Spitfires settle for single point in dropping back-to-back road games

The Windsor Spitfires had hoped for so much more.

Battling to get back into the playoff picture in the Western Conference, the Spitfires settled for a single point in a two-game road trip. The Spitfires dropped a 5-2 decision on Sunday in St. Catharines to the Niagara IceDogs, who have the worst record in the OHL. That followed a 4-3 shootout loss to the Erie Otters, who sits seventh in the conference, on Saturday.

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“For sure, every game we go into we’re trying to win, but we’re not getting too far ahead of ourselves,” Spitfires’ interim head coach Casey Torres said. “I thought we played a very good game in Erie, it went to a shootout and we performed well (scoring twice on three attempts), but they performed a little better (by going three-for-three).

“Coming in against a (Niagara) team we have no reason to take any team lightly and I don’t know that we did, but we got off to a slow start. We got behind and then you’re chasing and when you chase it’s hard to be successful.”

Windsor sits five-points back of Flint for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference with a game in hand. However, with the OHL trade deadline looming on Wednesday, both Flint and Sarnia, which sits two points up on Windsor, moved veteran players out on the weekend ahead of the deadline.

“I think a lot has been going on in the OHL, but everyone has been able to keep their head down and keep working,” Spitfires’ forward Liam Greentree said.

Windsor is also expected to deal before the deadline and Torres thinks that might be playing on the mind of some players at this point.

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“It could for sure,” Torres said. “There’s a lot of rumours going around. You’d be lying to think it’s not playing in certain people, but it’s out of your control.

“If it happens, it happens and you just have execute, as player or a coach, the  best you can and when it shakes down in the next the couple days, it shakes out. Stressing won’t change things, but I get it.”

Mike Levin, Ryan Roobroeck and Zakary Lavoie had the IceDogs up 3-0 just over eight minutes into the second period.

“Our first 10 minutes of game was not the way we want to play or how we’ve played in recent games,” said Torres, who has guided the team to an 8-5-2-1 record since being named interim head coach. “Some sloppiness led to some goals.”

Greentree’s power-play goal finally got Windsor on the board before the end of the second period and Josef Eichler made it a one-goal game with more than 11 minutes to play in the third period.

That’s as close as Windsor got with Levin netting his second of the game just 29 seconds after Eichler’s goal. Mathieu Paris added an insurance goal for the IceDogs, who held a 45-38 edge in shots and ended Windsor’s stretch of at least a point in six-straight games (4-0-2-0).

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“We got it to 3-2 and I thought the game was tipping in our direction and and then we give up a goal on our next shift and that’s a back breaker,” Torres said.

In a back-and-forth game on Saturday, Andrei Molnar had the Otters up early, but Ryan Abraham and Eichler countered to put the Spitfires up 2-1 after 20 minutes.

Sam Alfano and Malcolm Spence sandwiched Erie goals around one from Windsor’s Owen Outwater to tie the game at 3-3 after 40 minutes.

After a scoreless third period and overtime, Molnar, Spence and Dylan Edwards all scored in the shootout to win it for the Otters with Greentree and Cole Davis scoring shootout goals for Windsor.

“Of course, these were two games that we should’ve come out on top of, but it’s important for us, as a team, to look forward to the next game,” said Greentree, who will be back in acton on Wednesday with the Spitfires against the Saginaw Spirit in a 7:05 p.m. game at the WFCU Centre.

Injuries sideline two

Outwater sat out Sundays’ game in Niagara after suffering an upper-body injury during Saturday’s game.

As well, forward Ethan Martin did not make the road trip after suffering an upper-body injury against Flint.

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“We’ve been lucky with the injury bug, but it’s certainly hit us and hopefully neither is too serious,” Torres said. “They’ll be re-evaluated this week.”

jpparker@postmedia.com

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Game Summaries

Sunday Result

IceDogs 5 Spitfires 2

Windsor 0 1 1 – 2

Niagara 1 2 2 – 5

First period: 1. Niagara, Levin 13 (Bryant) 5:04. Penalties: Woodall W (roughing), Stewart N (roughing) 3:47, Abraham W (hooking) 13:25, Klein N (closing hand on puck) 17:23. 

Second period: 2. Niagara, Roobroeck 12 (He, Podrekar) 1:41, 3. Niagara, Lavoie 13 (Galiyanov, Vermeuelen) 8:08, 4. Windsor, Greentree 23 (Zhugin, Peer) 17:51 (pp). Penalty: Czata N (tripping) 17:43.

Third period: 5. Windsor, Eichler 3 (Abraham, Greentree) 8:47, 6. Niagara, Levin 14 (Klein, Bryant) 9:16, 7. Niagara, Paris 7 (He, Podrekar) 14:04. Penalties: None.

Game stats – SOG – Windsor 11 15 12 – 38 Niagara 16 12 17 – 45 Goal (shots-saves) – Windsor: Costanzo (L,7-13-1-0) (45-40). Niagara: Flores (W,7-14-3-1) (38-36). Power play (goals-chances) – Windsor 1-2. Niagara 0-1. Referees: Brent Coulombe (22) and Connor Mallon (7). Linesmen: Joe Kielbowich (78) and Tristan Peacock (93). Att.: 3,872 at the Meridian Centre.

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Saturday Result

Otters 4 Spitfires 3 (SO)

Windsor 2 1 0 0 0 – 3

Erie 1 2 0 0 1– 4

First period: 1. Erie, Molnar 12 (Sova, Fimps) 4:53, 2. Windsor, Abraham 13 (Greentree, Maillet) 11:19, 3. Windsor, Eichler 2 (Monceau, Mancini) 19:05. Penalty: Peer W (tripping) 16:18. 

Second period: 4. Erie, Salfano 12 (Molnar, Schaefer) 3:38, 5. Windsor, Outwater 4 (Nesbitt, Spellacy) 3:55, 6. Erie, Spence 9 (Daviault, Bressette) 12:25. Penalties: Outwater W (roughing), Daviault E (roughing) 8:45, Abraham W (hooking) 16:22, Spence E (hooking) 18:17. 

Third period: No scoring. Penalty: Eichler W (cross checking) 6:51.

Overtime: No scoring. Penalties: None.

Shootout: For Windsor: Greentree (goal), Davis (goal) and Maillet (no goal). For Erie: Molnar (goal), Spence (goal) and Edwards (goal).

Game stats – SOG – Windsor 12 9 11 1 – 33 Erie 13 8 11 5 – 38 Goal (shots-saves) – Windsor: Michelone (L,5-7-2-1) (37-34). Erie: Gaudreau (W,18-10-2-0) (33-30). Power play (goals-chances) – Windsor 0-1. Erie 0-3. Referees: Brendan Kane (13) and Aaron Neely (15). Linesmen: Brian Birkhoff (91) and Joe Kielbowich (78). Att.: 3,881 at Erie Insurance Arena.

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