Weekend set with Spitfires a measuring stick for Greyhounds (video, 10 photos)

A weekend sweep at the hands of the top team in the Ontario Hockey League’s Western Conference is a tough pill to swallow, but the Soo Greyhounds are looking at it as a measuring stick heading into the final eight games of the regular season.

After falling to the Windsor Spitfires on Saturday night, the Greyhounds dropped a 5-4 decision to the Spitfires on Sunday afternoon at the GFL Memorial Gardens.

Greyhounds coach John Dean said the silver-lining of the game “was the third period and the resilience of the group.”

“That could have gone a lot different way, especially after the penalty at the end when we take the five-minute major,” Dean added. “Our bench easily could have sat down and gave up. Our bench rallied.”

“It’s two games that we want back, and I hate saying that at this time of year given how important they were,” Dean added. “At the same time, there’s something to take from that third period.”

Veteran forward Kalvyn Watson said getting swept by the Spitfires “is a tough pill to swallow.”

Watson added that he felt the Greyhounds didn’t give the Spitfires their best hockey.

“I don’t think we’ve given them our best hockey this season at all,” Watson said. “And yesterday and today were both close games. When our team comes to play, we’re a way better hockey club than that.”

The Spitfires jumped out to an early lead in the game and made life difficult for the Greyhounds to battle back.

“You don’t want to be chasing the first-place team in the conference,” Dean said. “Down two early is tough to scrap through.”

“Anytime you’re on the road and you can get the first one and then the second one, you feel better, but sometimes you can sit back a little bit too much and we did that a little bit,” Savard said of the start. “We let them get their offence coming at us, but when we played inside the dots tonight, our 1-2-2 got better as the game went on and we kept them to the outside.”

Savard said the team treated the game with a playoff mentality, which included getting depth scoring. In Sunday’s win, nine different players had a point.

“We talked about depth scoring for the playoffs and we’re going to need it,” Savard said. “We’re going to need guys to step up.”

“It was a hell of an effort from top to bottom,” Savard also said. “We needed every guy at some point. The fourth line got a huge goal for us in the second and we just carried on from there.”

Playing their fourth game of the week, the Spitfires showed little sign of fatigue in Sunday’s victory.

“There’s a balance through rest and you always want to think you get it right, but we’ve been resting our guys pretty good and giving them a lot of days off and being really smart,” Savard said. “And they’ve done it on their own too, getting the rest that they need.”

Dean said the weekend against the Spitfires showed the team that Windsor “is clearly the measuring stick of our conference.”

“We’re going to have to get through them if we want to do something special this year, so we have to learn from the weekend,” Dean said.

“Our exits out of our zone all weekends were not good at all,” Dean said. “Our one-on-one battles and our physicality, they outcompeted us. They were very good down low in our end, so we’re going to have to clean that up and these are things that are all within our control.”

Windsor opened the scoring just 17 seconds in as Daniel D’Amico grabbed a loose puck in the slot and beat Greyhounds starter Tucker Tynan high glove side.

Wyatt Johnston made it 2-0 Windsor moments after a neutral zone turnover by the Greyhounds. Johnston eventually got the puck in the slot from Alex Christopoulos and beat Tynan at 7:58

The Greyhounds got on the board at 11:08 of the opening period when Bryce McConnell-Barker potted a rebound after Mathias Onuska stopped the initial shot from Kalvyn Watson in the left circle with the Greyhounds on the power play.

With the Spitfires shorthanded early in the second period, Daniel D’Amico broke down the right wing and made it 3-1 Windsor, beating Tynan high short side at 2:28.

Just 50 seconds later, Kalvyn Watson pulled the Greyhounds back to within one as he redirected a back-door pass from Robert Calisti past Onuska on the power play.

Oliver Peer made it 4-2 Windsor when he took a pass in the slot from Ethan Miedema below the goalline and beat Tynan high glove side at 7:15.

Jack Thompson made it 4-3 at 2:11 of the third period when he beat Onuska off the rush from the right wing but Johnston made it 5-3 at 10:03 when he jumped on a turnover at the Windsor blueline and beat Tynan high glove side on a breakaway.

Seconds into a major penalty to Ryan O’Rourke for slew-footing, Tye Kartye cut the lead back down to one goal as he beat Onuska from the left circle after he made the initial stop on Thompson from the other circle off the rush.

Thompson and Watson finished the day with a goal and an assist each while Calisti had a pair of helpers.

Tynan finished the night with 21 saves for the Greyhounds.

“We gave up a lot of chances and if your team is going to give up chances like that, of course you would like to see a couple of big saves,” Dean said, “but I don’t think the story is Tucker Tynan. The story is the chances we gave up.”

Onuska stopped 23 shots for Windsor

The Greyhounds return to action on Tuesday night on the road against the Saginaw Spirit before returning home for a pair of games next weekend.

The team will host Saginaw on Friday night in a 7:07 p.m. start before facing the Sarnia Sting on Sunday afternoon in a 2:07 puck drop.

With the loss on Sunday, the Greyhounds fall to 33-20-6-1 and sit four points behind the Flint Firebirds for second in the OHL’s West Division after the Firebirds picked up a win over the Kitchener Rangers on Sunday afternoon.

The Spitfires improve to 38-16-3-3 and sit in top spot in the West Division with a five-point lead over Flint and a nine-point lead over the Greyhounds with eight games remaining on their schedule.