Ice dominate to beat Chiefs

CRANBROOK, B.C. – For 69 seconds in the first period Friday night, the Spokane Chiefs had the Kootenay Ice on the run.

A couple of power-play goals pulled Spokane from behind, but for most of the rest of the 58-plus minutes it was the Ice who had the upper hand in a 6-3 Western Hockey League win.

Mitch Holmberg gave the Chiefs the early lead when he stole the puck and put in his own rebound 1:39 into the game before the Ice forged a 2-1 lead on goals by Max Reinhart and James Martin.

Power-play goals by Steven Kuhn and captain Tyler Johnson 1:09 apart three minutes after Martin scored pulled Spokane back ahead before the period was 15 minutes old.

But the Ice (2-1-0-0) capitalized on Spokane (0-2-0-0) mistakes for early goals in the second and third periods, scoring twice in each period.

“I thought we competed a lot harder than we did in our tgame in Tri-Cities (in the season opener last week),” coach Don Nachbaur said. “I thought we were in control of the game. We had good tempo to our game until the opening shift of the second period. I thought the wheels fell off there.”

Kevin King scored once in each period for Kootenay, his second goal of the season coming shorthanded 46 seconds into the second period.

Ex-Chiefs sent down

Two of last season’s Chiefs have been sent to American Hockey League affiliates by their NHL teams. Kyle Beach was sent by the Chicago Blackhawks to Rockford, Ill., and Mitch Wahl was sent by the Calgary Flames to Abbotsford, B.C.