HOME ISN’T SWEET FOR SPITFIRES
Playoff hopes hang by fingertips following poor home ice effort against Peterborough
Four straight home games were supposed to provide the Windsor Spitfires with an opportunity to gain some momentum in the team’s push for a playoff spot and beyond.
Instead, the club’s hold on the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference remains tenuous after the Peterborough Petes handed Windsor its third loss in the four games by a 5-1 count on Thursday before a crowd of 3,881 at the WFCU Centre.
“It’s a huge advantage playing at home,” Spitfires rookie Will Cuylle said. “I think it’s frustrating to lose in front of fans like that. We didn’t capitalize on the home games. Now things change with couple of road trips.” One of those three losses came in overtime, which gives the team three of a possible eight points over the four-game home stretch, but the Spitfires are clinging to a three-point lead over the Erie Otters, who have two games in hand. Windsor has just seven games left on the schedule. “We obviously know it’s crunch time and there’s a team behind us on our tail, but a (Sarnia) team in front we want to catch,” Spitfires defenceman Nathan Staios said. “We have to find in ourselves a way to pull the same rope together.”
It was another solid opening period for the Spitfires, who held an 11-3 edge in shots, but needed a power-play goal late in the period to tie the game at 1-1. Nick Robertson got the Petes up first with a shot over the blocker of Spitfires goalie Colton Inze, but Cuylle came back with a power-play goal against the team that took him third overall in last year’s OHL Draft.
“It’s just another goal,” Cuylle, who shares the team lead with 25, said of scoring against the Petes. “I was just trying to get the puck on net. It was a one-goal game and that got us back in it.” But the Spitfires would never lead in the game. Windsor produced just a single shot in the first 10 minutes of the second period and Chad Denault jumped on a turnover by the Spitfires for the only goal of the second period to put the Petes up 2-1 after 40 minutes. “We just didn’t play good enough,” Staios said. The dagger came on a Windsor play in the third period when the Spitfires turned it over at the blue line and Denault got this second of the game to make it 3-1. “That 3-1 goal kind of hurt us,” Letowski said. “In general, I would say we’re pretty resilient when we get down, but not tonight. We got down and there was not a lot of pushback. We kind of went away.” Already playing with a short roster, the Spitfires went down to four defencemen when Sean Allen was given a game misconduct by referee Jason Faist for an on-ice comment in the third period.
The Petes added late goals from Christopher Paquette and Liam Kirk to finish things off and sweep the season series against the Spitfires despite being outshot 30-19 in the game.
“I thought we played well offensively,” Cuylle said. “We had around 30 shots and it’s frustrating to only get one. “What’s going though our head is trying to stay positive. The goals haven’t shown it, but there’s been some good chemistry.”