The Windsor Spitfires still have a chance for Memorial Cup glory, despite playing like a team ready to go home.
A 2-1 victory over Kelowna Tuesday night means that the Spitfires won't be checking out of their hotel early. They'll stick around for Thursday's tie-breaker game against the loser of the final opening-round contest between Drummonville and the host Oceanic.
How Windsor might do in that tie-break and any games that might come, well, your guess is as good as mine.
Still, for 35 minutes in their tilt against the Rockets Tuesday night, the Spitfires looked nothing like the team that rolled to an Ontario Hockey League title and, but for a few players and a few moments, they looked nothing like a threat for the Memorial Cup championship. For 35 minutes, they looked like a team that could have made plans for a post-season banquet in Windsor this weekend. In those 35 minutes the Spitfires had tested Rockets goaltender Mark Guggenberger as many times as they tripped him: once.
The trip came midway through the first period when Taylor Hall, indisputably the most talented forward in the Spitfires' line-up, applied his stick to Guggenberger's skates on a fly-by forecheck in clear view of the officials and everyone in attendance at the Colisee. A penalty and seemingly a cry for help.
The test came with about four minutes to go in the first frame. Greg Nemisz, maybe the most earnest workmen among Windsor's corps of forwards, knocked towering d-man Tyler Myers off the puck and walked in on Guggenberger alone. Effort and anticipation unrewarded.
The Spitfires had played less than their usual game in their first two opening-round tilts, one-goal losses to Drummondville and Rimouski on the weekend. Down 1-0 to Kelowna after 35 minutes, Windsor looked like a team that deserved to go home, like a team that had no business at the Memorial Cup.
Then the Spitfires found their legs and with them a life in this tournament.
It started not with a goal, not with a big hit, not even with a Gipper speech from coach Bob Boughner. As unlikely as it sounds, it started with Hall ringing a shot off the iron with about five minutes to go in the second period. Hall cut through the slot with the puck and had Guggenberger going the wrong way. All G-berg could do was wave and hope. The latter worked out for him, but only for the moment.
A minute later Adam Henrique threw a shot on net and it trickled over the goalline. Hall was credited with the goal but the last man it hit was Kelowna defenceman Tyson Barrie (whose father Len is a former NHL d-man and current part-owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning).
Back on level terms the Spitfires' work rate picked up considerably. No, they weren't the team that peppered OHL goaltenders with a shot a minute. At game's end they had but 17 shots on Guggenberger, not even a period's worth of work in Windsor's run through the OHL. Still, they won the game on a goal by defenceman Ryan Ellis with 16 minutes to go and the third period on balance. It was just a one-goal margin but the Spitfires weren't much threatened after Ellis's goal. They had a long 5-on-3 powerplay (6-on-3 for a stretch during a delayed penalty). They owned the puck and the shot clock (14-4 in the third, 34-17 for the game). They displayed confidence not seen since they boarded the bus last week.
Around the arena yesterday the conventional wisdom was that Windsor was likely to prevail over the Rockets who had already clinched a berth in Sunday's final. A team playing for its life should trump a team, no matter how excellent, that has nothing to gain. That's what it looked like. Not quite the reality.
In fact the Rockets had a chance to knock Windsor out of the tournament and they had reason to think that, the tournament standings notwithstanding, the Spitfires might present the toughest challenge to them in the final.
I know it sounds far-fetched, a run of four wins for Windsor to take the championship, but last week a lot of smart money here would have bet that the Spitfires would go four-and-oh for a tournament victory. Now Windsor is two wins away from the final, two wins over teams that beat the Spitfires by the narrowest of margins.
The Spitfires got their game together in time... barely. Ryan Ellis talked about the team being "shell-shocked" by the losses to the Quebec league teams. And he said that the team was "pretty shaken up" in the run-up to the Kelowna tilt. "We definitely play anything close to our best hockey in our first two games," Ellis said. And last night. Ellis said that his team-mates "stepped up" but he also allowed that the Spitfires aren't playing anything close to their best hockey.
Last night there were some indications that Windsor can make the final at the very least. The best sign: Andrew Engelage gave up one goal, Kyle St Denis's deflection of a point shot by Tyler Myers, and was otherwise steady. The level of goaltending has been so indifferent here that he might be the best of the lot. (Going into last night's game the tournament's best save percentage, a middling .901, belonged to Rimouski's Maxim Gougeon.)
Hall, despite three brutal minor penalties, had his best game for as long as he stayed on the ice. His body language looked better.
Ditto Ellis. When the Spitfires fell behind, Ellis, aggressive and creative enough at his default setting, turned the dial up to 10 by chasing his own dump-ins and jumping up to join the rush.
A few Spitfires are still looking to find their form, including but not limited to forwards Dale Mitchell and Andrei Loktionov.
"Our two strengths are our defensive play and our physical play," defenceman Harry Young, the team's captain, said after the game. "We're not looking past our next game. We can't."
And they shouldn't. No matter how the Drummondville-Rimouski game turns out Wednesday night, the Spitfires are looking at two "road" games in pretty hostile confines to make it to the final. Maybe they thought it was going to be easy. It won't be. They have reason to still think it's doable.
