Spitfires stay alive with 6-4 win over Rimouski

RIMOUSKI, Que. – For a team that was down by two goals 4-2 heading into the third period, the Windsor Spitfires had all of the earmarks of coming away from this years Memorial Cup tournament as a huge failure. Having already lost to the Rimouski Oceanic earlier in the tournament, things were not looking good for the OHL champions.

Dale Mitchell stepped up to the plate and score a natural hat trick with three goals in the first eight minutes of the third period to lead the Spitfires with four unanswered goals to a 6-4 victory over the Oceanic in the tiebreaker game on Thursday night. The Spitfires, who opened the tournament with two straight losses, including a 5-4 loss to Rimouski, have now won two in a row and will now take on the Drummondville Voltigeurs in Friday’s semifinal. The winner will facing the Kelowna Rockets in Sunday’s Memorial Cup final. Eric Wellwood, Scott Timmins, and Greg Nemisz also scored for Windsor. Defenceman Sebastien Piche scored once and set up goals by Emmanuel Boudreau and Patrice Cormier for Rimouski. Jordan Caron also scored for the Oceanic. The Oceanic were devastated at blowing a two-goal lead before 4,478 fans in Rimouski. Five goals were score between the two teams in the first-period for a 3-2 Rimouski lead. Wellwood opened the scoring at 7:13 on a feed from Adam Henrique, who had blocked Ryan Kavanagh’s shot at the point while the teams played 4 on 4. Piche picked the top corner from the point 49 seconds later, but another turnover at the Windsor blueline saw Timmins beat Gougeon with a wrist shot 28 seconds after that. Caron one-timed a goal on the power play at 12:47 and Boudreau had a Piche shot go in off his skate at 16:15 on only the seventh shot on Windsor goaltender Andrew Engelage. The Oceanic caught Windsor on a line change during a second-period power play as Piche hit Cormier at the far blue-line for a breakaway goal at 16:25 for a 4-2 lead. Than it became the Dale Mitchell show. Mitchell’s first goal came at 4:11 when he grabbed a loose puck in front of the net and made a move around Rimouski goaltender Maxim Gougeon to his backhand for the goal. He tied the game at 6:00 on the power play when he accepted a cross-ice pass and roofed a wrist shot glove side. The game-winner came at 7:44, again on the power play, when a point shot hit Gougeon in the chest and sat in front of the net where Mitchell slammed it home for the game winning goal. Windsor outshot Rimouski 37-21 and outshot the Oceanic in every period of the game including a 15-4 third period. Windsor went 3 for 7 on the power play, while Rimouski went 2 for 4. Contact the author at Brian.Jennings@prohockeynews.com