Chiefs roar back to tackle Hitmen

The Spokane Chiefs trailed one of the Western Hockey League’s best road teams, Calgary, 2-0 in the second period Wednesday when they caught fire. Four consecutive goals later, and solid play in goal by Eric Williams, and the Chiefs dispatched the Hitmen 4-3 at the Arena. With Victoria’s loss to Kootenay, Spokane moved into a tie for fourth place in the Western Conference. Read story

Calgary’s goalie, Driedger, entered the game with the league’s fourth-best goals-against average (2.42). The Chiefs needed less than 10 minutes during the second period to beat Driedger three times.

“We built some momentum,” Nachbaur said. “We had some big penalty kills. Our 4-on-3 penalty kill (late in the first period) was a big one for us. The guys went out there and competed. They blocked shots and that made a difference.”

“I thought we just stuck to our game plan and we pressure their ‘D’ like we were told,” Fiddler said. “We just had a huge game. All four lines were strong.”

Fiddler leads the Chiefs in scoring with 66 points, one more than Kichton and two more than Holmberg.

It was the only regular-season matchup between the Chiefs and Hitmen. Calgary defeated Spokane 3-2 in overtime last year.

Spokane faces some tough challenges in the next 10 days, especially a road game at Portland on Monday afternoon and home games against Edmonton (Feb. 22) and Kamloops (Feb. 23).

“Our schedule is nuts, we get no easy teams,” Nachbaur said. “There’s no picnic here.”