The Windsor Spitfires are considered a top-five ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League. However, a tough loss at home on Sunday to a division rival shows they still have plenty to learn.
After a fantastic 7-0 start to the 2025-26 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) season, the Spitfires have found themselves continuously learning. They came into Sunday with a 5-2-1-0 record since that start, which should excite most teams. However, they’re facing the best games that opponents can throw at them and sometimes there are lessons to be learned. Sunday at home against the Saginaw Spirit will be one of those teachable moments. Here are three takeaways from the WFCU Centre.
Spitfires Became Own Worst Enemy
This was the first meeting of the season between the Spitfires and Spirit. While the visitors came in with a 4-4-3-2 record, they’re a pain to play.
It was an impressive opening 35 minutes for the Spitfires. Cole Davis and captain Liam Greentree (Los Angeles Kings) opened the scoring in the first. While the Spirit responded, Ethan Belchetz scored a pair to make it a 4-1 game late in the second. However, that’s when it all changed.
The Spirit scored a goal late in the second, while on the power play, to give them momentum entering the third period. That’s where they eventually made it a 4-3 deficit. While Greentree restored the multi-goal lead, Dimian Zhilkin scored 12 seconds later to silence everyone. Soon after, the Spitfires tried to get Belchetz the puck for a hat-trick into the empty net but failed. Instead, Zhilkin came the other way, finished his own hat-trick, and sent the game to extra time. He was the hero in the shootout, too, giving the Spirit a 6-5 come-from-behind win.
It’s the first time in 11 tries that the Spitfires lost a game leading after two periods. Following the game, Spitfires’ head coach Greg Walters said that, while the Spirit are a good team despite their record, the offensive zone penalties “drive me crazy” and they did this to themselves.
“That’s a good hockey team,” he said. “If you take away their overtime losses and shootout losses, and they win those games, they’re 9-4. That’s a good team, they’re well coached. We have to be more disciplined. It cost us the game.”
Windsor #Spitfires' F Ethan Belchetz had three points and Saginaw #Spirit' F Dimian Zhilkin had the hat-trick, plus the shootout winner, as the Spirit take a 6-5 win at the WFCU Centre on Sunday. #OHL pic.twitter.com/R4Uv1jj1Bt
— Dave Jewell (@DaveJewellOHL) October 27, 2025
Belchetz said the Spirit are a team that will capitalize if you give them that many power plays. He said they can learn a lot from a game like this and they will spend the week going over it with the coaches.
“The season … is a rollercoaster,” he said. “There are times where you’ll have a win streak or you lose a couple in a row. It’s learning from the losses and taking a step forward. We can learn so much from tonight. We’ll have a long week ahead of us, a lot of days to learn and go over it with the coaching.”
Belchetz Continues Dominance
One of the bright spots continued to be the play of Belchetz. He’s among the top prospects for the 2026 NHL Draft next summer and entered Sunday with 10 goals in 14 games after scoring 17 goals in 56 games last season.
Walters has put him on a line with the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Greentree and the 6-foot-5, 192-pound Jack Nesbitt (Philadelphia Flyers) and the trio have flourished. They combined for four goals and five points and seemed to create every time they were on the ice. This is what the team had hoped for when they drafted Belchetz first overall in the 2024 OHL Draft. However, he said he’s more focused on playing well and letting the points come to him.
“The points don’t really matter to me in the end,” he said. “It’s always good but that’s a result of playing well so I feel like I’ve been playing some of my best hockey.”
Related: Ethan Belchetz Might Be a Top-3 Prospect in a Stacked 2026 NHL Draft
While he didn’t get a star in the game, he tipped home a point shot from Carson Woodall, who is now tied for second in the OHL scoring race (22 points in 16 games), plus skated across the slot and wired one glove side past goaltender Kaleb Papineau. It was pretty typical Belchetz and the styles of goals fans have become used to.
Secondary Scoring Must Find a Way
While the Belchetz-Greentree-Nesbitt line has flourished, the Spitfires need more from the rest of their forwards. On Sunday, Davis had a goal and an assist, and Beksultan Makysh had an assist, but that was it.
Chicago Blackhawks’ prospect A.J. Spellacy had no shots on goal and was a minus-1. He’s hit a serious dry spell with just one goal and one point, total, in his last 10 games. Rookie Caden Harvey started strong with seven points in his first six games, but has no points in his last five games. Sophomore Jean-Christoph Lemieux had no points this weekend in three games after returning from being injured. Even the always-energetic Ethan Garden has just one point in his last five games.
On Sunday, those four combined for just two shots on goal. As good as the top line is, they still need their secondary scoring to find a way to get on the board. Walters has raved about his depth both this season and last season. However, it has dried up, and Sunday was no exception. He said outside of Belchetz and Greentree, they need people to “join the party, offensively.”
“We have to generate,” Walters said. “They had their backup goaltender in, and we only generated 23 shots. (We have to) get more shots, more traffic, guys need to execute more offensively … Teams are getting better, structure-wise, guys are coming back from the NHL. We’re going to have to look deep into it … We have to start looking at individual guys of why they’re not creating more offence.”
The Spitfires have oodles of potential with their secondary scoring. It takes pressure off of the top line and has been part of the reason why they’ve made it to the top of the Western Conference. Having it dry up is a concern and one that will be looked at this week.
The team was 10-0-0-0 when they were leading after two periods. Now, they’re 10-0-0-1. They don’t plan on adding any more to the loss column. Their next game is Saturday night in Saginaw to take on the Spirit again.
