Spits slam brakes on losing skid
It was a welcome ray of hope for a very young Windsor Spitfires squad.
After dealing veterans for youth and draft picks at the Ontario Hockey League trade deadline, the Spitfires had lost five-straight games with its newlook roster.
That skid came to an end on Sunday with a 1-0 win over the Flint Firebirds before 4,871 at the WFCU Centre.
“I think it’s good for us to get our first win,” said 16-year-old defenceman Grayson Ladd, who came over in a Jan. 9 deal with Kitchener and got his first with the Spitfires. “Now, you’ve got it off your back. You’ve got one and you just keep rolling from there.”
Losing has a way of wearing on a young team and the confidence level drops with each defeat.
“You start believing that you’re too young and you’re not supposed to win and you get complacent with the efforts,” Spitfires goalie Mikey DiPietro said. “We approached (Sunday) like it was the biggest game of the year and everyone did their part. It’s definitely a big sigh of relief.”
The Spitfires wore special jerseys in support of the Fight Like Mason Foundation in honour Mason Bacon-Macri, who passed away in 2016 at the age of four from Rhabdomyosarcoma cancer.
DiPietro also wore special goalie pads and gloves for the game and used them to make 32 saves for his league-leading fourth shutout of the season and extend his club record career total to 12.
While he might be tempted to hold onto the gear after the performance, DiPietro was planning to donate them to parents Chantelle Bacon and Iain Macri.
“I’m thinking of maybe giving them to Mason’s parents and have them (put them up for auction) because you need a raffle license,” DiPietro said.
No team in the league leans on its goaltending for success more than the Spitfires. But while DiPietro was strong, his teammates also picked up their game.
“We’re a young team, so we have to outwork teams that have more skill than us,” Ladd said. “I think we outworked them and Mikey played well.”
Cole Purboo scored his first goal in five games less than four minutes into the contest as he circled the net and roofed a shot over Flint goalie Luke Cavallin, who made 35 saves.
“This is the biggest game that we’ve played as a group and to be honest I didn’t love the first period,” said Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski, whose team was outshot 13-7 in the first 20 minutes. “I thought we were a little bit flat.”
Windsor got stronger as the game went on and outshot Flint 29-19 over the final two periods, but neither team could find the back of the net.
“We’re still having trouble scoring goals, but we’re doing the right things and just stick with it and hopefully we can generate a little bit more,” said Letowski, whose team has scored seven goals in the last five games. “If we’re going to win games, it’s going to be those type of games. We’re going to have to play well as a group defensively and grind out.”
The win also allowed the Spitfires to move into a tie with Saginaw for the fifth seed in the Western Conference and go 15-points up on ninth-place Erie, which is outside of the playoff picture.
“We’re telling them about habits,” Letowski said. “It gets harder when you’re not getting any results to show for it. When they get a hard-fought win, I think it helps us as coaches. They can believe a little bit more.”