Isaac Poulter made 44 saves in his first career start at home as the Swift Current Broncos fell 4-1 to the Spokane Chiefs.

Despite a seventh consecutive loss to start the season, the Broncos continue to see improvements from their young group.

"We're making progress," said Broncos associate coach Brandin Cote. "It's hard to quantify it because we're not getting a win. Don't kid yourself we played a really good team tonight they're one of the top five teams in the league. After the first period we settled in. Our goaltender gave us a chance, our penalty kill was really good, we had some good looks on our power play and their goaltender played well too. In the third period we probably played one of our better periods in pushing the pace.

"We're seeing some progress. Same old thing beating a dead horse with it, but that's our mentality. Stay the course and hopefully the results are going to come eventually on this road trip, but we're seeing a lot of good things."

Swift Current did have to rely on Poulter especially in the first period as they were outshot 24-10 and only allowed on goal on a terrific deflection by Eli Zummack.

Despite seeing lots of rubber in the game, the rookie goaltender was impressed by how his team played in front of him.

"I thought we played pretty well," Poulter said. "My game was made pretty easy. The boys were blocking a lot of shots for me... scoring is to come. We had lots of chances offensively. We've got more and we know that."

The Broncos pushed back more as the game went along with several good chances in the second period, but a four minute power play featured a handful of missed nets from good looks.

Spokane pulled further ahead on another really nice point shot deflection this time from Carter Chorney.

"They scored two of their goals by tips and deflections in front," Cote said. "Those are some things we have to continue to work on. We're just toing to keep working away and stay as positive as we can."

The third period featured an impressive push Swift Current as they created some turnovers and had a quick transition game. They had some opportunities as Joona Kiviniemi was robbed with an empty-net by defenceman Ty Smith and Connor Horning hit a post.

Spokane pulled away with two more goals late, while Noah King scored the lone goal for the Broncos directing a Max Patterson pass in the net with his skate.

Former Broncos goaltender Bailey Brkin got the win for the Chiefs with 30 saves.

Both teams went 0 for 4 on the power play.

Chiefs Head Coach and former Broncos defenceman Dan Lambert received a warm ovation from the Swift Current crowd during a tribute video at the media time out in the first period. Lambert was the Co-Captain of the 1989 Memorial Cup winning team.

New Broncos defenceman Garrett Sambrook arrived before the game but did not yet play. He is set to make his debut against his former team on Saturday night in Brandon.

Due to a baseball contractual obligation on The Eagle 94.1 FM, our broadcast will be live on Magic 97 with Robertson Family Group Broncos Hockey at 6pm.