This is what underdogs do.
Barely making it into the playoffs on the final weekend of the regular season, the Vancouver Northeast Chiefs knew what everyone else expected to happen in the B.C. Major Midget Hockey League’s first round of the playoffs.
The regular season champion Valley West Hawks may have thought it, too. But what mattered most was what the Chiefs did to complete the David versus Goliath storyline.
On Sunday, the Northeast Chiefs, which are based in Burnaby but draw players from the Tri-Cities, New Westminster and Ridge Meadows hockey associations as well, ended the Hawks’ season in a 3-2 win, capping a dramatic 2-1 series triumph for the eighth place squad.
Coquitlam’s Jack Steffens scored with four minutes left in the third period, breaking a 2-2 tie to put the underdogs in the driver’s seat for a final, desperate stretch. And while Valley West unleashed the league’s best offence in hopes of netting the equalizer, they couldn’t put one past the defence, anchored by Burnaby netminder Michael Harroch.
“(Harroch) made a couple of huge stops in the third period, one right after we scored the go-ahead goal, with a big kick save,” remarked Jacob Lazare, the Chiefs director of media relations.
“It a combination of goaltending and defence. It was everybody buying in defensively, because the Hawks pushed hard. They were all over us and it looked like they had a powerplay for four minutes at the end.”
The Northeast Chiefs posted a sluggish, 14-20-3-3 record in the regular season, far back of the Hawks’ 31-6-2-1 mark. But one of those six Valley losses did come at the hands of the Chiefs, just three weeks earlier.
Steffens’ marker capped a rally from a 2-0 deficit, as the Chiefs got caught in a blitz that spanned 1:19 early in the second period. While PoCo’s Aleks Bujak made it a one-goal game late in the frame, it wasn’t until defenceman Cody Hough of Maple Ridge buried the equalizer, on a fantastic individual effort just 43 seconds into the third, where a possible comeback was in play.
“Hough’s goal was a beautiful goal. He went around about three different Hawks and put in a perfect shot. It was one of our goals of the year. The stage and the timing of it just added to the brilliance,” said Lazare.
It came on the heels of Game 2, where the Hawks demonstrated why they led the league in all categories with a solid 4-2 win to tie the series. Although the Chiefs struck first with Coquitlam’s Kyler Kovich’s goal, Valley West counted three goals in the second period, where the underdogs managed just two shots and had their backs to the boards much of the time.
In Game 1, Burnaby’s Jackson Murphy-Johnson notched his second goal of the season, a wrist shot from inside the point with seven minutes left. The 16-year-old, listed by the Western Hockey League’s Spokane Chiefs, wired a low shot to break a 3-3 draw and serve the first shock of the weekend.
“(Murphy-Johnson) hasn’t been much of an offensive guy but he’s one of our most improved players this year, he’s come a long way. He’s morphed into one of our top defencemen,” said Lazare.
Also scoring in the win were Hough, Coquitlam’s Quinton Hill and Port Moody’s Ryan Suzukovich.
Now, the Chiefs aim to keep the ball rolling against another favourite, this time the Cariboo Cougars in the semifinals this weekend in Prince George.
