The smell of playoff hockey is wafting around the Windsor Spitfires.

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The smell of playoff hockey is wafting around the Windsor Spitfires.

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While post-season play is still more than a month away, you can tell there’s a thirst for second-season action for a club that missed out on it a year ago after finishing 19th in the 20-team league.

“That’s something last year we were trying to shoot for and obviously it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to and that sucked,” Spitfires’ captain Liam Greentree said. “It kept me away from hockey for a little a bit with our season ending early. I’m happy to get some playoff experience and our team needs that right now. I’m excited.”

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The West Division-leading Spitfires, who are ranked No. 8 in the Canadian Hockey League, officially clinched a playoff spot this week before hitting the ice, but the club wants to continue to keep making a point.

“Something we’ve done is just gotten better every day,” Greentree said. “We’ve built a lot. We built a foundation at the start of the year and just kept building on that.”

The Sarnia Sting joined the Spitfires as the only other team to miss the playoffs in the Western Conference last year. The rebuild hasn’t gone as quickly for Sarnia, but the Sting are also improved and the two could be headed for a first-round showdown in the playoffs.

“It could be a potential first-round matchup in the near future,” Spitfires’ rookie forward Ethan Garden said. “You keep that in the back of your head when you do play them.

“We’ve been pretty good against them the last couple times, but they always play hard and they can bring it back at any time. So, we always have to stay focused against them.”

The Spitfires have actually been razor focused on the Sting in recent games. Thursday’s 8-2 win by the Spitfires before 4,348 at the WFCU Centre marked Windsor’s second dominant performance over Sarnia in the last six days after a 7-2 win on Feb. 7.

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“We always have the same mindset going into a game,” said Greentree, whose team is now 3-0-1-0 against the Sting this season. “We never take them lightly. We know they work hard and whenever we beat them like that it’s an accomplishment.”

The Spitfires were dominant from the start on Wednesday with a 16-5 shot advantage and taking a 3-0 lead after the first period on goals by Ilya Protas, Noah Morneau and Garden.

Garden and Morneau each scored for a second time to push Windsor’s lead to 5-0 and chase the Sarnia starting goalie for a second-straight time.

“It feels amazing,” Garden said of his first multi-goal game in the OHL. “There’s really nothing better than finding success. It’s just a great feeling.”

Liam Beamish and Beckham Edwards sandwiched goals around one from Greentree, but the Windsor win was never in doubt. Greentree, who had four points, scored his second of the game and rookie defenceman Carter Hicks closed the scoring.

“I think the games, everyone’s tightening up, playing harder, staying in their structure more,” Garden said. “The games are definitely getting tougher and you can see that playoffs are just around the corner.” 

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Firmly sitting in the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, Spitfires’ head coach Greg Walters doesn’t want to see his team settle going down the stretch.

“It’s still kind of early and we’re just trying to get better every single game,” Walters said. “We’ve clinched a playoff spot, but our sight’s are on No. 1. We want to catch London (for the top seed) and that’s all our team talks about right now is trying to finish first.”

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Game Summary

Thursday Result

Spitfires 8 Sting 2

Sarnia 0 1 1 – 2

Windsor 3 3 2 – 8

First period: 1. Windsor, Protas 36 (Cristoforo, Greentree) 5:08, 2. Windsor, Morneau 19 (Cristoforo, Protas) 12:34, 3. Windsor, Garden 4 (Nesbitt, Gaymes) 12:42. Penalties: Fischer S (slashing) :50, Brown S (high sticking) 17:05.

Second period: 4. Windsor, Garden 5 (Hicks, Greentree) 4:08, 5. Windsor, Morneau 20 (Mathurin) 5:01 (sh), 6. Sarnia, Beamish 9 (Filak, Young) 11:54 (pp), 7. Windsor, Greentree 36 (Protas) 15:32. Penalties: Garden W (roughing) 4:46, Lemieux W (too many men) 5:38, Lemieux W (high sticking) 11:31, Doucette S (slashing), Hall S (roughing), Karimov S (fighting), Abraham W (roughing), Eichler W (instigator, fighting, misconduct) 13:37, Bridgewater S (fighting), Morneau W (fighting) 19:18.

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Third period: 8. Sarnia, Edwards 18 (Fischer, Doucette) 5:17, 9. Windsor Greentree 37 (Morneau) 11:19, 10. Windsor, Hicks 3 (Protas, Eichler) 19:59 (pp). Penalties: O’Brien S (holding), Spellacy W (holding), Gaymes W (roughing) 3:14, Fischer S (misconduct), Nesbitt W (misconduct) 9:06, Moses S (tripping) 18:16.

Game stats – SOG – Sarnia 5 9 11 – 25 Windsor 16 12 12 – 40 Goal (shots-saves) – Sarnia: Maillet (L,5-7-1-2) (24-19), Surzycia (5:01 of second period) (26-23). Windsor: Froggett (W,6-4-1-0) (25-23). Power play (goals-chances) – Sarnia 1-4. Windsor 1-3. Referees: Mitchell Hardy and Alex Ross. Linesmen: Devon Gale and Brandon Shaw. Att.: 4,348 at the WFCU Centre.

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