Moore leads the way for Firebirds

The Ontario Hockey League opened its season on Sept. 21 with the two Midwest USA teams going head to head on opening night at the Dort Federal Event Center in Flint, MI.

The host Flint Firebirds opened its sophomore season in the OHL with an impressive 4-0 shutout win against the visiting Saginaw Spirit as Ryan Moore, a 19-year-old native of nearby Troy, MI played a huge part in the opening win, playing a part in all four Firebird tallies with two goals and two assists.

Linemate Nicholas Caamano, 18, from Ontario also collected a goal and two assists while Matthew Menna, 18, from Ontario handled all of the 23 shots he faced in goal for the Firebirds. Ty Dellandrea, 16, from Ontario fired the other Firebirds goal.

One bright spot on the night for the Spirit was likely the play of Cameron Lamour, a 16-year-old goaltender from northern Ontario who came off of the bench and provided his team 35 minutes of shutout hockey after the fourth Flint marker.

Since that opening contest, the Firebirds and Spirit have both played two more times last weekend (Sept. 23-24). The Spirit fell to 0-3 dropping both ends of a home-and-away weekend set with the Guelph Storm, 5-1 at Guelph and then 2-1 on home ice at the Dow Event Center. The Firebirds meanwhile dropped a 4-2 decision on the road against the Kitchener Rangers before collecting its second straight shutout on home ice with a 2-0 decision against the Owen Sound Attack.

Spirit 1 at Storm 5

The host Storm opened up a 2-0 first period lead and added another before Mike Davies, 19, from Ontario finally scored the first Spirit goal of the season 4:29 into the middle period. The Storm added one more in the second and another in the third to put this one away.

Liam Stevens, 17, from Ontario fired a pair for the winners and Nate Schnarr, 17, from Ontario picked up a goal and a helper while 20-year-old goaltender Liam Herbst stopped 35 of 36 to pick up the win in goal.

Storm 2 at Spirit 1

A night later in its first home game of the season, the Storm certainly presented its best defensive effort of the season but once again could manage just one goal and that was not enough.

After a scoreless opening session, the visiting Storm fired a pair of unanswered second period goals and the lone Spirit marker came from Marcus Crawford, 19, from Ontario with one tick remaining on the clock to deny the shutout bid of Herbst.

Firebirds 2 at Rangers 4

For a second straight game, Dellandrea opened the scoring with the only goal of the opening period, but the home team struck back with two in the second half of the middle frame.

Mathieu Henderson, 20, from Ontario scored for the Firebirds in the final minute of the second to draw his team even, but the Rangers put this one away with two goals 43 seconds apart with just under seven minutes to play.

Greg Meireles, 17, from Ontario fired the game winner for the Rangers and added two assists and Nick McHugh, 17, from Ontario added a goal and assist.

Attack 0 at Firebirds 2

Caamano fired the game winner just five minutes into the contest and set up Moore for the insurance marker midway through the third. Both finished the game with a goal and an assist and Moore has now played a part in all eight of the goals scored by Flint so far this season.

Garrett Forrest, a 19-year-old native of Virginia made his debut between the pipes for Flint stopping all 27 of the Attack shots he faced to post the team’s second shutout in three games so far.

This weekend

Both teams are scheduled to be in action tonight (Sept. 30) on home ice as the Firebirds play host to the Sarnia Sting (2-0-0-0) and the Ottawa 67’s (1-1-0-0) pay a visit to Saginaw. That will be the lone game of the weekend for the Spirit and the Firebirds will play host to the 67’s tomorrow.