SPITFIRES REBOUND IN GAME 3
Team fined $7,500, GM sanctioned
JIM PARKER
After days of distractions, all the Windsor Spitfires wanted to do was play hockey on Tuesday.
Sunday’s frustrating loss in Game 2 of the series with the London Knights was followed up with a two-game suspension to co-captain Jeremiah Addison on Monday, then a team fine and sanctions to general manager Warren Rychel on Tuesday.
Putting all that behind them, the Spitfires hit the ice against the Knights on Tuesday and never trailed in a 3-1 win before 3,990 at the WFCU Centre.
“We’ve been facing adversity all year with suspensions and injuries,” Spitfires overage forward Cristiano DiGiacinto said. “It’s kind of something we just deal with.
“It’s been a rough go all season, but we face so much adversity now it’s just part of us. We know when guys are out we need to step up and we do just that. It comes from the young guys right up to the older guys.
With the win, the Spitfires took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference quarter-final series.
“We can’t control everything,” Spitfires forward Gabriel Vilardi said. “We control the Windsor Spitfires and I thought we played well.”
So much of Sunday’s loss centred on the officiating, but referees Brent Coulombe and Sean Reid did their best to not be a focal point of Tuesday’s game. Even so, that did not always meet with the approval of the Windsor faithful.
But it was a power play in the first period that allowed the Spitfires to open the scoring. Mikhail Sergachev was taken down by London’s Cole Tymkin and Julius Nattinen tipped a Sean Day point shot past Knights goalie Tyler Parsons to put Windsor up 1-0 after 20 minutes.
Nattinen’s goal marked the first time in three games in this series that the Spitfires have opened the scoring.
“Playing with the lead is huge,” Vilardi said.
London used a Windsor turnover to tie the game with Janne Kuokkanen evening the score, but the Spitfires would not allow the Knights to take the lead.
Less than five minutes after the Knights tied it, Vilardi stripped Knights defenceman Victor Mete and bulled his way to the net. He beat Parsons high to the stick side to give the Spitfires the lead for good.
“Guy made a mistake and I capitalized,” Vilardi said. “I remember he lost the puck, I kicked it to my stick and shot it. High blocker seems to be a spot everyone’s finding. It felt great.”
Shortly after another Windsor power play expired, DiGiacinto
stepped around a defender to extend Windsor’s lead to two goals, which marked the first time in the series the Spitfires have had a multi-goal lead.
“When I can get a chance to help the team offensively, it’s an amazing feeling,” DiGiacinto said. “We know we’ve got the skill to win. We know what we have to do to win and we follow our game plan.”
Despite each team getting a pair of power plays in the third period, the two combined for just seven total shots in the period and 34 in the game as Windsor was methodical in its approach toward getting to the final buzzer.
“Having a two-goal lead, it felt great,” Vilardi said. “Some say it’s the worst lead, but I don’t feel like that.
“It’s comfortable because we’ve got guys that manage the puck in the neutral zone, get pucks deep and we drain them down load.”