Spitfires’ comeback falls short this time as Bulldogs even OHL final with 5-4 victory
The Windsor Spitfires had hoped for more, but will settle for a split. Dominant for the first eight minutes of Sunday’s game, the Spitfires held an early one-goal lead, but eventually fell 5-4 to the Hamilton Bulldogs before a crowd of 4,878 at FirstOntario Centre. “A little frustrated,” Spitfires’ head coach Marc Savard said. “We got that dream start. For eight minutes, they didn’t have a shot, we had that power-play goal and things were going good.” The Hamilton comeback evened the best-of-seven Ontario Hockey League final at 1-1. Game 3 of the series is Monday at the WFCU Center at 7 pm “A little frustrated we didn’t get the win, but a split was the goal and we’re going home to our crowd, which is nice,” Savard said. Coming off Friday’s comeback win in overtime that shifted home-ice advantage to Windsor and handed Hamilton its first loss at home in 2022, the Spitfires fired the game’s first eight shots on Sunday and took a 1-0 lead on a Louka Henault power-play goal. Things stalled for the Spitfires at that point. Mason McTavish tied the game with a power-play goal and Avery Hayes was the first to get a stick on a bouncing puck in front of the Windsor net to put the Bulldogs up 2-1. At that point, Savard replaced starting goalie Xavier Medina with Matt Onuska, who was beaten by Lawson Sherk on the first shot he faced to put Hamilton up 3-1 after 20 minutes. “I was thinking spark,” Savard said of the goalie switch. “That’s me, I didn’t like how we went flat, but we had a good chat (between periods).” Medina returned for the second period and Hayes scored his second on a Hamilton power play to make it 4-1 Bulldogs midway through the period. Matthew Maggio, on a Windsor power play, and Arber Xhekaj, with 19 seconds left in the period, then exchanged goals to put the Bulldogs up 5-2 after two periods and seemingly put Hamilton in control. “Heading into the third period, we still had a sense of confidence that we could come back,” Maggio said. “Even if we didn’t win the game, we could create momentum heading into (Monday) and I think we did a great job of that.” With less than five minutes to play in regulation, Andrew Perrott scored and Maggio followed with his second of the game just 36 seconds later to make it a one-goal game with more than four minutes to play. “They get that one late in the second period, which you think would have sunk the group,” Savard said. “There was no quit. They way we worked through some stuff was just amazing. We fell one short.” The Spitfires had opportunities to get even, but could not get a clean shot through to the net before time expired. “The feeling is good going into (Monday),” Maggio said. “Going (up to Hamilton) and splitting with them is big for us. We’re really excited to get home and play in front of our fans.”