Sunday, Apr. 27, 2008

Chiefs take 3-2 lead over Ams back to Spokane

By Annie Fowler, Herald staff writer

If something is worth having, it's worth fighting for.

The Tri-City Americans and Spokane Chiefs battled for 82 minutes, 28 seconds Saturday night before Judd Blackwater put the puck over Chet Pickard's shoulder at 2:28 of the second overtime to give Spokane a 4-3 victory and a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals before a soldout crowd of 5,930 at Toyota Center.

"Going home 3-2 in the series is huge," said Blackwater, who had two goals on the night. "But there are no guarantees. We have to play harder than we did tonight."

Game 6 of the best-of-7 series is Monday in Spokane, while Game 7, if necessary, will be Tuesday at Toyota Center.

"The guys know what is on the line," said Americans coach Don Nachbaur. "The stakes are high for us -- we lose we go home, we win and we come back to our rink for Game 7."

And just because the Chiefs are at home Monday, it doesn't give Spokane coach Bill Peters any comfort.

"Both teams have played so hard and played so well," Peters said. "Every night it could either way, and I don't expect it to be any different on Monday."

Spokane had plenty of quality chances in the first overtime, starting with a penalty shot by Drayson Bowman.

Bowman, looking for a hat trick, got behind Americans defenseman T.J. Fast and headed to the net. Bowman was pulled down from behind by Fast and awarded a penalty shot at 7:51. He went straight down the slot on Tri-City goalie Chet Pickard, but shot the puck over the net.

The Chiefs peppered Pickard with a flurry of shots in a scramble in front of the net at 12:51, but the Tri-City goalie laid across the goal line and finally got a hold of the puck. Pickard finished with 34 saves.

Trailing 3-2 heading into the third, the Americans battled more than half the period before tying the game at 13:10.

Colton Yellow Horn and Radek Meidl were fighting for the puck behind the Spokane net before Meidl finally pulled the puck loose and then slipped it inside the left post.

With 4 minutes left to play, Fast thought he had given Tri-Cities a 4-3 lead. But his shot skimmed off the post and hit the twine on the outer edge of the net.

Neither team was able to score the remainder of the period, forcing overtime for the fourth time in five games.

The Americans outshot the Chiefs 16-3 in the first period, and they came out swinging to start the second as Jason Reese gave Tri-Cities a 2-1 lead at 3:17.

Shaun Vey started the play, taking a shot from the left side of the net. Spokane goalie Dustin Tokarski blocked the shot, and the puck went right up the middle of the slot where Reese as there to blast it into the net.

And just when things were starting to look up for the Americans, Bowman turned the game around with a pair of goals in a span of 1:20, starting with an even-strength goal at 3:53 and finishing with a power-play goal at 5:13 for a 3-2 lead the Chiefs would cling to until the end of the period.

The game was wild from the start, with Spokane scoring the opening goal of the game just 1:06 into the contest, as Blackwater buried a rebound of a shot by Chris Bruton.

The Americans evened things up at 7:34 on a heads-up play by Colton Yellow Horn and Drew Hoff.

Spokane's Mike Reddington shot the puck just inside the blue line, but the puck hit Yellow Horn's skates and ricocheted out and behind Reddington. Yellow Horn picked up the puck and headed up ice with Hoff on his right wing.

Chiefs defenseman Jared Cowan was between Yellow Horn and Hoff, and went down to try and block the pass across the slot to Hoff, but the puck slid underneath Cowan to Hoff, who had a wide-open corner of the net as Tokarski had committed to the other side to Yellow Horn.

Notes

Hoff was upended by Blackwater behind the Americans' net at 2:32 of the second period. He left the ice under his own power, but did not return to the game. ... Former Americans captain Ben Kilgour was in attendance.

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