Vail accidentally tips in winning goal for Colts
BARRIE – Brady Vail’s hard work was met with punishment instead of a reward Saturday.
The Windsor Spitfires’ veteran centre flew off the bench late in the game to try and break up an odd-man rush by the Barrie Colts.
He got back in time to get his stick a cross-ice pass attempt by Barrie’s Andrew Magiapane, but watched helplessly as the puck deflected off his stick and over the blocker of Windsor goalie Alex Fotinos and into the net.
That would be the game-winning goal as the Colts held on for a 4-3 win over the Spitfires before 3,819 at the Molson Centre.
“It felt like a bad dream,” the 19-year-old Vail said. “It couldn’t have been more perfect into the net.”
Seconds before, Josh HoSang had sent Brody Milne and Trevor Murphy in two-on-none, but Murphy’s shot was turned away by Barrie goalie Mackenzie Blackwood.
That created the odd-man rush the other way for Barrie that Vail thought he had gotten back to break up.
“I came back and tried to deflect it into the corner,” Vail said.
Windsor got Fotinos to the bench for an extra attacker with just under two minutes to play and stormed the Barrie zone, but they were unable to get the equalizer past Blackwood, who made 52 saves.
“It’s a bad break,” Spitfires head coach Bob Boughner said of the game-winning goal.
“I thought we deserved better.
“We didn’t play great, but we had 55 shots on net, we outchanced them ( 21- 17) in their building and played well enough to win on the road.”
Windsor posted a seasonhigh 27 shots in the opening period, but had nothing to show for it as the Colts grabbed a 1-0 lead on Magiapane’s first goal of the game.
“I thought we opened it up a little too much in the first period,” Boughner said.
Rookie Chris Cobham pulled the Spitfires even with his first Ontario Hockey League goal and first point of the season in 21 games.
“It’s definitely a monkey off my back,” said the 17-year-old Cobham, who was a 10th-round pick by the club in 2012. “It was a good time to get it to get the guys going.”
Mangiapane scored on a Barrie power play to put the Colts up again, but Windsor answered with a power-play goal of its own just 24 seconds later to tie the game at 2-2 after two periods.
Originally, the goal was given to Slater Koekkoek, but was changed on review with Ben Johnson redirecting the shot in.
Brendan Lemieux put the Colts up again at 3-2 in the third period, but the Spitfires countered on a goal by Cristiano DiGiacinto.
“We should have won that game,” said Vail, who had two assists