Spitfires stung by Sting in Sarnia, lose 6-3
Windsor product and Sting forward has five points over two games against Spits
SARNIA Windsor native Anthony Salinitri loves to face his hometown team and he’s been a real problem for the Spitfires this season.
The 19-year-old Salinitri had three goals on Friday to rally the Sarnia Sting to a 6-3 win over the Spitfires before 3,383 at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
“Every time we play Windsor, it’s exciting,” said Salinitri, who was a former first-round pick by Sault Ste. Marie and traded to the Sting in 2015. “Growing up there and watching the Spits ever since I was a kid and dreaming of playing in the OHL.”
Salinitri, who is an NHL pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, now has four goals and five points in two games this season against the Spitfires and the game-winning goal in both games.
“Their team has a lot of skill,” Spitfires forward Cole Purboo said. “We tried to neutralize them as much as possible, but hats off to them. They played a good game and experience came out on top.”
While the score was identical to Thursday’s loss to the Owen Sound Attack, the effort was a marked improvement against the Sting, who are the No. 1 ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League.
“I was happy with the game, to be honest,” Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski said. “We played a real good road game and prob- ably deserved better. I thought we outchanced them and, for the most part, deserved a better fate.
“If you look at the boxscore, it doesn’t look good, but it was much better. I was happy with the response and this team continues to do that. The few we haven’t played well, we’ve followed it up with a good effort and that makes me real happy.”
Salinitri’s power-play goal had the Sting up early, but Logan Brown and William Sirman answered to give the Spitfires a 2-1 lead after the first period.
“It was a way better team game,” Purboo said. “We’re pretty happy with our effort and we wanted to make sure we had a good game after what happened (Thursday).”
Windsor came into the game without Igor Larionov ( knee) and Daniel D’Amico (shoulder), who were both hurt in Thursday’s loss, and recalled forward Jordan Frasca, who was the team’s seventh-
round pick in April’s draft, from junior B Chatham.
The club also left goalie Mikey DiPietro back in Windsor to rest after playing four games in the last seven days.
That put rookie Brock Baier between the pipes for his third start of the season, which have all come on the road, and looking for his first win.
Hugo Leufvenius, on a partial breakaway, and Salinitri beat him in the second period to put the Sting up 3-2.
Aaron Luchuk’s power-play goal early in the third period got the Spitfires even one final time, but Salinitri and Jordan Ernst countered to put the Sting up 5-3 and Letowski replaced Baier with Lucas Patton.
“Disappointed with the goaltending,” said Letowski, who saw Baier allow five goals on 26 shots.
Jordan Kyrou completed the scoring for the Sting, who won for just the second time in the club’s last six games.
“I thought we did a good job bouncing back,” said Salinitri, who now had 11 goals and 19 points in 16 games against the Spitfires with Sarnia.