Chiefs waste chances
Jared Spurgeon had a simple birthday wish.
Sure, he scored his first goal of the season. He also made arguably the best pass of the night – which led to Tyler Johnson’s seventh goal of the season.
As time expired on Saturday night, though, Spurgeon and the Spokane Chiefs weren’t doing any celebrating after their 4-2 loss to the Kamloops Blazers in Western Hockey League action at the Arena.
It was Spokane’s (16-9-0-3) third loss – in 13 games – on home ice this season.
“The win would have been the best thing that could have happened,” said Spurgeon, who now has a goal and nine assists this season. “The bounces weren’t going our way, a couple of calls didn’t go our way either, but we have to work through it and we weren’t able to do that tonight.”
Nick Ross put Kamloops (13-14-0-3) on the board 2 minutes, 29 seconds into the first period with a 5-on-3 power-play goal from the top of the right circle that sailed over goalie Dustin Tokarski’s right shoulder.
The Chiefs responded with a 5-on-3 goal of their own 8:07 into the first when Spurgeon found Johnson low on the left post. Spurgeon made a quick pass Johnson, who had a wide-open look and quickly fired the puck past Blazers goalie Justin Leclerc.
Cole Grbavac gave the Blazers the lead again at 18:20 in the opening period and after that the Chiefs found themselves in the penalty box too often to sustain any momentum and also failed to score on four of five power-play opportunities.
Despite outshooting the Blazers 42-32, Spokane wasn’t able to take advantage of a handful of looks at an open net.
“We took too many penalties – obviously. I’m not very happy with that,” Chiefs coach Hardy Sauter said. “But at the same time we had our chances to score – we had a couple of open nets that we missed, lots of power-play opportunities and we didn’t capitalize, and ultimately I think tonight was one of the nights that we shot ourselves in the foot.”
Jimmy Bubnick added to Kamloops’ lead with the lone goal of the second period, and Jake Trask’s goal gave the Blazers a 4-1 lead before Spurgeon scored to pull Spokane within two goals. Johnson missed an open look on the Kamloops net prior to Trask’s goal – which Sauter thought could have pulled Spokane back into the game had his shot gone in.
“I think if Johnson (would have) scored early in the (third) period, 4-on-4, we would have had momentum and probably a whole bunch of good things going on right then,” Sauter explained. “But then, four or five minutes after that, they got the fourth goal.
“We came right back and made it 4-2 and poured it on but it was just one of those nights when we couldn’t seem to put the puck in the net.”
Spokane players thought they had a goal 17:03 into the third period, but the referees waived it off after they determined that Seth Compton gloved the puck out of the air down to the ice and the momentum of the push carried the puck into the net.
The Chiefs, who host the Calgary Hitmen on Wednesday night, trail the Tri-City Americans (19-7-0-2) by five points in the U.S. Division standings.
Ice chips
Chiefs defenseman Mike Reddington (groin, day-to-day) was scratched from the lineup, along with healthy forwards Mike Betz and Blake Gal. … Spokane is 5-5 in their last 10 games.