Photo: Bob Davies

In their third meeting of the season and coming off an 9 – 4 loss on January 29th at home to the Windsor Spitfires, the fifth place (14-19-7-5) Soo Greyhounds took to the road for two games with their first stop in Windsor on Thursday, February 2nd to face the first place (29-12-3-1) Spitfires in a west division matchup.

At 4:50 of the opening period and both teams serving penalties, Windsor’s Matthew Maggio fires a wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle to find the back of Greyhound netminder Samuel Ivanov’s net under the Soo netminder’s blocker to give the Spitfires a 1 – 0 lead. Jacob Holmes and Shane Wright drew the contributors on Maggio’s goal. From between the faceoff circles in front of the Soo’s net, Oliver Peer sinks a snapshot under Ivanov’s blocker at 9:14 to bring the lead to 2 – 0. Noah Morneau added the lone helper on Peer’s goal. At 12:57 all alone in front of the Greyhound net, Shane Wright picks up an Alex Christopoulos’ rebound to lift the hosts third past Ivanov. Colton Smith registered the other assist on Wright’s goal. Greyhound rookie forward Alex Kostov bats the puck out of midair over the Windsor crease to push a bouncing puck past Spitfire goaltender Ian Michelone at 13:21 to pull the Soo within two. Connor Clattenburg adds the helper on Kostov’s goal. Through traffic from the left blueline, James Jodoin rifles a wrist shot over Ivanov’s left pad to regain a Windsor three goal lead at the 14:46 mark. Maggio and Jacob Maillet set up Jodoin’s goal. With 1.2 seconds remaining in the period, Colton Smith catches a backhand pass from Oliver Peer to slide the Spitfires fifth through Ivanov’s five hole to send the hosts into the first intermission up 5 – 1. Michael Renwick notched the second contributor on Smith’s goal.

Scoring his second of the game 2:02 into the middle stanza, Smith sinks the Spitfires sixth bardown behind rookie Greyhound netminder Landon Miller to give Windsor a 6 – 1 lead. Peer and AJ Spellacy had the assists on Smith’s goal. With his 19th of the season, Jordan D’Intino catches a pass from Brenden Sirizotti at 6:57 to fire a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle to close the gap to four for the Soo. After catching a pass from the right boards from Julian Fantino, Justin Cloutier sinks the Greyhounds third from between the faceoff circles 13 seconds before the halfway mark of the second, Caleb Van De Ven drew the other helper on Cloutier’s seventh of the season. With the visitors on a powerplay, Bryce McConnell-Baker finds the back of the Spitfires net with his 26th of the season under Michelone’s right arm to pull the Greyhounds with two. Kirill Kudryavstev and Mark Duarte added the assist on McConnell-Baker’s powerplay goal at 11:01 of the third. With Soo netminder Landon Miller on the Greyhound bench for an extra attacker at 16:23, Maggio sinks the Spitfires seventh into an empty net to give Windsor a 7 – 4 win. Liam Greentree added the contributor on Maggio’s goal. Spitfire goaltender Ian Michelone stopped 34 of 38 shots in the win while Greyhound netminders Sameul Ivanov and Landon Miller turned away 27 of 33 shots in the Soo’s back to back losses to the Spitfires. Ivanov made eleven saves while Miller allowed only one goal in the loss.

The Greyhounds now head to Sarnia for a Friday, February 3rd contest against the Sting in a 7:05 p.m start.