MacDougall denting the twines for Spitfires

Saturday home win over Firebirds avenges Friday night defeat to Flint

Matthew MacDougall is giving a much-needed boost to the Windsor Spitfires’ offence.

The 18-year-old MacDougall extended his goal-scoring streak to three games on Saturday to help the Spitfires to a 6-3 win over the Flint Firebirds before a crowd of 4,165 at the WFCU Centre. “I think I just kind of felt a little more comfortable with shooting the puck,” said MacDougall, who has five points in his last four games.

“I went on a little bit of a drought (seven games without a goal) and I thought the only way to kind of get out of it was try to shoot the puck.

“I went into games with the mindset to try and get as many pucks on net and they’ll start going in and it’s been working so far.” A day after losing to Flint, which has the worst record in the Ontario Hockey League, the Spitfires were looking for a bounce-back effort, but took two early penalties that allowed the Firebirds to open the scoring on a power-play goal by Eric Uba.

“The way the game started, it was kind of a nightmare start for us,” Spitfires head coach Trevor Letowski said.

Unlike Friday’s loss, the Spitfires were able to get even by the end of the first period on Saturday with MacDougall providing the goal.

“I think a lot of players would look to be able do that and that’s one of my goals to try get a few more points because, if I’m playing well and getting points, I think I’m helping my team as much as possible,” MacDougall said. The game would go back and forth with six goals scored in the second period. Uba’s second goal of the game put Flint up 2-1, but the Spitfires got goals from rookie Will Cuylle and defenceman Connor Corcoran to take a 3-2 lead. Ryan Bangs tied it for Flint one last time before MacDougall assisted on Luke Kutkevicius’ power play goal to put the Spitfires up 4-3 an Cole Purboo’s short-handed goal giving the Spitfires a twogoal lead after two periods. “Now, suddenly he’s got seven goals in 25 games and on pace for close to 20 and that’s what we need from him now to continue to do that,” Letowski said of MacDougall.

“We’re happy with him. I thought he played real well and scored a big goal again.” Second-year defenceman Louka Henault scored his first Ontario Hockey League goal to close the scoring in he third period. “We had a couple of long meetings (Saturday), but the game of hockey, you never know,” Letowski said.

“It was important that we just continued to play through, play 60 minutes and try to play the right way and hopefully, at the end of the day, get rewarded. It’s not going to be a smooth ride and sure enough it wasn’t.”

PLAYFAIR SIDELINED

For the second time in a week, the Spitfires lost a centre to injury. Chris Playfair was in concussion protocol after taking a stick in the face from Flint’s Riley McCourt in the third period.

Playfair, who is Windsor’s top faceoff man, was bleeding from the mouth and lost a tooth from the collision, where no penalty was called.

Last Saturday, the Spitfires lost centre Tyler Angle to a knee injury after he was cross-checked from behind in a game against Saginaw.

Overage centre Luke Kutkevicius picked up a goal and an assist on Saturday while playing in his 200th OHL game.

“It was nice,” said the 20-yearold Kutkevicius, who was a second-round pick by Mississauga in 2014. “Lucky bounce on the power play (goal), but gave one to Purbs (Purboo) and he buried it,” Kutkevicius said.