Chiefs don’t miss beat, give beating

Overheard in the Spokane Arena on Friday night:

•”This must be the weekend we set the clocks back to Overtime Savings Time.”

•”I hear Kitchener is beautiful this time of year.”

•”Bring back the Ams!”

OK, maybe not. It’s just Game 1 when seven are possible, and if there’s anything to be learned from it perhaps it’s that easy assumptions are just as easily exploded.

Like the one which suggested that the Spokane Chiefs figured to be dragging from playing more than eight games worth of high-tension hockey in a seven-game series, while the Lethbridge Hurricanes were likely to be frisky and fresh after nine days off.

Bill Peters didn’t have much use for that one even before his Chiefs put a 4-1 bruise on the Canes in the opening game of the Western Hockey League finals, the final step before the Memorial Cup.

“I like the fact that we’re going on the rhythm,” he said. “They’ve got the rest.”

So there you have it: Rhythm 1, Rest 0.

Among all that the Chiefs reaped from their gazillion-overtime dance marathon with the Tri-City Americans to get to this point, the sense of just how good a hockey team they had is probably the most important – followed closely by momentum.

This was made clear barely a minute and a half into the proceedings Friday night. A lazy hold had put the Hurricanes a man down and almost immediately Drayson Bowman used a nice screen by Chris Bruton to wrist one past Lethbridge goaltender Juha Metsola for a 1-0 lead.

Yes, a power-play goal. The Arena ice did not crack and split from the shock of all 7,306 in attendance, though the Canes seemed to.

“You never want to get scored on early in any period,” said Canes defenseman Jeff May.

So, of course, Lethbridge was scored on early in every period – by Bowman again 47 seconds into the second on a rebound and by Judd Blackwater with 90 seconds gone in the third when Stefan Ulmer’s slap slot ricocheted serendipitously straight to Blackwater’s stick.

For a team suspected of running on emotional empty as the Chiefs were, there’s nothing like topping off the tank.

Unless it’s siphoning off the other guy’s.

And this, of course, is what Spokane does best – and never better than in the first 20 minutes. The Canes didn’t just play uphill, they played up Everest – never putting so much as a single shot on net against Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski.

Sheesh. The Chiefs could have had Boomer the Bear between the pipes and felt every bit as secure. What’s the point of having the hottest goaltender going if he doesn’t have to prove it?

Well, the point is winning.

“I didn’t have any idea,” said defenseman Jared Spurgeon, “but looking up there at the end of the period, it was nice to see the zero (shots). It helped that we got a few power plays and a good penalty kill early, but we didn’t give them the time or space to do anything.”

But even when the Canes did have some, they didn’t do much with it – a situation typified when May let a pass get past him at the blue line on the power play in the second period and lost the race for it to Tyler Johnson, who squeezed one past Metsola for a 3-0 lead.

And then there was the penalty shot by Zach Boychuk that Tokarski turned away midway through the final period.

This lack of jump was mostly explained away by the long layoff the Canes endured after blasting Calgary in four games in the Eastern Conference finals and, yes, the rust was apparent.

“Nine days is a long time this time of year,” said Peters. “With young guys, it’s hard to keep their mental focus. But what you miss is the intensity of playoff hockey. You can’t re-enact that in practice. You just can’t.”

But Spokane’s intensity didn’t seem to rub off on the visitors as the night wore on. It wasn’t just that the Chiefs were playing at a higher level – they were playing a totally different game.

“Did we see their ‘A’ game?” Peters said. “No. We’ll see it (Saturday).”

After the way the Chiefs dominated the Canes, a Lethbridge win here would be an incredible momentum shift.

“Their whole mindset will be to empty the tank,” Peters said. “We’ll have to be better because we know they’ll be better. Our guys understand that.

“We have a little more to give, too.”

Of course. It would be foolish to assume otherwise.