OHL road woes for Firebirds, Spirit

Both the Flint Firebirds and Saginaw Spirit hit the road to get their Ontario Hockey League weekend off to an early start Thursday (Oct 27), but the road wasn’t friendly to either.

The Spirit remain mired at the bottom of the West Division standings, falling to 2-8-1-1- with a 5-3 loss at the Meridian Center against the host Niagara IceDogs while the Firebirds kicked off a three-game weekend dropping a 4-2 decision to the Peterborough Petes at Peterborough Memorial Center.

Spirit 3 at IceDogs 5

The IceDogs opened up a 3-0 cushion in this one with a first period goal from Johnny Corneil, 19, from Lindsay, ON and second period markers from Matthew Phillip, 17, from Ilderton, ON and Hayden Davis, 17, from Hamilton, ON.

But the Spirit showed some promise rallying to tie the score started off by a goal from Brady Gilmour, 17, from Grafton, ON just seven seconds into the frame. Kris Bennett, 20, from Brampton, ON added another 90 seconds later and Mitchell Stephens, 19, from Peterborough, ON completed the comeback with his goal at the 9:01 mark.

Unfortunately the momentum swung  back to the home side with Oliver Castleman, 17, from Gloucester, ON netting the game winner with 6:37 to play and Christopher Paquette, 18, from Kingston, ON adding an insurance tally with 3:41 to go.

This was a tough loss as the Spirit dominated on the shot clock putting up 17 in both the second and third periods for a 46-21 edge overall.

IceDogs goaltender Steven Dhillon, 18, from Buffalo, NY was the busiest player on the ice, turning aside 43 Spirit shots while Evan Cormier, 19, from Bowmanville, ON made 16 saves in goal for the Spirit.

Firebirds 2 at Petes 4

Mathieu Henderson, 20, from Brantford  scoring both of the Firebird goals in Peterborough, tying the game at 1-1 with 7:49 to go in the second after Cole Fraser, 17, from Beckwith, ON fired the lone goal of the opening segment for the Petes and then getting the Firebirds to within one at 3-2 4:32 into the third period.

In between were goals by Nick Isaacson, 17, from Toronto and Logan DeNoble, 19, from Peterborough for the Petes and a powerplay goal by Adam Timleck, 18, from Toronto with 40 seconds to play stood up as an insurance marker for the winners.

Garrett Forrest, 19, from Virginia made 30 saves in goal for the Firebirds while Dylan Wells, 18, from St. Catharines, ON  stopped 36 in goal for the Petes.

Weekend games

The Spirit fell to 2-8-1-1 with the loss at Niagara and is scheduled to stay on the road, traveling to Erie for a game Saturday and wraps up the weekend in Kitchener the following night while the Firebirds continue its Eastern Ontario swing with a game in Kingston Friday night and at Ottawa on Sunday.