The Christmas break is over and the Windsor Spitfires are back in OHL action Friday night in London against the rival Knights.
Windsor sits in fourth place in the OHL's West Division, just barely under .500 but still only 14-points away from the first place Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. The Knights are heading in a different direction, leading the Mid-West Division 49-points
Spitfires' Head Coach Trevor Letowski the idea of getting 10-days-off sounds good in theory, but it doesn't quite work that way with athletes.
"To get them ready after ten full-days off the ice we've got a ton of drills that we have to tighten up and figure out exactly what the best thing is to do to get their feet under them," he says. "We're just excited, I think, to play anybody at this point."
With half a season in the league under their belts, Letowski says the term rookie is starting to fade for a few Spitfires.
"I think that's been the case with our group and I've been hopeful all along that there's some guys up front that would separate from the rest of them and I think that's starting to happen," says Letowski.
After the departure of Michael DiPietro to Ottawa, a leader in the locker room and a goaltender that could steal a win, several players have started to establish themselves as clutch players.
"[Jean Luc] Foudy, [Will] Cuylle, [Tyler] Angle, and [Daniel] D'Amico ... [Cole] Purboo obviously has established himself, [Curtis] Douglas as well," he says. "There's six guys right there that have kind of established themselves as scoring players now and we're going to be using them a lot the second half."
AM800 will carry the action live from London starting at 7:05pm.
— With files from AM800' Steve Bell