Spitfires still struggling to win against big boys
High-flying London Knights extend Windsor’s woes against OHL elite
LONDON The Windsor Spitfires’ struggles against the elite teams in the Ontario Hockey League continued on Friday night.
The Spitfires have now dropped five straight games against teams ranked in the Canadian Hockey League top 10 after a 4-1 loss to the London Knights before a crowd of 9,036 at Budweiser Gardens.
“I don’t think we’re worried about it,” Spitfires defenceman Tyler Nother said. “We’re trying to get wins against every single team.”
But the Spitfires, who will host the Memorial Cup in May, have not beaten a ranked team since taking out the Knights by a 5-1 count in Windsor back on Jan. 3.
Since that game, the club has dropped a pair of games in Owen Sound, one in Sault Ste. Marie, fell in a shootout in Erie and now Friday to the Knights.
“We haven’t had a win against a ranked team in a bit,” Spitfires forward Jeremiah Addison acknowledged. “We can beat any team, so it’s coming in and playing the right way and doing it and not saying it.”
All five of those games have either been on back-to-back nights or the third game in three days and all have come on the road. Friday ’s performance wasn’t poor by Windsor, but just not good enough to win.
Now, the Spitfires have slid to the fifth seed in the Western Conference, which means they would not have home-ice advantage in the playoffs and would need to find a way to win on the road to stay alive.
“We can’t really focus on any other team,” said Nother, who started his OHL career with London. “We can only control what we can control.
“We’ve just got to win as many games as we can and hopefully, we put ourselves in the best position possible and that’s the best we can do.”
A win on Friday would have helped those fortunes as the Spitfires came in just a point behind Sault Ste. Marie for the top spot
in the West Division, which is the second seed in the Western Conference in the playoffs. Sault Ste. Marie won on Friday to go up three points on Windsor with 10 games to play.
As well, the team was only three points back of London for the third seed in the Western Conference and that gap is now five.
“I think we’re confident with the group we have here,” Nother said. “We know what we have in this room and what type of hockey team we are.”
Tyler Parsons was supposed make his return in net for the Knights on Friday. The star for the United States world junior team had not played since Feb. 4 and took the warm-ups and was slated to start, but was scratched before game forcing the Knights to turn to Tyler Johnson.
It should have been an advantage for the Spitfires, but the club put just four shots on the London net in a scoreless opening period.
Windsor’s power play, which has also been struggling with just one goal in 19 chances over the last six games, inadvertently opened the door for the Knights to open the scoring.
With Mitchell Stephens off for slashing, Windsor defenceman Sean Day tried to pinch to keep the puck in the London end late in the power play. It was blocked and led to a three-on-one for the Knights, with Stephens coming out of the box and having an empty net for the only goal through 40 minutes of play.
Another blocked shot put the Knights up 2-0 in the third period. Sam Miletic blocked a shot and sent him on a breakaway. He was stopped, but J.J. Piccinich followed and put home the rebound just 29 seconds into the final period.
Janne Kuokkanen pushed the lead to 3-0 with a breakaway goal in the third period before Hayden McCool got Windsor on the board with less than five minutes to play, but Miletic closed the scoring with an empty-net goal.