Spitfires outwork Storm for win
By Tony Saxon, Guelph Mercury
You can’t win them all, but you can work hard enough to win them all and the Guelph Storm didn’t do that Friday night.
The Storm lost in regulation for the first time in four weeks, falling 6-4 to the Windsor Spitfires on home ice.
Guelph came out flat, got outworked for the first half of the game and didn’t get the goaltending that might have saved them from that fact.
“We can handle losing, be we can’t be outworked,” said veteran Storm winger Zack Mitchell.
“We weren’t expecting to win every game for the rest of the year, but we got outworked for the first period and a half.”
Windsor scored off a turnover 34 seconds into the game and added a softie from a sharp angle that somehow beat Garret Sparks to make it 2-0 just five minutes 4,300 fans.
Guelph used three power play goals to make a game of it by late in the third period.
Trailing 5-3 entering the third, Guelph finally started playing better and kept the heat on Windsor. Scott Kosmachuk’s team-leading 10th of the season midway through the third made for an exciting finish.
But the Spits, who stayed out of the penalty box the entire third period, sealed the deal with an empty netter with 52 seconds remaining.
“I’m not disappointed that we lost, we’re not going to win every game, but I am disappointed in the way we started the game,” Storm coach Scott Walker said. “Maybe we’ve been reading about ourselves too much and think we’re too good.”
Walker acknowledged that the team got away from the work ethic and disciplined game plan that you need to win tight checking games.
