Memories of Howe for D’Amico

Gordie Howe played his final NHL game more than two decades before Daniel D’Amico was even born.

Still, the Windsor Spitfires rookie couldn’t help but acknowledge his feat after Saturday’s game against the Flint Firebirds.

“My first Gordie Howe trick,” the 17-year-old D’Amico said after picking up a goal, an assist and his first OHL fight in a 4-2 win by the Spitfires before 4,288 at Dort Federal Event Center.

With a roster infused with so many young faces, the Spitfires have the fewest fighting majors in the OHL this season with just seven, but Saturday marked the first time the club had two fights in the same game and both were by rookies.

First it was five-foot-11, 183-pound Cody Morgan, who was a first-round pick by Kingston last year and is known more for his offence, squaring off against six-foot-three, 207-pound Marcus Gretz. “I thought he did all right,” said Spitfires over-age defenceman Zach Shankar, who has 281 penalty minutes in 218 OHL games. Then, it was the five-foot-nine, 178-pound D’Amico going up against six-foot-one, 181-pound Hunter Holmes and landing two major right hands in the bout. “I thought D’Amico had maybe his best game of the season (and) Morgan was real good,” Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski said. Saturday’s performance was a huge bounce back game for the Spitfires after the club suffered its worst loss of the season at home in a 9-2 loss to the Owen Sound Attack. “We had a good video day (on Friday),” Spitfires goalie Mike DiPietro said. “You never like losing that badly, especially at home in front of your fans. It’s definitely a disappointment. It needed to be addressed and then needed to be quickly forgotten about.” D’Amico was honest in his assessment of what went wrong against an older and more experienced Owen Sound team: “We were trying our hardest, but the game was so quick.”

Against the Firebirds, the Spitfires carried a 1-0 lead into the third period on Jake Smith’s goal in the second period, but needed a late push to pull out the win. “They’ve proven they can beat anybody,” Letowski said of the Firebirds. “We knew it would be a big test.”

Ethen Keppen tied it for Flint, but Igor Larionov answered to put the Spitfires up for good just 39 seconds later. D’Amico scored the eventual game-winning goal on a power play and assisted on Cole Purboo’s insurance goal to put Windsor up 4-1 before Holmes closed the scoring for Flint in the final minute.