Windsor Spitfires Flying Higher than Ever During the 2021-2022 OHL Season
Photos: Tim Jarrold/In Play! magazine
The Windsor Spitfires, for the most part, have struggled to play with a level of constituency during the 2021-2022 Ontario Hockey League season. However, the team is currently flying higher than at any point so far and that is due to a group of players who are all having career-best seasons so far.
Eighteen year-old centre Wyatt Johnston currently leads not only his team but the entire OHL in scoring midway through the first month of 2022. Drafted in the first round, sixth overall, of the 2019 OHL Priority Selection, Johnston has been the Spits’ team leading scorer and in among the entire OHL’s scoring leaders virtually all season so far. He is currently averaging almost two point a game with 20 goals and 40 assists in 30 games with the Spitfires
Johnston, who was the first round pick, 23rd overall, of the Dallas Stars in the 2021 National Hockey League Entry Draft, has also been named OHL Player of the Week so far, the only player to have achieved this.
Defenceman Louka Henault, the Spits fifth round pick, 96th overall, in 2017, is currently in his fourth season in Windsor and has been among the OHL’s leading scorers since rejoining the Spitfires last fall after attending the training camp of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks as a free agent. Henault also attended the camp of the Ducks’ top farm team – the San Diego Gulls of the American Hockey League.
The native of Montreal currently has five goals and 25 assists in 28 games and those impressive scoring statistics have him in third place in scoring among all OHL rearguards.
While Andrew Perrott has been with the Spitfires for only four games so far, he has also been among among the most prolific scorers from the blueline in the entire OHL all season long. Also an overage player who in his fifth OHL campaign, Perrott was acquired near the trade deadline earlier this month that saw fourth future draft choice moved to Owen Sound.
Perrott, who loves to play a physical brand of hockey in addition to playing a more defensive game than Henault, is currently in fourth spot among OHL scoring leaders for defencemen with two goals and 27 assists in 27 games overall in 2021-2022. In his first few games with the Spitfires Perrott has one goal and six assists. In addition to playing a regular shift on the Windsor blueline, Perrott immediately assumed a spot on the Spits’ top powerplay and penalty-killing units.
Sixteen year-old centre Ethan Miedema, the Spits first round pick, fourth overall, in the 2021 OHL Priority Selection, has eight goals and 11 assists in 28 games, putting him in 20th place among rookie scorers in the league. The offensively-gifted Spitfires are also the second-highest scoring team in the entire Ontario Hockey League, having flashed the red light behind opposition goaltenders 139 times in 31 games. Only the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, with 146, have scored more goals so far this season, but they have also played three more games than Windsor.
The Spitfires return to action Thursday night when they host the ‘Hounds at the WFCU Centre in yet another battle for first place in the OHL’s West Division. Due to Covid protocols there will be no fans in attendance.