Mathurin Scores Twice, Including OT Winner, As Windsor Edges Sarnia 4-3
By Carl Chimenti
Detroit Red Wings prospect Tnias Mathurin scored the overtime winning goal at 1:55 and the Windsor Spitfires escaped with a 4-3 win, before a large Friday night crowd of 4,438, at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
Mathurin put the Spitfires on top for the first time in the game with his first goal at 4:29 of the third period. Sarnia continued to battle and it paid off as Beckham Edwards, who scored his first career OHL goal on opening night at the Hive against the Spitfires, scored at 12:58 to tie the game from Mitch Young, sending the game into overtime.
It was a big point for Sarnia, as Guelph, Flint and Owen Sound (the Sting’s next opponent on Saturday night, on the road) all lost Friday night. Hughston Hurt scored his second of the season and Lucas Fischer (St. Louis Blues) his ninth of the year. For Fischer it was his fourth goal in two games, following his hat-trick last Friday night against the Sudbury Wolves. Young had two assists and Dylan Luecke along with Liam Beamish contributed one assist each. Evan Maillet played a very sound game, as he was a big key in net for the Sting, garnering the second star of the game, after turning away 35 of 39 shots.
AJ Spellacy (Chicago Black Hawks), and the first overall selection in the 2024 OHL Priority Draft Ethan Belchetz scored for Windsor. Spellacy was the first star. Both Cole Davis and Anthony Cristoforo had a pair of assists. Cristoforo was named the third star. Spitfires goaltender Joey Costanzo stopped 16 of 19 shots. Windsor out-shot Sarnia 39-19 and both teams went 0/2 with the man-advantage.
Sarnia scored the lone goal of the opening period and it came at 6:58. Hurt from inside the blue-line beat a screened Costanzo with a wrist shot upstairs. Luecke drew the only assist. Both teams had a great scoring chance in the final minute, with Windsor’s Ryan Abraham’s deflection from in front hitting iron, and moments later Brown was robbed by Costanzo in close, after taking a short feed from Beamish. Both teams had seven shots on goal.
Sarnia and Windsor traded goals in the second stanza despite the wide margin of shots from the Spitfires 13-5. The Sting increased their lead to 2-0 at the seven minute mark. Beamish won the draw back to Young and he quickly delivered a pass to Fischer and his wrist shot found the back of the net.
Windsor sliced the lead to one goal at 10:24, as Belchetz scored from Cristoforo and Ilya Protas (Washington Capitals) just moments after Sarnia had just killed off a Spitfire power-play.