SPITFIRES GET SHOT DOWN BY ANOTHER CONFERENCE LEADER
With loss to Saginaw, Windsor now 0-6 since the deadline against top three teams
The Windsor Spitfires have been unable to find a breakthrough win since the landscape changed in the Western Conference. The top four teams in the conference loaded up prior to last month’s deadline. While the Spitfires still hope to be a playoff team, the club has not been able to find a win against any of those four top teams since the deadline.
The struggles continued on Thursday with a 4-1 loss to the Saginaw Spirit before a crowd of 3,515 at the WFCU Centre. For Windsor, the club is now 0-6 since the deadline against the Spirit, London Knights and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. The club has not faced Guelph Storm since the deadline, but has lost both meetings to London, once to the Greyhounds and now three-straight to the Spirit after beating Saginaw in the first three meetings between the two clubs this season.
“I think we have the talent to beat one of the big dogs,” Spitfires captain Luke Boka said. “It’s just going to take a lot of detail.” Early in the season, the Spitfires twice put seven goals on the scoreboard against the Spirit, but Windsor has just five goals in the past three meetings between the two teams and head coach Trevor Letowski juggled his lines before Thursday’s match. “We’ve had that top six together for a big chunk of time — and just felt a little bit stale and it was time to make a little change,” Letowski said.
But it didn’t have the desired result for a Windsor team that has lost three straight games and has produced just five goals over that stretch.
“We had a lot of Grade A chances,” said Boka, whose team held a 32-28 edge in shots. “We do need to get more pucks and bodies to the net, but their goalie (Ivan Prosvetov) played a great game. They’ll start going in soon.” Cole Coskey got the Spirit on the board first with the only goal of the opening period. His shot from the point, during a Saginaw power play, went off Windsor forward Chris Playfair and then hit teammate Sean Allen before bouncing past goalie Kari Piiroinen.
“It’s tough on the penalty kill,” Boka said. “You’re working so hard they just get a lucky one and it changes the momentum a bit.” Windsor got caught on a long shift and Brady Gilmour pushed the Saginaw lead to 2-0 after two periods.
“I liked our response,” Boka said.
Rookie Jean-Luc Foudy’s power-play goal got Windsor to within 2-1 just 73 seconds into the final period.
“We got it to 2-1 and we were pushing them a bit,” Letowski said.
But penalties would undo the comeback effort. Coskey scored his second of the game just over four minutes later on the power play to put the Spirit up 3-1. “I don’t think taking six penalties is going to get it done,” Boka said. “It was a really tough way to lose it. We need to tight it up.” Damien Giroux closed the scoring for the Spirit, who moved to within two points of Sault Ste.
Marie for top spot in the West Division while the Spitfires have now lost eight of the team’s last nine games and sit just fourpoints up on Erie for the final playoff spot in the conference. “I think we’re playing better than our record shows,” Letowski said.
“We’ve played a lot of the better teams over the last month, but we’ve got to get going now. The good news is, with 15 games left, we only play the Sault twice and Guelph once.”