The Chiefs five game winning streak came to an end with a 4-1 loss to the Merritt Centennials in Merritt Friday night.
With the loss the Chiefs (11-7-0-1) remain in fourth place in the Interior Conference with 23 points. With the win Merritt (11-5-1-4) jumps over the Vernon Vipers into second place.
The Centennials got off to a quick start in this one. Billy Marshall needed just 26 seconds to score his sixth goal of the season and give the home team a 1-0 lead.
That was the only goal of the period that saw the Centennials out shoot the Chiefs 9-5.
The Centennials doubled their lead at 11:05 of the second period when their leading scorer Regan Soquila beat Chiefs goaltender Mitch Gillam high blocker side on a breakaway. Brandon Pfeil sent Soquila in all alone to earn the lone assist on the goal.
With 73 seconds left in the middle frame Brandon Bruce increased Merritt’s lead to 3-0. The goal came moments after Centennials goaltender Lino Chimienti made two excellent saves off the stick of Chiefs forward Mathieu Tibbet.
The Chiefs finally got on the scoreboard when Malcolm Gould scored his eighth of the season and third in two games to make the score 3-1 with 35 second left in the period.
Evan Stack scored the only goal of the third period into an empty net with 1.5 seconds left.
Final shots in the game: Merritt: 33 Chilliwack: 32.
The Chiefs were 0/4 on the power play and 3/3 on the penalty kill.
Chilliwack is back in action Saturday night when they host the Westside Warriors
Notes:The Chiefs had scored the first goal of the game in their previous four games and are a perfect 6-0-0-0 this season when scoring first…Not in the lineup for the Chiefs tonight were forward Josh Hansen and defenseman Matthew Hutchinson… 18 year old Chilliwack Minor Hockey Product Terrence Limbert was called up from the Abbotsford Pilots to fill in for Hutchinson.
