By Chris Lucas
In Play Magazine
The Spitfires traveled to Plymouth and knocked off the Whalers 2-1 in a low scoring affair to continue their win streak to nine.
The Spits jumped off to an early start as Richard Panik scored the games first goal. A few minutes after, Scott Timmins deflected Ryan Ellis's shot to get a quick 2-0 lead in the game. Plymouth fired back with a quick one of their own as Josh Brittain scored to cut the lead in half. With some more time gone by, both teams were trying to gain the momentum, and that's when Harry Young squared up with Ryan Hayes. This didn't help either team as there were no goals scored in the rest of the period.
The second period was all about goalkeeping as both teams had 17 shots in the period and both goalies allowed no goals. It was a quite period for the most part other than two Spitfire penalties and one Plymouth penalty.
The Windsor Spitfires would start off the third period on the power play. However, Matt Hackett, of Plymouth, denied all goal attempts. This period showed some aggression from both teams as Leo Jenner took a run at Taylor Hall. This play led to a game suspension to Mark Cundari for being the third man in. This would also give Plymouth the power play and a chance to tie the score late in the game. But the Spits defense didn't allow many clear shots on net and killed the penalty and they took home the win. The final shots on goal were 45-38 for Windsor.
The Spits out shot their opponents once again. This is the 22nd straight game where the Spitfires have beaten the opposing team in shots.
Tonight’s In Play! Magazine player of the game goes to Troy Passingham. Passingham had 37 saves in this one. He came up big for the Spits in a lot of difficult situations and he helped them continue their winning streak.
The Spits will be back in Windsor on Friday to play Peterborough. Game time will start at 7 pm.
Spitfires’ Special Notes
- Tonight’s win was Windsor’s ninth straight, and they lead the OHL with a 22-3-0-3 record, good for 47 points
- The team has now been ranked #1 in the CHL for the past 2 weeks and has appeared in the rankings for all eleven weeks this season and 38 weeks consecutively, starting the streak as the #1 rated team in the CHL to start the 2008-2009 season
- Windsor is 16-0-0-2 in their past 18 games
- Forward Scott Timmins scored the game winner for the Spitfires at the 10:07 mark of the second period, netting his 15th goal of the season and third game winning goal
- Defenseman Mark Cundari and forward Adam Henrique ended their eleven and nine game point streaks respectively tonight
- Goaltender Troy Passingham won his league leading 20th game of the season and allowed one goal in tonight’s contest, improving his goals against average to the league’s second best mark at 2.34. He is also tied for first in the OHL with three shutouts
- Spitfire players currently occupy nine of the top ten rankings for plus/minus rating (1st Cundari +31, 2nd Fowler +25, 3rd Henrique +24, 4th – Hall +22, 5th Young +21, tied for 6th Timmins and Wellwood +20, tied for 8th Ellis and Nemisz +19)
- Forwards Taylor Hall and Adam Henrique lead the OHL in goals scored with 23 and Greg Nemisz is ranked third with 21
- Four Spitfires are ranked in the top ten for the OHL Scoring Race (1st Hall – 51 points, 3rd - Henrique – 42 points, tied for 4th – Nemisz – 39 points, 8th – Fowler – 35 points)
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