Spitfires fall 5-4 to visiting Colts

Former Spitfire captain traded to Colts nets three assists and scores game-winner in OT

The captain was indeed fantastic.

Well, make that former captain as Aaron Luchuk made his final game at the WFCU Centre a memorable one.

The former Windsor Spitfires captain scored the game-winning goal in overtime and added three assists to lead the Barrie Colts to a 5-4 win before a crowd of 4,763 at the rink where he scored the game-winning goal at the Memorial Cup less than nine months ago.

“Nothing about this feels right, but at the same time it does,” said Luchuk, who spent parts of five seasons with the Spitfires before being traded to the Colts in December.

“It was a special night and I don’t think you could end a fairy tale better than to finish it off that way (in) my last game here. I don’t think you can ask for more.”

After the Spitfires battled back to force extra time, Luchuk got the puck behind the Windsor net and patiently waited before working his way into the slot and beating Spitfires goalie Mikey DiPietro for the winner.

“For me, it’s hard to explain how good that goal felt,” Luchuk said. “I don’t have any bad feelings towards this team at all or this organization, but it definitely felt good to get that one.”

Much of Thursday’s game was spent celebrating Luchuk’s time in Windsor. There was a highlight video of his time with the Spitfires before the game and, while he doesn’t wear a letter for the Colts, he took the ceremonial faceoff with former linemate Luke Boka.

“It was an incredible video,” Luchuk said. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to coming back here. Definitely a little choked up seeing all those memories, Memorial Cup especially.”

But once the game started, Luchuk continued his breakout offensive season that earned him a free-agent contract with the NHL’s Ottawa Senators.

“I’ve got a pretty good setup in Barrie,” Luchuk said.

After Luke Kutkevicius got Windsor on the board just 71 seconds into the game, Luchuk assisted on goals by Dmitry Sokolov and Lucas Chiodo to put the Colts up. Jake Smith got Windsor even with a goal with 34 seconds left in the period, but the Colts dominated play with a 12-3 edge in shots.

“I thought they came out in the first and really pushed us,” Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski said.

“I thought we were very fortunate to be tied there.”

Windsor responded with a much stronger second period and William Sirman gave the Spitfires a 3-2 lead only to see Sokolov tie it at 3-3 after 40 minutes.

“I thought we showed a lot,” Letowski said.

Luchuk assisted on a Jason Willms goal to put Barrie up 4-3 and retake the OHL scoring lead, but the Spitfires got a goal from former Colts prospect Mathew MacDougall to force overtime where Luchuk ended it.

“We got a big point against a really good team,” Letowski said. “Not perfect, but we had some good efforts (and) when (Luchuk) gets the puck on his stick in overtime like that and we give him time like that, it’s going to go. Sure enough, he made us pay. We’ve seen that before.”

While players left the ice, Luchuk stayed at centre and raised his stick to the crowd before pausing at the bench one final time to look around before exiting the ice.

“It was a little bit for myself,” Luchuk said of the moment. “I wanted to take one last moment on the ice. It’s going to be the last time skating in a game (in Windsor).

“It was one last moment for me and the fans, but also for me to look around and take in all the good five years I was here.”