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Spokane Chiefs

Spokane Chiefs’ Chase Bertholet keeps promising form after being traded from Winnipeg Ice

Chase Bertholet has been a solid addition for Spokane since being traded from Winnipeg.  (Courtesy of Larry Brunt/Spokane Chiefs)
By Dan Thompson For The Spokesman-Review

Chase Bertholet was off to a good start this Western Hockey League season, with 17 points in 25 games for the Winnipeg Ice.

The Ice were good, too, in competition for the top seed in the Eastern Conference. But in the process of pushing toward a championship, Winnipeg acquired Spokane center Jack Finley, a Tampa Bay Lightning prospect, on Dec. 6.

To make the deal work, Bertholet was sent to Spokane along with fellow forward James Form and a 2024 second-round WHL prospects draft pick.

“At first I was pretty shocked, and I was moving across the country,” Bertholet said after Spokane’s 4-2 loss to Portland on Tuesday.

But Bertholet said he had heard a lot of good things about Spokane and the Chiefs’ organization. He said he likes it here quite a bit. While the move to the now ninth-place Chiefs certainly dented his chances of winning a WHL championship this season, it didn’t dent Bertholet’s drive.

“I left my family and everyone, but it was for the better,” he said. “I’m just here trying to help the team however I can.”

Since his arrival, the 18-year-old forward has eight goals and 14 assists in 24 games with Spokane. Also, the way the schedule worked out, if the Chiefs play their remaining 23 scheduled games, Bertholet could end up playing in 72 this season, four more than the length of a full regular season.

That season continues Friday night when the Chiefs play at the Seattle Thunderbirds for the first of three road games in three nights.

Ryan Smith, the Chiefs’ interim head coach, said he and the staff spoke with Bertholet about the transition at the time he was traded.

The 19-year-old Form, who also came over in the deal, played nine games with Spokane and had one point before the team released him on Jan. 10.

Smith said Tuesday that he knows Bertholet is all-in with the Chiefs.

“He’s a full Chief now,” Smith said. “You can see the way he plays. He’s quick on the puck, he’s a hard-nosed player. He cares.

“It’s never easy when you get moved from a top team to a team that’s, you know, working toward the playoffs,” added Smith, who played junior hockey and then 11 years professionally in Europe before turning to coaching. “But I think if you want to be a hockey player, we drop the puck the same way in Spokane as they do in Winnipeg. So he’ll be fine. He’s going to be a good Chief.”

Bertholet’s 39 total points this season – including the 17 he had with Winnipeg – are tied for the most among Chiefs players.

Bear Hughes, the team’s 20-year-old captain, also has 39. So does Nick McCarry, the 20-year-old forward the Chiefs acquired when they dealt Luke Toporowski to Kamloops on Jan. 17.

While Hughes and McCarry will age out of the league next season, the Chiefs have a number of younger players who could play at least a couple of more seasons with Spokane. Bertholet is among a group of eight 2003-born players that will be 19 next season. That core includes goalie Mason Beaupit, who was recently one of 15 WHL players invited to participate in the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in March.

It also includes defenseman Graham Sward, who ranks 148th among North American skaters on the January NHL Central Scouting midseason rankings. Among goaltenders, Beaupit ranks seventh on that list.

The Chiefs are also regularly playing a handful of 2004- and 2005-born players, giving them one of the youngest rosters in the WHL.

That youthfulness manifests itself in “the little things,” Bertholet said.

“(In Winnipeg), guys weren’t turning over pucks as much. We’re younger here, so those little mistakes happen a little bit more,” Bertholet said. “Those mistakes in Winnipeg were limited because we were an older group. They’re more experienced. But here it’s a great learning experience for the young guys.”

Erik Atchison is one of the 2002-born players, and he’s been around the team since 2018-19. This team is certainly younger, he said, but it’s growing.

It’s a talented Chiefs’ team, too, Atchison said: “I see it every day.”

Though they aren’t near the top of the standings, the Chiefs are still in a playoff race.

They sit in ninth place, one spot behind the Tri-City Americans, who hold the final playoff spot. The Vancouver Giants are seventh, seven points ahead of the Americans with two games in hand.

“It just seems like everyone has a spark under their eyes now,” Bertholet said. “We’re going to go out and win some games and make the playoffs.”

WHL extends regular season by two weeks

Four Chiefs games that were previously postponed have been rescheduled for April, including a home game against Everett that will be played on April 6, the team announced Thursday.

That will mark the home season finale for the Chiefs, who have six other home games remaining on their schedule. Their last scheduled regular-season game is April 16 at Victoria.

The WHL opted to push back the start of the playoffs by two weeks, to April 22, so that many previously postponed games could be rescheduled across the league.

This year’s playoffs, which would be the league’s first since 2019, are reverting to the conference playoff format, which awards the top two seeds in each conference to the division winners and then seeds the other six teams by point total, regardless of division. Each series will be a best-of-seven.

The WHL Championship is scheduled to begin June 3. Following that, the Memorial Cup is set to begin June 20 in Saint John, New Brunswick.