Festive Chiefs blank Tri-City

Flashbacks are bound to happen after, say, Western Hockey League and Memorial Cup championships.

For 45 minutes prior to the puck dropping Saturday night for their home opener, the Spokane Chiefs got to remember the good old days – which happened four months ago – and watch their new banners drop against the Arena walls to highlight the special ceremony.

The one memory that the Chiefs didn’t want to relive, though, was the overtime-saturated Western Conference championship series they played against their U.S. Division rivals – the Tri-City Americans – en route to their WHL and Canadian Hockey League titles last spring.

For the first period and a half, it appeared the Chiefs and Americans were headed in that direction. Then Mitch Wahl and Mike Reddington scored second-period goals and Levko Koper added another for insurance in the third to end the ice-cold war and lead the Chiefs to a 4-0 victory over the Americans in front of an Arena crowd of 10,538.

“Wins are always great, but when they’re against Tri-City they’re just a little bit better,” Chiefs goalie Dustin Tokarski said.

Oh, and Tokarski – he’s up to the same old thing.

Tokarski came up with a couple of big-time saves, and his teammates playing in front of him did their jobs and held the Ams to the outside for most of the night. The Tampa Bay Lightning prospect turned in a 31-save performance to pick up his second shutout of the season in net for Spokane (2-1-0-0). It was also the 10th shutout of Tokarski’s career in Spokane, tying him with Jim Watt (2002-06) for first on the Chiefs’ all-time list.

“I’m feeling really good,” Tokarski said. “I think I just have a good attitude after coming back from (NHL) camp and the guys are playing outstanding in front of me, giving me a shot and taking away the rebound every time, so the process is going good right now.”

After a scoreless first period, the Chiefs turned up the heat in the offensive zone and eventually got a shot through when defenseman Brett Bartman worked the puck from the left point to defenseman Stefan Ulmer at the right point. Ulmer quickly delivered the puck to Wahl, a Calgary Flames prospect, in the left circle and Wahl’s fired in a shot that deflected off Tri-City’s Jordan Messier’s stick and over goalie Chet Pickard’s shoulder 16 minutes, 16 seconds into the middle period.

“You score the first one at home and you kind of – whew! – exhale, and everybody feels like it’s just a hockey game after that,” Chiefs coach Hardy Sauter said.

Reddington gave the Chiefs a 2-0 lead with a minute to go in the second when he got out of the penalty box after a boarding minor and got the puck from Justin McCrae, went 1-on-1 with Pickard, and backhanded the puck past Pickard stick side.

Koper scored the Chiefs’ third goal when he picked up the long rebound of a Tyler Johnson shot 4:43 into the third and veteran Seth Compton scored a short-handed, empty-net goal with less than 2 minutes left in the game.

“It was a great win,” Wahl said. “It felt good to get back out there on home ice.”

Ice chips

Scratches for the game were D Trevor Glass (AHL-Rockford), F Drayson Bowman (NHL-Carolina Hurricanes) and D Justin Falk (NHL-Minnesota Wild), who are away at pro camps. F Ondrej Roman is still in the Czech Republic awaiting his release from the IIHF. G Alex Wright and D Cory Baldwin were healthy scratches for Spokane. … In their 12 regular-season meeting last season, Spokane was 5-4-1-2 (13 points) against the Americans. In the 20-year rivalry, Spokane leads 119-106-1-4 with 13 ties.