The Windsor Spitfires are looking to the future with optimism.

This season saw the team lose two key defencemen to season-ending injuries after it had already traded away two of its best players for a slew of draft picks.

Head Coach Bob Boughner says it was tough to get swept in the first round of the playoffs by London, but his team achieved what it could. “Our team took a nose-dive after Koekkoek and Murphy went down. I thought we used it as a crutch sometimes too much, as an excuse, but it is what it is. Even if those guys were in our line-up, I think we’d have been in tough against London, but when they went down it was a huge blow and it sort of ruined the psyche of our room.”

Boughner isn’t quite sure which of the 19-year-old players will return to the Spits next season as over-agers, but says he likes the young players in their system. Montreal draft pick Brady Vail is one that doesn’t plan to be back, as he hopes to be playing at the next level come this fall.

The coach and GM Warren Rychel added to Windsor’s young team core at the 2014 OHL Priority Selection last weekend.