Spitfires shot down by Petes
PETES 5, SPITFIRES 1
The Windsor Spitfires have struggled all season to find some secondary scoring.
While the goaltending has been outstanding and the top line has produced, Thursday was a perfect example of what happens when those two elements don’t lead the way.
The Peterborough Petes opened with the game’s first four goals and the Spitfires never recovered in a 5-1 loss to the Petes before 4,168 at the WFCU Centre.
“If you play like that, you’re going to win a lot of games,” said Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski, whose team held a 41-17 edge in shots. “It’s one of the best games we’ve played all year. Probably the best game we’ve played five-on-five. Again, it wasn’t an issue of not being able to generate. We just couldn’t finish.”
Windsor’s top line of Aaron Luchuk, Mathew MacDougall and Luke Boka came into Thursday’s game having scored 13 of the team’s 28 goals (46.4 per cent) this season.
Letowski has juggled lines trying to find another workable combination, but with little success. Also, the club has not heard any news regarding the return of Logan Brown and Gabriel Vilardi from the NHL.
“No calls at all,” Spitfires general manager Warren Rychel said when asked about Brown (Ottawa Senators) and Vilardi (L.A. Kings).
Looking for a spark of any kind, the Spitfires picked up 18-year-old centre Adam Kadlec off waivers after he was let go by the Oshawa Generals. He was immediately inserted on the second line with Luke Kutkevicius and Jake Smith.
“I thought we had a pretty good game,” Kadlec said. “We did a good job of creating some offence, but obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted.”
Kadlec was not part of Windsor’s trade for overage centre Hayden McCool to the Generals, but that deal left Kadlec expendable.
“They have a different team,” Rychel said of the Generals. “They’re more advanced than we are. We need secondary scoring and this kid’s got a chance.”
The six-foot-three, 190-pound Kadlec, who is from Chicago, spent last season in the Western Hockey League with Prince George and Prince Albert and had five goals and 14 points in 60 games.
“I didn’t have any points and that’s something I really want moving forward, helping out,” said Kadlec, who was pointless in two games with the Generals. “Oshawa, I didn’t get too big an opportunity. I’m excited to be here and where I think I fit well and it’s the best thing for me going forward.”
But Kadlec, who was also on the team’s second power-play unit, didn’t have anymore luck generating offence than those before him and things got tough for the Spitfires when two Christopher Paquette goals and another by Adam Timleck had Windsor in a 3-0 hole after the first period.
“I thought it was a shame we were down 3-0 after the first period,” Letowski said. “We’re playing an elite team and for the first time I thought we should have won that game, if you look at the chances.”