Chiefs upend top-ranked tournament hosts
KITCHENER, Ontario – It was about time quality trumped quantity.
After watching 20 combined goals in two overtime games, defense and good goaltending were due to make their debut at the Kitchener Auditorium.
When those two aspects finally appeared in Sunday’s showdown of the two unbeaten teams in the Memorial Cup, the Spokane Chiefs were able to score a 2-1 victory over the host Kitchener Rangers and secure at minimum a berth into Friday’s semifinal.
If the Belleville Bulls (0-1) can beat the Gatineau Olympiques (0-1) today, the Chiefs (2-0) are straight through to Sunday’s championship game.
“I thought we took a little bit of a step as a team tonight,” said Chiefs coach Bill Peters. “By no stretch of the imagination were we perfect or dominant.”
But they were still really good, which came as no surprise to Kitchener coach Peter DeBoer.
“I think the advanced scouting report we had on (Spokane) was that they can smother you defensively and I think that’s what happened tonight,” DeBoer said.
When Kitchener (1-1) did find a gap, Chiefs goalie Dustin Tokarski stood tall.
There were key stops – by Tokarski and veteran and rookie defensemen alike – on the pivotal 45 seconds of a 5-on-3 Kitchener advantage to start the third period. After giving up four goals on Saturday for the first time since a 4-1 loss to the Vancouver Giants on April 4, Tokarski finished with 36 saves and earned the first-star nod.
“I thought he was solid,” Peters said. “I thought he was square to the shooter for the most part all night, I didn’t think he was as deep – he got caught deep a little bit in the Belleville game. I thought he got a little more fluid and moved better (as Saturday’s game) went on, and he carried that into (Sunday).”
The change in style was certainly a welcomed one. In the first two games of the tournament, both of which ended in overtime after a three three-goal leads were surrendered, defense seemed like a pastime.
On Sunday, the Chiefs got back to their roots.
“That’s the key to our game,” Tokarski said. “Defense first. Our offense feeds off that.”
And it did.
After Kitchener’s Matt Halischuk cleaned up on a mishandled puck by Trevor Glass at the point – scoring a shorthanded goal through Tokarski’s five-hole 4 minutes and 21 seconds into the game – Chiefs defenseman Justin Falk squeezed in a long-range shot from the top of the right circle at 16:35 to knot the score after the first period.
Playmaker Mitch Wahl got the puck to Drayson Bowman off an offensive-zone draw and Bowman fed Falk, who slotted the puck over the right shoulder of Rangers goalie Josh Unice.
A little over five minutes into the second period, Wahl dropped a pass back to Bowman in the slot and Bowman came up with the game winner. It was his tournament-leading fourth goal in two nights.
“They pretty much gave us what we expected, and we didn’t respond as well as I would have liked,” said DeBoer. “But part of the Memorial Cup process is you go through teams and learn what you’re dealing with, you make adjustments, and hopefully (we) get another opportunity to play them.”
Ice chips
For the second straight game, F Blake Gal, F Dustin Donaghy, D Brett Bartman and D Jace Coyle were healthy scratches for Spokane. … The Chiefs were 0 for 4 on the power play, and 4 for 4 on the penalty kill. … After hitting two posts in Saturday’s game, Spokane’s Judd Blackwater broke away for a 1-on-1 with Unice in the third period on Sunday. Unice made a huge save to keep the Rangers within one goal. … When Unice was pulled with 40 seconds remaining in the game, Levko Koper, who scored the game-winner for Spokane in overtime on Saturday, hit a post on the empty net.