Windsor Stands Tall in Another 4-1 Win Over Gatineau

Clint Windsor made 32 saves on Saturday, many of which spectacular saves or off of shots from point blank range, to earn his first win of the pre-season, a 4-1 67's win over the Gatineau Olympiques.


With their three highest-touted draft picks Travis Konecny, Troy Henley and Alex Lintuniemi all scratched, Ottawa still extended its winning streak to four against their interleague rival, with the Robert Guertin Arena being the third rink they've defeated Gatineau in in the past year.

Windsor made three consecutive highlight reel saves in the final seconds of the first period to keep the game tied, three of his 13 first period stops.

From there, the Barberpoles offence took over with a stroke of luck.  Brett Gustavsen scored on a bouncing puck from behind the net, and Tyler Hill added to the lead seven minutes later on a seemingly broken two-on-one break.

Ryan Van Stralen broke the game open at the tail end of a penalty kill, beating Anthony Brodeur five-hole to give Ottawa a 3-0 advantage.  Simon Tardif-Richard would break Windsor's shutout bid late with three 67's in the box, but Brendan Bell iced it with an empty netter.

Despite the late goal, Ottawa killed off 10 of 11 powerplays on the night.  Brodeur made 20 saves in a losing effort.

The 67's will wrap up their pre-season on Friday in Smiths Falls against Belleville.

Assorted notes

• This team is a lot better than last year when it comes to collapsing to the middle on the penalty kill, but at times tonight, they let Gatineau have the open looks, knowing Windsor was stopping everything, whether it was from point blank range or not.  Windsor was that good, and only got better as the game went on.
• Gustavsen spent four of the first 10 minutes of this game in the penalty box but was an effective agitator who was on the ice for all three even-strength goals.
• Dylan McDonald might not quite be ready to keep up with the pace of the OHL but he definitely knows how to use his size.  Too much depth down the middle could delay his OHL regular season debut by another year, but he's very reminiscent of Ryan Martindale.  A promising young, big center in the fold is never a bad thing.
• In what was a very chippy game, Taylor Davis deserves plenty of credit for willingly dropping his gloves with Derek Sheppard, arguably one of the toughest customers in the Quebec league.  Nearly everyone else on the ice seemed content to let their post-whistle stick work do the talking.