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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A feel-good victory

Spokane drops Tri-City 5-2

Around this time last year, the Spokane Chiefs and Tri-City Americans were preparing for their final meeting of the Western Hockey League regular season.

There was one major difference between then and now.

Last year’s final regular-season game – which was their 12th meeting – was a winner-take-all scenario. The take was the Scotty Munro Trophy for the league’s best record, home-ice advantage throughout the WHL playoffs and bragging rights.

This year, the U.S. Division race ended – officially and uneventfully – a week ago when the Americans defeated the Seattle Thunderbirds, securing the Western Conference’s second seed when the playoffs begin next week.

So when the Chiefs defeated the Americans 5-2 Friday night in front of a packed house at the Arena in their 11th meeting this season, only pride was on the line when it came to another meeting between bitter rivals.

But for the Chiefs – who are still in a tight race with Kelowna for the third and fourth spots in the conference standings – there is still seeding at stake.

That’s why Spokane’s victory over the division champion Americans in the first leg of the weekend home-and-home series between the teams still had a great deal of meaning to the Chiefs. Drayson Bowman and Mitch Wahl each scored two goals and Dustin Tokarski stopped 29 shots in net to lead Spokane in the victory.

The teams took turns scoring goals in the opening period, beginning with Tri-City’s Brooks Macek, who scored 7 minutes, 59 seconds into the game when he slapped in a shot from the high slot that sailed over Dustin Tokarski’s right shoulder.

It didn’t take long for the Chiefs to respond.

Minutes later, Wahl broke away from Mitch Fadden in the neutral zone on a Tri-City power play and went 1-on-1 with Ams goalie Drew Owsley, finishing with a short-handed goal at 10:06.

The Americans took the lead again at 15:54 on a goal from Brendan Shinnimin.Bowman – who took a pass from Brady Calla and had a wide-open look at the left side of the next – replied to that with a Spokane goal from the low slot.

Spokane came out strong in the second period and scored its final three goals.

Wahl broke the tie 5 minutes into the period when David Conrad backhanded a centering pass to him in the low slot and Wahl finished the play by lifting a shot over Owsley’s shoulder. Ondrej Roman scored at 10:51 to extend Spokane’s lead and Bowman put in a short-handed goal at 16:38 to round out the scoring.

Given what transpired in their last meeting two weeks ago at the Arena, the game was rather mellow. Fans may have been expecting payback, or at least some sort of follow-up to the UFC match on ice they witnessed last time in a game where 342 penalty minutes, $2,500 in fines and a handful of suspensions were issued when all was said and done.

But what they got was good, clean, honest hockey.

“At the end of the day you just want to win the game, so I wasn’t really expecting a lot of fights or anything like that,” Bowman explained. “That’s the way it usually happens the next game after you see a ton of brawls like the last time we played them. It’s usually a lot calmer the next time, even though everybody is expecting something to happen. Nobody wants to miss the first round of the playoffs, though, so nobody got real stupid about it.

“There are bigger games to come.”

Indeed there are.

Spokane is still in the hunt for third place in the conference. The Chiefs remained in fourth – one point behind Kelowna in the race for third after the Rockets downed the Kamloops Blazers 5-1 on Friday night. Kelowna plays Kamloops again tonight before Sunday’s big showdown between the Rockets and Spokane at the Arena in the regular-season finale for both teams.

But before Spokane prepares for Sunday’s game, they’ll face the Americans one final time this season – unless, of course, they meet again in the playoffs – tonight at Kennewick’s Toyota Center. The Chiefs are looking to turn in a repeat performance of Friday’s victory.

“We’ve played (the Ams) a lot of times, and (Friday) we wanted to show them that we’re still here even though we aren’t going to catch them in the standings,” Bowman said. “It was a huge win for our confidence, and it let them know that if we see them in the playoffs that we’re not going to be pushovers even though they finished ahead of us.”