both, but just barely.

You might want to hop into a flame-retardant suit and drop in for Game 4 tonight. Rarely has so little been quite so entertaining.

The backward nature of this one provided a happy change of pace, at least for the home team. Ondrej Roman punched a third chance past the glove of Ams goalie Chet Pickard just 8:21 into the game rather than waiting until a second overtime, when luck and lactic acidosis take over. This was, perhaps, the first time there seemed to be any obvious disparity in effort between the teams.

“One team was really hungry,” said Ams coach Don Nachbaur. “At times, we were standing around watching them play. You’re going to have those nights, but you don’t expect them to be in the playoffs.

“Two-nothing is not a bad score to lose by, but we’re going to have to generate more opportunities and get more pucks by the goaltender.”

Yes, well, that Zamboni may have already sailed for both teams.

This has not, as Spokane coach Bill Peters so wisely pointed out, been a series bereft of offense. There have been odd-man rushes and point-blank opportunities, and shooters starting to thrust their arms toward the rafters in celebration before having to catch themselves.

“The puck’s just not ending up in the net,” he said.

Plenty of salt in the shaker, but no holes in the cap.

So you can understand why that one-goal lead was so liberating for the Chiefs.

“It felt so good,” said defenseman Trevor Glass, “especially after how things had been going. I’m not sure how many minutes it was, but we’d played almost three games with just two goals. It’s almost illogical.”

Especially since the 12-game series between these two clubs during the regular season was mostly wide open – seven times the winner scoring four or more goals. And while it’s obvious that playoff hockey is a tighter-checking affair, that doesn’t quite explain this phenomenon.

Goaltending, naturally, has been a substantial part of it – Pickard and Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski have been the two best players on the ice by acclaim. And though his statistics throughout the season were exemplary, Tokarski has been the revelation.

“We’ve beaten two very good teams,” said Peters of Spokane’s first two playoff victims, Everett and Vancouver. “You look at the head-to-head and he’s been every bit as good as (Everett’s) Leland Irving and Tyson Sexsmith. Now he’s up against a guy who’s the first-team all-star in the Western Conference and he’s more than holding his own.”

As is his help.

The Chiefs have, obviously, disarmed the Ams all the way around, but especially the scoring line led by Colton Yellow Horn, who had 15 points against Spokane during the regular-season series. The Ams left winger is still getting shots, but like his teammates, not much in the way of space to create better opportunities – thanks mostly to the line Peters has sent out as a match: Tyler Johnson, Justin McCrae and Levko Koper, along with defensemen Glass and Mike Reddington.

“I just think those guys compete,” Peters said. “Their work ethic is unmatched in this league – I really believe that. They’ve accepted the opportunity to play head to head against upper echelon players and they thrive in that environment.

“But it’s a line, too, that’s dangerous offensively. It’s a good two-way line.”

And these are good two-way teams – the Ams not simply shot-happy souls their season goal total would suggest, and the Chiefs not just defensive grunts. But the Chiefs have accepted their mission now more than ever.

“If there’s a loose puck, nobody jumps to the offensive side trying to get an edge,” Peters said. “They know if we win the battle on the defensive side, we can go play offense. We’re not cheating in order to generate offense.”

Never mind that the scoreboard isn’t working anyway. In the Shutout Series, it hardly has to.