Chiefs could still be first

The Spokane Chiefs have four games remaining and there is still a possibility they could end up as the top seed in the Western Division when the Western Hockey League playoffs begin next week.

We look at the possibilities in the story posted below.

By Dave Trimmer

davet@spokesman.com ; (509) 927-2154

The final weekend of the Western Hockey League season couldn’t be any more intriguing for the Spokane Chiefs if it had been scripted.

The Chiefs play four games, three at home, beginning tonight with a visit from Kelowna . A home-and-home follows with rival Tri-City with the first game at the Arena on Friday. Then the season ends with Everett coming in on Sunday.

A bit of suspense ended in Seattle on Saturday when Kyle Beach notched his league-leading 50th and 51st goals, the first Chief to hit that milestone since Ryan Duthie had 57 in 1994-93.

Meanwhile, every seed in the Western Division playoffs is up for grabs except No. 2, which belongs to B.C. Division champion Vancouver.

“Our mindset has been a certain way for a better part of a month-and-a-half,” Spokane coach Hardy Sauter said. “It’s been working for us, no need to change now.

“There’s no way to predict how it’s all going to play out. It does make it easier to win your games and take care of your own spot and let everything shake itself out.”

Tri-City and Everett are tied at the top of the U.S. Division, which will produce the top seed, at 91 points with Spokane four points back and four points ahead of Portland . Kelowna , Kamloops and Chilliwack are stick jockeying in the final three spots.

If the Chiefs win out they’ll catch Tri-City but need help against Everett .

With four wins and another Everett loss, the Chiefs and Silvertips would end up tied for first. The first tie-breaker is wins, which would be 46 for both. Next is head-to-head, which favors Everett . Spokane and Tri-City could end up tied for second, also with 46 wins each, with the Chiefs holding a tiebreaker. Going into the weekend Spokane has five straight wins over the Americans and lead the season series 7-3.

“Two months ago we were on the outside looking in, for sure, now all of a sudden we have an opportunity again to catch some teams in our division,” Sauter said. “Whether we get the help we need with Everett , I still expect our guys to take care of our games and finish as high as possible.”

The Chiefs have not had back-to-back losses since late January. They put together a seven-game winning streak in February and have sandwiched consecutive wins around a shootout loss in their last five games.

The loss was in Kelowna last Wednesday and Sauter was happy to get the one point even if the Rockets are 17 points behind the Chiefs and a potential first-round opponent.

“I’m a bit of a realist,” he said. “Going into Kelowna , any time you can take points out of there it’s a huge success. Last year’s league champions, a team that had some injuries and is now reasonably healthy. They’re just too good of a team to go in there thinking you’re going to win just because you show up. I looked at the point we got there as a bonus point.

“Obviously them coming into our building I expect us to do what it takes to win the game.”

He said Kelowna goalie Adam Brown made a couple of big saves, his guys missed the net on a couple of good opportunities and well, a shootout is a shootout – Beach and Mitch Wahl didn’t score and the Rockets did on their first two shots.

“There’s no set plan,” Sauter said of what goes into selecting players to take penalty shots in a shootout. “Right now we look at who scored in the game, who has played well, has a guy had a lot of chances and not scored; if we have a shootout in practice, who is doing well in those. All those things come into play a little bit. I don’t think it’s a perfected science that’s for sure.”

Even if the Chiefs secure home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs they’ll open on the road because the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is at the Arena.

“It’s happened here enough that we’ve always just dealt with it,” Spokane general manager Tim Speltz said. “We’ve got a real good road record so it’s not an issue for us where we think we can’t win on the road. It’s just something we have to deal with it.

“Every team has a challenge or two with their building, this just happens to be ours occasionally. With our partnership with the Arena we don’t complain about it we just move forward, we understand that’s the way it is and away we go.”

The window for a best-of-seven first-round series is Friday, March 19 through Wednesday, April 30. The usual format is 2-2-1-1-1 with the higher seed at home for the first two games and games five and seven as necessary but Spokane ’s first series would go 2-3-1-1 with the first two on the road.