PHOTO COURTESY LARRY BRUNT/SPOKANE CHIEFS
Spokane Chiefs forward Shea Van Olm sits on the bench during Game 4 of the WHL Championship series against the Medicine Hat Tigers on Wednesday. Medicine Hat won the game 5-2 to lead the series 3-1.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Spokane Chiefs will look to make the most of their final game of the season at the Spokane Arena.
The Chiefs enter Game 5 Friday on home ice, trailing the Medicine Hat Tigers 3-1 in the best-of-seven WHL Championship series. They’ve surrendered the first goal in every game of the series, none quicker than Ryder Ritchie’s goal 21 seconds into Game 4 on Wednesday in the Tigers’ 5-2 win.
The Chiefs, as they have shown an ability to do in the playoffs, responded 18 seconds later to tie the game up at 1-1. But that was as close as they could get as the Tigers rattled off four second period goals, three on the power play, to put the Chiefs on the brink of elimination.
Postgame, via the WHL’s streamed press conference, head coach Brad Lauer said he liked his team’s response early and credited the Tigers for their play.
“It’s not the outcome we wanted after last night’s game,” Lauer said. “There was a lot of emotion in tonight’s game, we gave up the first goal again but I liked the energy our guys brought. I thought we responded quite well getting it back to tie it. Obviously the second period we got into penalty trouble, they took advantage of it and scored three power play goals in that span and put us on our heels. We had to try to fight to get back in it.
“I’ll give them credit, they played a good game, they played a textbook game once they got the lead. They are very structured, very detailed, making us go 200 feet.”
The Chiefs’ top line of Berkly Catton, Andrew Cristall and Shea Van Olm are -21 in the series entering play tonight. Van Olm scored in the second period Wednesday, both Cristall and Catton had the assists. Cristall is still searching for his first goal of the series.
Lauer says the Tigers have played their top line well, something they have to work through in order to force Game 6 Sunday in Medicine Hat.
“They’re playing them hard, it’s a thing we have to understand, something they have to work through, they have to find a way to create offence,” Lauer said. “(The Tigers) are doing a very good job of shutting them down and being difficult on them, we know it’s playoff hockey, though. That’s playoff hockey.
“Yes we’re down, but we’re not out yet and that’s the biggest thing. We’ve had a good group all year, they believe in each other, they care about each other. Our focus has to be to regroup and we have to win Friday and get back to Medicine Hat. That’s our focus as a group is get the game to Medicine Hat. Put a little more pressure on them at home and then we’ll deal with it there. For right now, our focus has to be get the game to Medicine Hat.”
Spokane will look for more success on special teams, with their power play running at 15.4 per cent in the series and their penalty killing at 64.3 per cent.
Regardless of result tonight, Game 5 presents an emotional factor of being the Chiefs’ last home game of the 2024-25 season, the final game in Spokane for overage forwards Shea Van Olm and Rasmus Ekström and defenceman Cayden Crampton. Lauer says those three will enjoy the special night but he says they have to worry about the emotions when the series is done.
He’s looking at the first-round series between the Prince Albert Raiders and Edmonton Oil Kings, a series Prince Albert trailed 3-1 before storming back to win Game 7 and advance to face the Tigers in the second round.
“It’s not a position you want to be in, but there’s a lot of teams who have come back from 3-1,” Lauer said.
“We’ve done it before this year, we’ve won three games in a row and that’s what we have to do now. That’s the situation we’re in.”
