It was a coming out party for a trio of Windsor Spitfires' rookies in an overtime win over the Guelph Storm at the WFCU Centre Thursday night.
Windsor struck first on a goal from defenceman Lev Starikov mid-way through the second period before Guelph's Nate Schnarr answered back to knot things up at 1-1 just six-minutes later. Windsor pulled ahead 2-1 on a goal from Mathew MacDougall to close out the period.
Liam Hawel scored to open the third and then found the back of the net again at the 12-minute mark to make it 3-2 Guelph, but Spitfires' rookie Will Cuylle evened things up at 3-3 just over a minute later.
Nothing would be solved until the two-minute mark of overtime when Luke Kutkevicius buried his first of the season for a 4-3 win on a perfect pass from another rookie in Jean-Luc Foudy.
"Foudy's got some speed so I had to try and keep-up with him. He made a great saucer-pass across to me and I just tried to aim for the net and put it in," says Kutkevicius.
Foudy, who says he's never played in front such a large crowd, saw open ice and took-off.
"I took a look, saw I had a two-on-one and got really excited, I saw Cookie [Kutkevicius] driving the net so I saucer it over to him and he buried it, after that it was just a huge celebration," Foudy says.
Finnish rookie Kari Piiroinen was between the pipes for the Spitfires with veteran starter Michael DiPietro is still on his way back from the Vancouver Canucks training camp. Piiroinen earned first-star of the game honours in his first regular season win turning away 43 of 46 shots.
Head Coach Trevor Letowski says the play of all three rookies Thursday shows the future looks bright for the Spitfires.
"Cuylle scores, what a release on that goal late in the game to tie it, just a huge goal for us, and then Foudy makes the play in overtime," he says. "Foudy, Cuylle, and Piiroinen were great for us in their first games, it bodes well for the future."
The Spitfires head to London to face the Knights Friday at 7:30pm — DiPietro is expected to rejoin the team for the road trip.
Tune into AM800 for all the action.