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Last Updated: Jul 2nd, 2008 - 20:21:03
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All hail the Chiefs. With yet another no-doubt effort that mercilessly ended what was a surgical dismantling of the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Spokane captured the Ed Chynoweth Cup Western Hockey League Championship series with a 4-1 victory Wednesday night at the Enmax Centre.
Too proficient in every facet of the game, the Chiefs were a runaway train of simple efficiency, a 20-man unit that choked the Hurricanes with a smothering defence and capitalized offensively with an unapologetic killer instinct. Bottom line, they were just too good and the Hurricanes, try and try as they might, simply had no answers.
“It’s a little disappointing right now because I think we could be better,” Hurricanes head coach Michael Dyck said outside a sombre locker room. “I think we saw the Lethbridge Hurricanes that we could be (Tuesday) night and tonight we played with some desperation but at the same time we had to have a little more purpose from our game and we got some pretty solid efforts from some people tonight but it wasn’t enough.”
The Chiefs outscored the Hurricanes 15-5 in the series and trailed just once, for just less than a period in Game 3. They were that good.
“We played hard, we played smart,” Chiefs head coach Bill Peters said.
“A lot of unsung heroes on this team. It’s a deep hockey team and that’s why we have success.”
Wednesday started with a funereal atmosphere, then gradually took on the feel of a wake as Spokane drilled home the point that open ice was again closed for business. Lethbridge generated nothing in the opening 20 minutes and the Chiefs, as they did in every game of the series, jumped on their first real scoring chance. Mitch Wahl took a stretch pass from Levi Koper with the ’Canes in the midst of a line change and with Ben Wright on his back, beat Juha Metsola to the glove side for a 1-0 lead at the 13:14 mark.
“They’re good at what they do, they play a solid defensive game and then they capitalize,” Hurricanes overage forward Mike Wuchterl said after playing his final WHL game. “As soon as you make one mistake it’s in the back of your net.”
Spokane upped the lead to 2-0 at the 3:37 mark of the middle frame, a typical turnover-forced goal that found Game 3 hero Tyler Johnson alone in the slot as he banged a backhand by Metsola. It further quieted a disheartened crowd and were it not for Nick Hotson’s reply just under two minutes later, it would have looked like a complete mismatch. Hotson took advantage of a rare bout of Spokane defensive zone trouble, corralled a bouncing puck in the slot then waited out Dustin Tokarski before firing into an open net.
Lethbridge would follow with successive power plays, the first showing great effectiveness and generating two solid scoring chances but it netted nothing and Spokane easily shut down the second.
The Chiefs then put the game away in the third, scoring early on the power play (David Rutherford) and then late at even strength (Ondrej Roman).
With every shooting lane blocked and every puck contested, Lethbridge just didn’t have the wherewithal to get to Tokarski to mount a comeback.
“They play really well as five and seem to clog things up real well,” Hurricanes forward Carter Bancks said, limping on a bad knee that hampered him in the final series. “We did struggle to get pucks to the net because they did such a good job.”
So while the Hurricanes bowed out of the league title series in four straight games, the strides accomplished over the course of the last six weeks cannot be discounted. They put together a playoff run that re-energized a fan base, excited a city and stamped the franchise as a contender.
“Sometimes you’ve got to fail before you succeed,” Dyck said.
“We came a long way in the first year here as far as making it to the league final and sometimes you remember the most disappointing things and I don’t think we can. I think we’ve got to be real proud of what we’ve accomplished this year and we’ve got to learn from this series and be ready to go next year.”
This time, next year doesn’t seem so far away.
ICE CHIPS — Hurricanes inserted D Brennan Yadlowski for his first career playoff game and F Craig Orfino, scratching D Lucas Alexiuk, D Paul MacDonald and F Cam Braes . . . Hurricanes changed their lines drastically to open the second period, looking for a spark . . . Spokane returns to the Memorial Cup for the third time in franchise history and first time since 1998 when they hosted . . . They previously won the Memorial Cup in 1991 . . . Lethbridge did not score a power-play goal in the series, going 0-for-11, and managed just five total goals . . . Chiefs F Tyler Johnson, after scoring his second straight game-winning goal, was named series MVP.
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