Tri-City triumphs
The Spokane Chiefs and Tri-City Americans always seem to find ways to keep their long-standing rivalry interesting.
It was no different on Saturday night.
In their third meeting in 13 days, the Chiefs and Ams took the game past regulation for the third time this season and just like it ended on Oct. 6, the Americans won the crapshoot that is a Western Hockey League shootout for a 3-2 victory over Spokane in front of 10,366 fans at the Arena.
Like most evenly matched games, the finish came down to goaltending. But it certainly would have helped if the Chiefs could have converted one of their six power-play opportunities in regulation.
“The power play wasn’t very good obviously,” Chiefs coach Bill Peters said. “But also we had the puck on both of their (regulation) goals. We’re in full control and then we make one pass and we don’t have the puck anymore. I thought we earned our two goals in the first, I liked our first period and then we weren’t perfect on their regulation goals and that was the difference.
“We had our opportunities – we just didn’t get it done.”
Tri-City’s Chet Pickard and Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski both worked hard between the posts.
Tokarski, who was in the net for Spokane (31-8-1-3) when they shutout the Americans (30-10-1-2) last Saturday in Kennewick, stopped 31 shots through overtime, and Pickard turned away 33 prior to the shootout.
In the end, it was Pickard that made the deciding stops.
Colton Yellow Horn and Jason Reese scored on Tri-City’s first two attempts in the shootout, and with Spokane’s Ondrej Roman missing the Chiefs’ first attempt, it was on the shoulders of sniper Drayson Bowman to keep Spokane alive.
Bowman faked left, and tried to stuff it past Pickard in the lower right side of the net, but Pickard wasn’t fooled and the Ams won the shootout 2-0.
“Both goaltenders are quality and they’ll be going head-to-head here for a while,” said Peters. “They’re both young guys, they both were good and both teams played hard in front of them.”
Local product Tyler Johnson put Spokane on the board 7 minutes and 37 seconds into the first when he stole the puck from Tri-City rookie Lane Werbowski in the neutral zone and beat Pickard 1-on-1 for his ninth goal of the season.
The Chiefs extended their lead to 2-0 at 17:32 when Richland native Seth Compton stuffed in a David Rutherford feed from behind the net.
The Americans scored 40 seconds later when Yellow Horn fired a shot in from the high slot for his 29th goal of the season on assists from Adam Hughesman and Kruise Reddick.
By 14:02 in the second period, the Chiefs were 0 for 3 on the power play and Reese netted the rebound of a Reddick shot for a short-handed goal that tied things up at 2.
Trevor Glass, the most recent and final addition to this year’s Chiefs roster, was notable in his debut. The 19-year-old defenseman, who was acquired from Medicine Hat on Thursday, played well in front of Tokarski, including helping the Chiefs’ penalty-kill unit stop both of Tri-City’s power-play opportunities in regulation.
With the point the Chiefs picked up, they remain one point ahead of the Vancouver Giants for the Western Conference lead and have a three-point lead over Tri-City in the U.S. Division standings.
Notes
Chiefs captain Chris Bruton was scratched from the lineup as he served the final game of a three-game suspension for a checking-from-behind major in a 3-0 win Jan. 5 over the Americans in Kennewick. … Rookie defensemen Stefan Ulmer and Brett Bartman were healthy scratches from the Chiefs’ lineup.