Chiefs win, will be fourth seed
Spokane’s victory marred by late injury to Beach
KENNEWICK – The Spokane Chiefs took care of business Saturday night and will be the fourth seed for the Western Hockey League Western Conference playoffs.
Spokane got goals from five players en route to a 5-4 victory over the Tri-City Americans.
The victory was marred, however, when the Chiefs’ top scorer, Kyle Beach, was injured on a hit by Tyler Schmidt with 7 minutes, 17 seconds left in the game. Beach left the ice and did not return. The extent of the injury is not yet known.
The Chiefs (44-22-3-2, 93 points) will have home-ice advantage in their first-round series with the Portland Winterhawks.
Spokane kept Tri-City (47-22-1-2, 97) from clinching the top seed in the conference.
Everett can grab the top seed with a point against the Chiefs in tonight’s regular-season finale at the Arena.
It didn’t take the Chiefs long to grab the lead at the Toyota Center.
Tyler Johnson took a pass from Levko Koper and scored just 56 seconds into the contest. Mitch Wahl’s tally at 3:15 in the second period stretched the lead to 2-0.
After Tri-City halved the lead, Corbin Baldwin found the net at the 9:35 mark in the second to make it 3-1 for the Chiefs.
The Americans pulled within one goal early in the third period, but Anthony Bardaro scored on the power play at 8:52 and Kenton Miller duplicated the feat 1:46 later to give the Chiefs a 5-2 lead.
Miller’s goal proved to be the winner. T-C scored a pair of power-play goals at 17:43 and 17:56.