Chiefs fall at Kootenay, 4-1

The Kootenay Ice used a 2 goal first and a 2 goal third period to skate past the Spokane Chiefs 4-1 Friday night in Cranbrook, B.C. With the loss, Spokane fell into 6th place in the Western Conference playoff race.

Jonathan Martin’s rebound goal off his own shot at 13:57 of the first period gave Kootenay a 1-0 lead. Levi Cable then did the same thing at 16:26 of the period to give the Ice a 2-0 edge after the first. Spokane would cut the lead in half on Mitch Holmberg’s power play goal at 8:21 of the second period. Holmberg’s 32nd goal of the year was set up by Mike Aviani and Adam Helewka. Spokane outshot the Ice 18-8 in the second.

The Ice would get a Luke Philip goal just 54 seconds into the third period to take a 3-1 lead. Austin Vetterl’s goal just over 8 minutes into the third would cap the scoring. Each team put up 32 shots on goal as the Chiefs went 1-4 on the power play and 1-1 on the penalty kill. The season series is now even at 2-2 as the two teams will meet in the rubber match of the 5 game series March 9th in Spokane.

Spokane remains with 64 points, and now sit a point back of Tri City for 5th in the conference, and 2 points behind Victoria, who beat Tri City 5-3 on Friday night. Spokane returns home to host Tri City Saturday night at 7:05pm and Victoria Sunday at 6:05pm.