Published: December 30, 2008 08:57 pm      

Chiefs have time to think about blowing lead to Nailers

This one was a tale of three periods.

The ending didn’t sit well with the Johnstown Chiefs, who lost a wildly unpredictable 5-4 game against the Wheeling Nailers on Saturday at Cambria County War Memorial Arena.

“This puts a damper on Christmas,” Chiefs coach Ian Herbers said after his team squandered an opportunity to reach 20 wins as fast as any team in Johnstown’s 52 professional hockey seasons. “We wanted to go into the break by sweeping these guys over the weekend and putting some breathing room between us.”

The first-place Chiefs fell behind by three goals in the first, bounced back with four in the second and were poised to complete a home-and-home sweep over the Nailers late in the third.

Then, Wheeling scored twice in the final 3:49, with Jordan Morrison’s game-winner coming on the power play with 1:26 on the clock.

“The third period we had a couple chances to put it away. We had a breakaway and a couple other scoring chances,” Herbers said, noting an early one-on-one break by Andy Contois that Curtis Darling saved. “We just didn’t put it away. We made two mistakes there. We tried to beat guys and went soft in the middle, and it cost us the game.”

The Nailers (37 points) had the Chiefs (39 points) reeling in the opening 7:51, as Rob Sirianni, Morrison and Matt Grennier each scored goals against Kris Mayotte.

“We came out in the first thinking it was Friday night’s game,” Herbers said.

The Chiefs beat host Wheeling 7-3 on Friday.

“In Friday night’s game we made it seem easy because we were skating and working hard and using second effort to get pucks and playing defense,” Herbers said. “We didn’t do that in the first period, and it cost us three goals. We weren’t sharp right off the bat.”

The comeback began as Petr Pohl scored 43 seconds into the second period. Before that goal was announced, Blair Yaworski beat Darling after a pass from Pohl only 12 seconds later.

“We had a good talk between the periods and we knew what we were doing wrong,” Chiefs captain Randy Rowe said. “We had to put a little bit more pressure and instead of giving the puck away, keep it down low. We capitalized on our opportunities.”

Rowe took a cross-ice pass from Wes Clark and blasted a shot from the top of the left-wing circle to tie the game at 9:53 of the second.

“The guys refocused in the second period, and we came out hard,” Herbers said. “We started doing the little things. We got the lead.”

With defenseman Trevor Hendrikx and Kyle Wharton back from Syracuse, Kyle Bushee – regularly a defenseman – played forward on a line with Sean Berkstresser and Mike Bartlett. The Triple-B line was on the ice as the Chiefs took their first lead.

Berkstresser scored with 1:26 remaining in the period after assists from Bartlett and Hendrikx.

Wheeling’s Sirianni knocked in a rebound of Bryan Ewing’s shot after a Chiefs turnover to tie the game at 4 with 3:49 left.

Morrison netted the winner nine seconds into a late Nailers power play to make it 5-4.

“The bottom line is you’ve got to kill the penalty,” Herbers said. “We didn’t do a good job killing it.”

Chiefs all-star Ryan Garlock was recalled to AHL Syracuse after Friday’s win.