Chiefs’ preseason ends with a loss

Hockey: The Kootenay Ice scored a late goal to tie the game at three apiece and eventually earned a 4-3 shootout win over the Spokane on Saturday night at Eagles Ice-A-Rena.

The loss dropped the Chiefs to 3-3-0-1 in their seven-game preseason schedule.

“We’ve come a long way,” Chiefs coach Don Nachbaur said one week before they open the regular season in Tri-City against the Americans. “We’re a young group and we’ve played most of our young group and got a good evaluation on them, not only tonight, but through the preseason.”

The Chiefs have played the majority of the last two weeks without five of their veterans who have spent time at NHL camps. The first of the five returned to Spokane on Saturday night when Levko Koper came back after attending the Atlanta Thrashers’ prospects camp.

The Chiefs T.C. Cratsenberg opened the scoring when he deflected a Reid Gow shot at 3:50 of the first period. Kootenay evened it at one at 17:32 with a power-play goal by Jagger Dirk.

The Chiefs began the second period with a two-man advantage for 1:53 and were awarded four more power plays through the period and outshot the Ice 12-4 in the period. Spokane took a 2-1 lead with a Mitch Holmberg power-play goal at 16:21 after Koper found the 17-year-old cutting to the net.

Anthony Bardaro put the Chiefs back on top at 8:46 of the third as he finished a Marek Kalus feed on a 2-on-1 at 8:46.

With their goaltender on the bench for an extra attacker Kootenay’s Max Reinhart forced the puck through the pads of Chris Sharkey at 18:38 of the third to tie it up and send the game into overtime.

The Chiefs outshot Kootenay 5-2 in overtime, and 46-25 overall, but couldn’t find the game-winner in the extra period.The Ice scored on their first two shooters while the Chiefs went 0 for 2 in the shootout.