Blazers down to last three games

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The way Tyler Shattock has it figured, you might as well finish the regular
season by playing the best teams in the WHL.
Which is about what the Kamloops Blazers are in the process of doing.
After losing 5-2 to host Vancouver on Sunday, the Blazers will entertain the
Giants in a rematch tonight. Game time, at Interior Savings Centre, is 7
o’clock.
After that game, the Blazers will have two assignments remaining in their
regular season — they’ll go home-and-home with the Kelowna Rockets, playing
here Friday and in the Little Apple on Saturday.
While a victory tonight would lift the Giants (56-8-2-3) into first place
overall in the WHL, the Rockets, one of the league’s hottest teams of late,
are gunning for third place in the Western Conference. At present, Kelowna
(43-21-1-3) is one point ahead of the Spokane Chiefs.
“We couldn’t ask for two better teams to play before the playoffs,” said
Shattock, who had an eight-game point streak ended Sunday. “Especially
because we could end up playing Kelowna in the first round.”
Yes, indeed, that is a possibility.
The Blazers (32-31-2-4) are fifth at the moment, but are just one point
ahead of the Seattle Thunderbirds (32-31-1-4) of Kent, Wash.
However, while the Blazers are finishing up against a couple of sturdy
opponents, the Thunderbirds have four games remaining, all against teams
below them in the standings. And three of those games are in their new digs,
the ShoWare Center, where they are 15-5-0-2.
The Blazers, who went into Sunday riding their second four-game winning
streak of the season, hung in there against the Giants, trailing just 1-0
going into the third period. However, Vancouver struck for three more goals
before the Blazers got on the board.
“We have to be better in the third periods,” Shattock had said after
Friday’s 5-4 victory over the visiting Portland Winter Hawks, in which the
Blazers came close to blowing a 5-2 lead. “We were coming off an emotional
win against Calgary, but we have to be better.”
While things are shaping up as though the Blazers will open the playoffs in
Kelowna on March 20, you are free to wonder if they wouldn’t rather play
Spokane, even if the Chiefs are the defending WHL and Memorial Cup
champions.
The Blazers would never admit that publicly but the fact of the matter is
that the Chiefs are hurting on the back end.
Two of Spokane’s walking wounded, Cory Baldwin (hand) and Stefan Ulmer
(concussion), returned for a 2-0 loss to the Cougars in Prince George on
Friday. However, Baldwin didn’t play Saturday. As well, sophomore Jared
Cowen (knee) won’t play again this season, and Trevor Glass (shoulder)
hasn’t played since being injured in Kamloops on Feb. 25. Pesky forward Ryan
Letts will miss the first two games of the playoffs as he completes a
10-game WHL suspension.
lt’s not that the Chiefs, the defending Memorial Cup-champions, would be a
walkover; their health situation just makes them a more attractive matchup
than the other possibility, the Rockets.
After all, the Blazers have lost all seven of their encounters with the
Rockets this season and been outscored 36-13 in the process.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers have placed F Dylan Willick, who turns 17 on Oct.
19, on their protected list. He plays for the Cariboo Cougars of the B.C.
major midget league and finished eighth in the scoring race, with 47 points
in 40 games. . . . Willick also is captain of the team that will represent
B.C. at the U-18 National Aboriginal Hockey Championships in Winnipeg, May
3-9. . . . The Blazers will hand out their regular-season awards prior to
Friday’s game against visiting Kelowna. The pregame ceremony will begin at
6:55 p.m., and is expected to last about 15 minutes. . . . Former Blazers
head coach Mark Ferner has agreed to a three-year contract extension as
GM/head coach of the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers. That will take him through
2011-12. In two seasons with the Vipers, Ferner has put up a 78-34-3-5
regular-season record.