Spitfires lose to last-place Wolves
Windsor blows chance to rise in standings with loss to Sudbury
With points precious and the season winding down, the Windsor Spitfires can ill afford to miss an opportunity.
That’s what the young club did on Thursday by allowing an early two-goal lead to slip away to a team that came in with the worst record in the Ontario Hockey League. A 4-3 loss to the Sudbury Wolves, before 4,232 at the WFCU Centre, prevented the Spitfires from moving into sole possession of sixth place in the Western Conference. “I think, with our group, there was a little bit of complacency that set in and I would say that was probably the most disappointed I’ve been in this group after the (trade) deadline,” Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski said. “We had nothing going tonight.” Windsor looked poised to make it a business-like performance, jumping out to a 2-0 lead less than five minutes into the game as Mathew MacDougall and Curtis Douglas gave the Spitfires an early edge. “I think that was great,” Spitfires alternate captain Luke Boka said. “A 2-0 lead, what more could you ask for?”
The Spitfires seemed to shut down from there. Sudbury had 11 of the period’s final 12 shots and got goals from Drake Pilon and Liam Ross, in the final minute, to tie the game at 2-2 after 20 minutes. “We just didn’t keep building on it and gave them a chance to crawl back,” Boka said. “Instead of stepping on their throat and not giving them any air to breathe, we let them skate around us.” Windsor continued to struggle to find a rhythm in the second period and Pilon scored his second to put the Wolves up 3-2 after 40 minutes.
“It seemed like we didn’t have much structure,” Boka said. “We weren’t managing pucks the right way. It’s a missed opportunity. We all knew what was at stake in this game.”
The hunger Letowski had been searching for all game finally appeared early in the third period. Windsor matched its first-period shot total of four in the first 84 seconds.
Boka appeared to have the equalizer, but the play went to review to see if it was offside.
After a lengthy discussion with the booth and refs Ben Wilson and Joe Monette and linesmen Dustin McCrank and Chris Chapman, not only was the goal disallowed, but the Spitfires ended up shorthanded.
The goal wasn’t offside, but William Sirman’s stick apparently clipped Sudbury’s David Levin in the face on the faceoff at the start of the shift nearly a minute before the goal.
Letowski said McCrank said he could not blow the whistle to call the penalty and had to wait for a whistle to inform the refs. “I’m pretty sure the linesman’s supposed to blow it down right away,” Letowski said. “I’ve never seen that; a goal comeback for a penalty. When it’s four minutes and a guy’s injured, it’s supposed to be blown right away.” Windsor killed off the penalties, but the momentum from early in
the period disappeared and Nolan Hutcheson made it a 4-2 Sudbury lead.
“It was disappointing, but nothing we can do about it,” Boka said of the goal being called back. “I’ve never seen it before, but we still needed, after that, to regroup and try and comeback and we couldn’t get it done.”
Luke Kutkevicius made it a onegoal game with just over five minutes to play in the third period, but Windsor could not produce the equalizer.
“We had nothing going tonight,” Letowski said. “Nobody was (graded) above average. Most of the guys were not going and when that happens, we’re not good enough to win.”