The Windsor Spitfires are coming off a successful weekend with the hope of carrying momentum against the Kitchener Rangers.
The Spits took two out of three from the Hamilton Bulldogs at home, followed by a stirring overtime win on the road against their Memorial Cup rivals, the Erie Otters. A shutout loss at Hamilton on Sunday prevented the trio of games from being perfect.
Spitfires assistant coach Jerrod Smith says they failed to capitalize on chances against the Bulldogs.
"We could've capitalized on an earlier power play chance in the game," says Smith. "A lot of our chances were from the outside, we were kind of on the perimeter. But it had a lot to do with fatigue, some of the bigger players played a lot of minutes, so it's asking a lot of them."
Smith says the return of Logan Brown has given the offence a big shot in the arm. Brown has been on the top line for the Spitfires for the last couple of games with Captain Aaron Luchuk and winger Cole Purboo. This line has been racking up a lot of points.
"Getting Brownie back has been a huge boost for our team, no question about it," says Smith. "Luchuk's been off to a tremendous offensive start and we thought, why not put our best two offensive players together."
Purboo picked up three assists this past week.
The Spits are looking ahead to a home-and-away series with the Rangers, a team that has been sharing the wealth offensively. Seven players, including former Spits defenceman Logan Stanley, have at least ten points on the season. Luchuk says they can't afford to overlook Kitchener.
"They're a pretty dynamic team with a lot of scorers up front, and older players who are established in this league," says Luchuk. "They've got some really good defencemen, obviously with Big Stan being the guy that's leading that team."
The Rangers handed Windsor their first loss of the year on September 28, a 4-2 score at the WFCU Centre. It's their only meeting so far this season.
Puck drop for Friday is 7:30pm at Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, then the teams meet up again in Windsor in a Remembrance Day contest Saturday night at 7:05pm.