Chiefs take encouraging win over Winterhawks
Whittingham scores twice in 5-3 victory as Chiefs qualify for postseason
The Spokane Chiefs officially qualified for the Western Hockey League postseason for the ninth consecutive season on Friday night.
More encouraging to the Chiefs was the team they defeated to get there – the Portland Winterhawks, a possible first-round opponent.
Riley Whittingham scored twice, including the winner on a power play with 10 minutes, 21 seconds left, as the Chiefs improved to 4-2-0-0 against the Winterhawks this season with a 5-3 victory at the Arena.
Portland, attempting to catch Everett for the U.S. Division title, entered the game having won 17 of its previous 20 games. Two of the Winterhawks’ losses came in overtime.
But the Chiefs streaked to a 3-0 lead after 15½ minutes and, more important, bounced back after the talented Winterhawks tied the game with 14:31 left.
“We never really had a doubt,” said Whittingham, who recorded his first winner and his second two-goal game of the season. “We kept on pushing, kept on playing our game … and it paid off for us.”
“That could be our playoff opponent,” said Chiefs coach Don Nachbaur, who won his 200th game with Spokane. “You know what? We’ve played well against them this year. But we’ve played well against top teams. We’ve beaten some pretty good teams along the way and our record’s not indicative of our game.”
Spokane (33-29-3-1, 70 points) solidified its hold on the Western Conference’s No. 7 seed to postseason. The Chiefs’ first-round playoff rival would be the No. 2 seed, the U.S. Division champion. Everett (88 points) holds a three-point lead on Portland (40-21-2-3, 85), but the Winterhawks have six games left while Everett has four.
The Chiefs will play at Portland on Sunday and home against the Winterhawks on Wednesday. Spokane also has games left against Tri-City tonight, Seattle on Friday and Everett on March 22.
Spokane zipped ahead 3-0 by getting behind Portland’s defense each time. Adam Helewka scored his club-leading 39th goal, on a power play at 4:42; Whittingham had an unassisted breakaway at 6:30; and Kailer Yamamoto scored on a shorthanded breakaway at 15:31. The goals came against rookie Adin Hill, who entered with the league’s top save percentage of .927.
The Winterhawks were outshot 11-6 in the second period but cut Spokane’s lead to 3-2 on Anton Cederholm’s unassisted goal and Oliver Bjorkstrand’s league-leading 55th on a slap shot. Chase De Leo’s rebound goal at 5:29 of the third tied the game.
But De Leo also had the key penalty a little more than 3 minutes later, putting Spokane on its fifth power play. Whittingham’s 16th goal of the season broke the tie and Dominic Zwerger added an empty-netter on a power play with eight seconds left.
“(Kolten) Olynek just shot it,” Whittingham said of his winner. “It bounced off a couple of guys and went off my shoulder and went off their heads. I’ll take it, but not the nicest goal, that’s for sure.”
“I’m happy with the fact that we didn’t buckle,” Nachbaur said. “We bent a little bit, but we hung in there and deserved the win.”