Memorial Cup: Blowout loss to Spitfires leaves Thunderbirds on thin ice

Logan Brown capped three goals in a 38-second span and added two assists as the Windsor Spitfires toppled the Seattle Thunderbirds 7-1 on Sunday at the Memorial Cup.

Graham Knott and Julius Nattinen both struck twice while Jeremiah Addison and Jeremy Bracco added the others for the host Spitfires (2-0). Michael DiPietro made 24 saves for the win.

Keegan Kolesar found the back of the net for the Thunderbirds (0-2), the Western Hockey League champions. Carl Stankowski allowed three goals on six shots before giving way to Rylan Toth just 5:26 into the game. Toth made 18 saves in relief.

The Spitfires, at worst, are guaranteed a spot in the semifinal. Seattle has to win its next game against the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion Saint John Sea Dogs (0-1) just to force a tiebreaker scenario, or its season is over. Saint John plays Erie on Monday. Windsor opened its tournament with a 3-2 win over the Sea Dogs. Seattle fell 4-2 to the Ontario Hockey League champion Erie Otters (1-0) in its first game.

Sami Moilanen nearly scored for Seattle on the game’s very first shift with a wraparound but DiPietro reached back to pull the puck away from the goal-line.

The save proved to be huge as the Spitfires responded with three quick ones, tying the Memorial Cup record for the three fastest goals set back in 1978.

Knott gave Windsor the lead, put- ting the puck up and over Stankowski from the top of the crease off a feed from Brown at 4:48.

Only 21 second later Ethan Bear turned the puck over behind his net to Gabriel Vilardi, who found Nattinen out front for the one timer. Then Aaron Hyman fumbled the puck in front of his net and Brown slid a backhand between the legs of Stankowski at 5:26, ending the 17-year-old netminder’s night.

The Thunderbirds couldn’t catch a break even with over a minute of 5-on-3 power-play time in the second period. First, Ryan Gropp had an open net only to be turned away by defenceman Jalen Chatfield, who dove to block the puck with his right shoulder. Then Kolesar was stopped pointblank by DiPietro.

Kolesar finally put Seattle on the board with 6:26 remaining in the second, swatting a rebound past DiPietro.

Windsor’s Sean Day went down in the Seattle zone after colliding with Addison before heading to the dressing room, but was back on the bench to start the third period.