Spits just keep on coming
Eight straight victories have the streaking Windsor Spitfires flying high along the jet smooth skyways of the Ontario Hockey League.
Back to back, come from behind road wins over the Erie Otters and Niagara IceDogs on the weekend elevated the Spitfires record to 29-7-3 on this ’24-25 season. Only the London Knights have a better record than Windsor among the 20 teams of the OHL.
All of this after Windsor missed the playoffs and finished in 19th place overall in ’23-24 with a record of 18-42-8.
Highlights from the past weekend in the Spitfires 7-5 win over Erie and 4-3 overtime triumph over Niagara included defenseman/forward Tanner Winegard scoring his first OHL goal and rookie goalie Michael Newlove picking up wins in each of his first two OHL appearances.
The sizeable Winegard scored in the win over Niagara, his first OHL marker in his 74th game in the league, all of which have been with Windsor. Winegard, who has a 2005 birth date and is in his second OHL season, is a former 11th round priority selections draft pick of the Spitfires from 2021.
As for Newlove, who Windsor took with the first overall pick of the 2024 OHL supplemental draft, the 2007 birth year puck stopper came on in relief of starter Joey Costanzo in the win over Erie and followed that up with his second straight strong outing in the victory over Niagara. In all, Newlove stopped 48 of 53 shots.
Newlove, who was called up from the junior A ranks to back up Costanzo with regular understudy Carter Froggett on the injury list, is the fourth goalie to get into the win column for the Spitfires this season. Costanzo leads the way with 23 wins while Froggett has three, Newlove has two and another rookie, Jake Windbiel, has one.