While professional opinion holds that the Spitfires are a team built to win next season, they sure are making believers in the here and now.
RIMOUSKI -- A lot of hockey fans thought the Windsor Spitfires were the favourites coming into Memorial Cup.
The Spitfires weren’t just the Ontario League champions but also the highest-ranked of the four teams playing for a national title. All season long Windsor and Calgary had gone back and forth in the top two slots of the CHL’s order of merit.
The Spitfires were the most hyped team, what with Don Cherry filing formal adoption papers for a waif from Kingston, Taylor Hall, the sublimely skilled Windsor forward who’s projected as the top pick in the 2010 NHL draft. That’s how it played with the public and the media.
A lot of NHL scouts however voiced reservations. They saw trouble for the Spitfires because they were the youngest team in the tournament. They figured that too many of their best players lacked the experience to deal with adversity. That the world juniors is a 19-year-old tournament has been accepted as fact for some time now -- underagers, no matter how talented, are up against it when in with the tough international field.
The same theory applies to the Memorial Cup. Maybe even more so.
That makes what the Windsor Spitfires pulled off in their 6-4 victory over Rimouski in the tie-break game Thursday night even more impressive. The Spitfires weren’t just in against a good Oceanic team. They were in against an experienced team.
I’ve written it here before but it bears repeating: Professional opinion holds that Windsor is a team built to win next season, not this year. As good as the Spitfires were during the 2008-09 season they only figured to be better next year. They were so good you could easily forget that they’re so young.
Consider this: Windsor has three ’89 birthdays among the top two lines and two blueline units. Those would be forwards Dale Mitchell and Scott Timmins along with defenceman Harry Young, the team captain. Rimouski had seven 19-year-olds playing big roles. Moreover, the Oceanic had 19-year-olds who brought more to the table than their counterparts on the Spitfires. Among the forwards, Olivier Fortier and Keven Veilleux had played for Canada internationally, Luca Cunti had played for Switzerland and Logan MacMillan had been selected in the first round of the NHL draft. Rimouski’s experience carried back to the blueline: The most prominent of the three 19-year-olds on the Oceanic blueline was Marc-Andre Bourdon who hit everything in sight in the few minutes.
That experience had worked out for Rimouski on Sunday when the host team knocked off Windsor 5-4 in their opening-round game. A lot of licensed watchers of the CHL thought a sequel would bring about a similar result. Experience just has a way of prevailing.
Just on paper the Spitfires were in a tough spot. On the scoreboard after 40 minutes they were in an even tougher one, down 4-2 and, from the looks of it, reeling.
Late in the second period Sebastien Piche set Rimouski’s best player Patrice Cormier on a breakaway and he neatly deked Windsor’s embattled goaltender Andrew Engelage.
Jubilation at the Colisee. Six times in this calendar year the Oceanic carried a two-goal lead into the third period at home and they came away with six wins without benefit of a shootout. Thirteen times they led at the second intermission at home … yup, 13-0.
Then again, none of those wins came against competition as tough as the Spitfires.
It came apart so quickly for the Oceanic that the announcer couldn’t keep up. Dale Mitchell racked up a hat trick in a three-and-a-half-minute stretch not quite halfway through the third period. The first came in a five on five, the latter pair on power plays. Before the announcer in the arena could finish with the details of one goal, Mitchell was pirouetting after the next one.
"We tried to keep it positive," said Greg Nemisz, who scored a power-play goal with a second to go. "We’ve been here before."
Most recently the Spitfires came from a goal down to knock off Kelowna in the final game of the opening round here, a 2-1 win that allowed them to limp into the tie-break game. Even more compelling evidence came in Windsor’s conference-final victory over London. Three times in the five-game series the Spitfires came from two goals down to knock off Tavares & Co.
Yeah, they’re young. They’re also amazingly resilient.
A good power play gives a team, young or old, a chance to make up ground, even as time winds down. Windsor has something better than a "good" power play. MacMillan had the best (and worst) view of it from the penalty box on Mitchell’s winner.
"They move the puck around so well, especially (Ryan) Ellis back at the point," said MacMillan, who had been whistled for a pretty chintzy holding penalty. "They don’t give you a chance to recover. And for sure they don’t quit on you."
Yeah, there’s still reason to think that Windsor will be better next year. The Spitfires will lose their three overagers (defenceman Ben Shutron and Rob Kwiet along with goaltender Andrew Engelage). The destination of their three most prominent 89-birthdays is TBA at this point; just no telling who, if any, would be back as an OA.
Of the 90s, Andrei Loktionov will probably land in L.A.’s AHL affiliate but the rest of the best forwards should be back: Nemisz, Eric Wellwood and Adam Henrique, who combined for 82 goals during the regular season. Then factor in the talent of the 91s: Ellis was named as the OHL’s top defenceman, Hall is a certified star in the making and Justin Shugg, a former OHL first-rounder who was really starting to come into his own in the post-season before going down with an injury here.
The Spitfires can worry about next year later. They have a great chance to arrive a year early. They were the tournament’s biggest disappointment in the opening round but that was largely on the expectations of fans and those of us who drive the hype machine.
Yet they just need to beat Drummondville Friday night to land in the Memorial Cup final.