Spitfires lose at home 5-3 to Sting
It was out with the gold and in with the new for Windsor Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski.
Away for nearly a month, Letowski was back behind the bench for the Spitfires on Thursday after helping Canada capture gold at the world junior hockey tournament less than a week ago.
However, in his absence, the Spitfires took on a much younger look by dealing away veterans for youth and the inexperience was evident early against a new-look Sarnia Sting, which scored the game’s first four goals and went on to a 5-3 win over the Spitfires Thursday before 4,538 fans at the WFCU Centre.
“You kind of knew it was coming,” Letowski said. “We’ve kind of taken five veterans out and put young guys in with the exception of (overage Zach) Shankar.”
With the passing of Wednesday’s Ontario Hockey League trade deadline, the Sting and Spitfires both featured new faces in the lineup.
The Sting added experience by getting veterans Jonathan Ang from Peterborough, Cam Dineen from North Bay and Michael Pezzetta from Sudbury.
It’s a bid by Sarnia to try and match the powers in the Western Conference and on Thursday the newcomers paid immediate dividends against the younger Spitfires.
“They’re building a team to win, like we were last year, so they’re going to be a strong team,” Spitfires forward Cole Purboo said. “We’re obviously a young team and the’re a team built to win.”
Nowhere does the youth show up more for the Spitfires than on defence where the club dressed seven on Thursday and five of them are in their rookie season.
“We don’t have guys on the back end that can play 25-30 minutes a game,” Letowski said. “We don’t have that luxury anymore. It’s by committee. Good, solid, simple hockey and that’s how we’re going to have to try to manufacture wins.”
The more experienced Sting took full advantage of the situation and pressured the young group and forced several turnovers.
Ang, in his first game with Sarnia, got behind the Windsor defence to open the scoring for the Sting.
Drake Rymsha converted Sarnia’s first power-play chance after rookie defenceman Nathan Staios was called for slashing, and Pezzetta pushed the lead to 3-0 late in the first period by tipping home a point shot with 20 seconds left in the period with his first goal in his first game with the Sting.
“That team, they feed off turnovers, and we were kind of our own worst enemy at times,” Purboo said. “We were turning over the puck too much and that was them getting offence and us not getting offence. “Those goals at the start showed we can kind of be our own enemy.”
Dineen snuck in from the point to score 55 seconds into the third period and stretch the lead to 4-0 as all three newcomers found the back of the net in their first game with the Sting.
Newcomer Cedric Schiemenz helped to finally get the Spitfires on the board. The German forward, who was picked up on re-entry waivers earlier this week, forced a turnover that Curtis Douglas eventually converted, but the Sting countered with a goal from Jordan Ernst just 81 seconds later to go up 5-1 after two periods.
“I think we were the better team halfway through the second period and the third period,” Schiemenz said.
The Spitfires did push back in the third period with two-unanswered goals as rookie Daniel D’Amico and Purboo, on a power play, got Windsor to within a pair of goals.
But before Letowski could pull goalie Mikey DiPietro for an extra attacker, Staios put a puck over the boards in the final two minutes for a delay-of-game penalty and Windsor was forced to kill the penalty to the final buzzer.
“I was happy with how the young kids played,” Purboo said. “We won the third period, so we showed some promise. They definitely have a good team, but when we work hard we can be up there with them.”