Winterhawks defeat Spokane Chiefs in overtime

The Spokane Chiefs scored two goals in the final 10 minutes to force overtime Wednesday night, but the Portland Winterhawks scored with 15 seconds remaining in the extra period to win 3-2.

The Chiefs had numerous opportunities to score early in the game, but Portland goalie Adin Hill might as well have been Plexiglas as he made 39 saves in the game between U.S. Division rivals.

The Chiefs (26-21-4-2 58 points) looked destined for another bad loss until they got a 3-on-2 break halfway through the third period. Keanu Yamamoto found Jacob Cardiff, who scored to make it 2-1.

The Chiefs then pulled goalie Lasse Peterson with 1:42 to go. Some 43 seconds later, there was a scrum in front of the Portland net and the puck rebounded to Dominic Zwerger, who scored with 59 seconds remaining to tie the game at 2. Assists were awarded to Cardiff and Hudson Elynuik.

“I thought for two periods we played the game too slow,” Chiefs coach Don Nachbaur said. “But we found a way to come back in the end. I’m not going to dwell on the loss. We battled hard to get the point.”

Both teams struggled out of the faceoff to create much, but both teams settled down and had good looks at the net.

At the 5:53 point of the first period during a Portland power play, Jack Dougherty found Dominic Turgeon. He took the puck and made the shot look easy as he went top shelf on Petersen to make it 1-0 Winterhawks (27-25-2-0, 56 points).

However, Spokane had its chances. With 13:20 remaining in the first period, a shot was deflected and then clanged off the Winterhawks’ post.

Not quite five minutes later, Jason Fram slammed a shot that got past Hill, but the goalie reached back and kept the puck from getting into the goal.

Then with only 1:23 remaining in the period, Jaret Anderson-Dolan had an open look at the net, but he couldn’t get a stick on the puck and the opportunity slipped away.

In the second period, the Chiefs got another good opportunity as Hayden Ostir had the puck come free in front of Hill. Ostir got his stick on it, but couldn’t get it over Hill’s leg pad and Spokane again was denied.

Then at the 16:16 mark of the second period, Portland’s Caleb Jones fired a shot that bounced free off of Petersen. Colton Veloso was there to knock the puck into the net and give the Winterhawks a 2-0 lead.

Spokane got on the board halfway through the period with Cardiff’s goal.

“Once we scored that goal … it felt great,” Zwerger said. “The first two periods, we didn’t play that well. But once we scored, we knew we could come back.”

Then Zwerger had the puck bounce free to him to complete that comeback.

“I was lucky I got it in,” he said. “Then in overtime, I thought we had momentum. But they got the lucky bounce in the end.”

Nachbaur praised Petersen, who plays sparingly behind Tyson Verhelst.

“Our goalie was spectacular. He gave us a chance to be in that game,” Nachbaur said. “We are capable of playing quicker and we chose not to.”