Chiefs earn 5-4 shootout victory
Bill Peters is the first to admit it.
The Spokane Chiefs coach knows his team isn’t playing the most consistent hockey lately. This isn’t the same team that stormed through the first half of the Western Hockey League season with a league-best 26-6-1-2 record.
You don’t even have to read between the lines to sense Peters’ intense frustration.
“There’s no desperation among our forwards,” said Peters. “Early in the year our forwards were a very hard-working group and probably one of the hardest-working groups, if not the hardest-working group, in the league and they’re not that right now – they’re not very desperate away from the puck, they’re not very committed coming back, they don’t come back with really any purpose and the opportunities we gave up on our power play, it’s unexplainable.”
Still the Chiefs found a way to come away with a 5-4 shootout victory over the Moose Jaw Warriors (20-11-4-4) on Friday night in front of 5,642 Arena fans.
Peters credited the victory to the goaltending of Dustin Tokarski, who turned away 36 of the Warriors’ 40 shots and continues to lead the league with a 1.90 goals-against average.
“He made some unbelievable saves, some timely saves and big saves on numerical advantages,” said Peters. “I can truly say the goaltender won us the game, because tonight we weren’t very good in front of him.”
Spokane forward Curtis Kelner scored in the first and sniper Drayson Bowman gave the Chiefs a 2-0 lead in the second before the see-saw action began.
Moose Jaw’s Terrance Delaronde and Jason Bast scored to tie the game after two periods and give the Warriors an energy boost.
The momentum shifted back to Spokane’s favor early in the third when Ondrej Roman netted the Chiefs’ only power-play conversion in seven advantages from the blue line at 8 minutes, 23 seconds. But the Chiefs (28-8-1-2) took a penalty for having too many players on the ice and allowed Jordan Knackstedt to score his team-leading 21st goal at 13:17.
The Chiefs regained the lead for a final time in regulation when David Rutherford found Judd Blackwater camping at the left post, but once again Spokane let the lead slip away and Brad Riege scored at 17:06 to tie the game at 4 at the end of regulation.
After a scoreless overtime, the Chiefs got goals from Bowman and Blackwater to win the shootout 2-1.
“We wanted this one bad and we felt that we let the home crowd down the other night,” said Chiefs captain Chris Bruton. “It’s been a bit of a bump right now, but all that matters is that we kept going. We got away from our systems and we’re just not that tight-knit group that we were and we need to get that in check.”
The Chiefs head to Kennewick today to face their U.S. Division rivals, the Tri-City Americans, a team the Chiefs can’t seem to figure out as their 1-4 record against the Ams indicates. The Americans lost 3-2 to Kamloops on Friday, allowing the Chiefs to regain a two-point lead for first place in the division standings.
Notes
Chiefs’ rookie defenseman Jared Cowen had two assists and Team West won the bronze medal with a 9-6 victory over Team Pacific on Friday at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in London, Ontario. Cowen finished with seven assists in six games and was named Player of the Game for Team West three times. … Forward Luke Betts was reassigned to a BCHL team to be determined.