Chiefs deck Hitmen

With a Canadian Hockey League interleague game out of the question until the postseason, Wednesday night’s matchup was a more than satisfying second-best way to bounce back.

Chiefs coach Hardy Sauter said time will tell how important the victory ends up being, but after having lost five of their last seven games the Spokane Chiefs needed this one. And after facing the CHL’s second-ranked team – the Calgary Hitmen – and coming up with a 4-3 shootout victory in front of an Arena crowd of 3,817, the Chiefs avoided tying their longest losing streak of the season.

Drayson Bowman scored the winner in the shootout, patiently backhanding a shot past Martin Jones and handing the Hitmen goalie just his fourth overall loss of the season and first in a shootout. Bowman also scored Spokane’s first goal, a power-play goal from the high slot off a feed from defenseman Stefan Ulmer.

“After losing the last two and having this big home game against Calgary, this is huge for us, I think,” Sauter said. “(It was) definitely a gut-check. It wasn’t pretty, but in the end it was effective, and I hope at least it’s a big, big character-builder for our team.”

During the 65 minutes of regulation and overtime play, Spokane did some things better than others – such as scoring twice in three power-play opportunities and killing off five of six Hitmen advantages, including a little more than 3 minutes at the beginning of overtime.

The penalty killers – which throughout the game included Bowman, Jared Spurgeon, Levko Koper, Jared Cowen, Tyler Johnson, Justin McCrae, Seth Compton, Brett Bartman and Trevor Glass – were the best part of Spokane’s winning performance.

The only blemish was in the first period. After Bowman gave Spokane a 1-0 lead, Michael Stone tied the score at 19 minutes, 17 seconds after Compton took a slashing penalty at 17:33.

“To kill off all those penalties in overtime, and then win it in a shootout – the emotional rollercoaster was huge,” Sauter said. “Our penalty kill was outstanding. Yeah, they scored the one (power-play) goal, but ultimately if you can rely on your penalty kill to win you a game – and I think tonight’s an example of that – it’s great, and obviously our power play going 2 of 3 is huge too.”

After a scoreless second, Johnson gave Spokane its second lead when he scored from the top of the right circle off a pass from Koper.

The Hitmen quickly knotted the score at 2 when Brett Sonne took advantage of a quick cross-ice pass from Kyle Bortis and a wide-open look at the left side of the net. Midway through the period Calgary took its first lead of the game when Paul Postma buried a shot from just inside the blue line.

But the Chiefs weren’t done.

Brandon Kozun, who notched a point for the 11th straight game, was called for holding onto an opponent’s stick and McCrae tipped in Cowen’s bullet from the point to tie the score.

All the Chiefs had to do after that was kill off two penalties – late in the third through midway into overtime.

Ice chips

The Chiefs host the Kootenay Ice on Saturday night in their annual Teddy Bear Toss night. Fans are encouraged to bring a new or gently used teddy bear to the game. When Spokane scores its first goal, fans will be invited to throw their teddy bears onto the ice. The teddy bears will be donated to area children in need through The Spokesman-Review Christmas Fund. … Saturday’s game will be televised on Comcast channel 78.