Spokane Chiefs score twice in first 4 minutes, give up 5 straight goals in 5-2 home loss to Kamloops

The Spokane Chiefs were embarrassed on Friday, falling at expansion Penticton 6-0 – where they managed just 19 shots on goal, went 0 for 2 on the power play and lost the faceoff battle 38-22.

Saturday’s home match against the Kamloops Blazers started about as well as one could hope for, with the Chiefs scoring twice in the first 3 minutes, 39 seconds.

Unfortunately, that was the end of the highlights for the home team. What began as a promising response to Friday’s blowout ended in more embarrassment and frustration.

Nathan Behm scored the first and last of five straight goals and the Blazers beat the Chiefs 5-2 in a Western Hockey League game at the Arena on Saturday.

This was another critical game for the Chiefs (22-22-1-0, 45 points) playoffs chase against a team ahead of them in the Western Conference standings. But they stayed in ninth place, one point behind Victoria on the outside looking in. The fifth-place Blazers (21-14-5-4) put six points between them and the Chiefs.

“Every game is a playoff game for us right now,” newly appointed captain Will McIsaac said. “We’re fighting for our playoff life here. I think just bringing that compete, that energy, and all of the little things we talk about in the room, night in and night out. I think that’ll get us there.”

“We’ve talked a lot about the playoffs and how close we are,” forward Logan Wormald said. “We’re on the bubble. These are definitely games we need to win but we’ve got to go out there and execute. It’s such a tight race and anything can happen but we’ve got to be better from here on out.”

The Chiefs got on the board 1 minute, 16 seconds into it. Coco Armstrong gathered a turnover at center ice and entered the Kamloops zone on a 2-on-1 with Chase Harrington. The 19-year-old winger took it himself, beating Kamloops goalie Logan Edmonstone high glove side for his career-high 16th goal of the season.

They made it 2-0 a little more than two minutes later when Sam Oremba beat a defender to the outside then tucked it between Edmonstone’s pads for his 17th of the campaign.

But Behm created a turnover in the neutral zone and beat Chiefs goalie Linus Vieillard on a breakaway 1:25 later to halve the Blazers’ deficit. The Blazers tied it with 4:37 left in the period when Brett Ravndahl found Cooper Moore alone on the back post for an easy tap-in for his seventh of the season.

The visitors weren’t done. This time Moore dished to Vit Zahejsky, who had gotten behind the Chiefs defense at the side of the crease for his first goal of the season in just his fourth game. The highly rated 17-year-old Czechia native sustained a broken leg in September and was playing in his second game back.

“I mean, that’s one that you wish you could get back a little bit,” McIsaac said. “We kind of just fell apart in the D zone, and it kind of cost us there.”

“It took the life out of us a little bit,” Wormald said. “We’ve just got to be better in bounce-back situations.”

Kamloops added to the lead at the start of the second when JP Hurlburt skated a loop around the Chiefs zone, ending up on the left wing and he snapped a shot high glove side past Vieillard for his 31st goal of the season and the Blazers’ fifth goal of the game on just 10 shots.

Chiefs coach Brad Lauer pulled Vieillard after the goal – more as a message to the team rather than the goalie – but it didn’t matter. Tristan Buckley was sent off for delay of game less than a minute after Hurlburt’s goal, and the Blazers scored immediately with Behm picking up his second of the game and 26th of the season.

“We’ve come out alright in the past few games, but it’s about finishing for us right now,” Wormald said. “I feel like we haven’t been nearly close enough to our standard of play and we know that. It’s definitely something we’ve got to work on going to these future games.”

“I think we just got to find a way to bend, not break when you’re wearing your (home) jerseys,” McIsaac said. “Just the little things, little details and we’ve just got to clean up a couple things.”

The Chiefs were granted a gift 56 seconds into the third when Kamloops was assessed a bench minor for too many men on the ice, but the best opportunity came for Kamloops when they hit the post on a 2-on-1 shorthanded rush. The Chiefs went 0 for 3 with the extra skater and are last in the WHL in power play success at 11.5%.

“I think we’ve had a little bit of struggles with (the power play) throughout the year,” McIsaac said. “We’re still trying to find ways to make it work out there. Tonight it didn’t work again, but I think we’ve got to just keep trying until something works for us.”

“We’ve got to bear down on our chances,” Wormald said. “We’re giving up too much in certain situations where we don’t need to be. We’ve got to be better than that.”