After back-to-back road wins, Spitfires look to close out series with Rangers at home

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The top-seeded Windsor Spitfires know that this is no time to take a foot off the gas pedal.

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Back-to-back wins in Kitchener over the seventh-seeded Rangers have the Spitfires within a win of the club’s first Western Conference final appearance since 2011.

After Thursday’s 6-3 win in Kitchener, the Spitfires lead the best-of-seven semifinal series 3-1. Game 5 is Saturday at the WFCU Center at 7:05 pm

“I think we need to treat it like a Game 7,” said Spitfires’ defenseman Michael Renwick, who scored the club’s first goal in Thursday’s comeback victory. “A must-win (game).”

The Spitfires need only look back to the opening round when the club had the eighth-seeded Sarnia Sting down 3-1, lost Game 5 in overtime and needed to win Game 6 on the road to clinch the series.

For a team trying to make a run at a league title, the sooner a series ends, the more time a club has to rest, recover and prepare for the next challenge.

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“I expect (the Rangers) to have good effort, but I’d like to close it out as quick as we can,” Spitfires’ head coach Marc Savard said. “We feel good about our game and we’ll be putting an emphasis to finish this as quickly as possible.”

The Spitfires have found themselves behind more often than not in this series, but have managed to battle back to take control of the series.

“You never want to get down in a game,” Spitfires’ center Wyatt Johnston said. “(The Rangers) have been able to come out really strong and we need to match that on Saturday.”

A big reason the Spitfires have managed to roar back is the play of Johnston, who has been in on 14 of Windsor’s 20 goals in the series.

The OHL’s regular-season scoring champion, Johnston, who was held to seven points in six games against Sarnia, now leads the league in playoff scoring with 21 points.

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“I think, personally, I’ve been able to find my confidence and really adjust to the level of play in the playoffs,” said Johnston, who had his third four-point game of the series on Thursday’s win.

But Johnston isn’t the only player that has raised his game. Forward Alex Christopoulos had his first career-four-point game in Thursday’s win and captain Will Cuylle had three assists as the trio combined for 11 points in the game.

“Cuylle and Christopoulos have also been playing very well and have been able to produce a ton of this series as well,” Johnston said.

Christopoulos, who came to Windsor in a trade with North Bay early in the season, started the series on the fourth line. Savard moved him onto the top line with Johnston and Cuylle in the second period of the series opener. He responded with his first OHL hat-trick and has five goals and seven points in the series.

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“He’s gotten a chance with that line and proven he can generate,” Savard said of Christopoulos. “He had (74) goals with Don Mills (minor midgets in his draft year), so he knows where the net is.”

And at the net is where Christopoulos has consistently been in this series to record 25 per cent of Windsor’s goals.

“It’s been a great series so far,” Christopoulos said. “You’ve got to work for the puck and stand in front of the net to get rewarded.

“It’s a mindset I take in general. Most of the goals in this series are scored in the dirty areas in front of the net.”

Like the rest of the Spitfires, Christopoulos is happy to be up in the series, but knows it’s not over yet.

“It’s important to finish this series next game because we have home-ice advantage, but it will be a battle,” Christopoulos said.

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