Captain Liam Greentree took leadership to a new level on Monday.

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Windsor Spitfires’ captain Liam Greentree took leadership to a new level on Monday.

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The 19-year-old Greentree scored a club record five playoff goals and added an assist to lead the Spitfires to a 6-3 road win over the Kitchener Rangers before a crowd of 6,436 at the Memorial Auditorium.

“Theres’ a lot of emotions going through my head in a game like that,” said Greentree, who broke the club mark of four set by Ernie Golden in 1981 against Brantford.

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“No, I’ve definitely not had a game like that, but playing with brothers, and it’s such a family, makes it even more special.”

With the win, the Spitfires took a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series. Windsor can advance to its second conference final in four years with a win in Game 4 on Wednesday in Kitchener.

“We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves,” said Spitfires’ defenceman Anthony Cristoforo, who assisted on two of Greentree’s goals. “We know this (Kitchener) team is extremely skilled and we can’t look past one shift. The job’s not finished and we understand that and we’re  excited for Wednesday.”

The Spitfires have taken command of this series by outscoring the Rangers 16-5 in three games and have not trailed for a single second in the first three games.

“That’s a credit to our preparation,” Cristotforo said. “We have a system and everyone knows, every guy that puts on that jersey knows our identity and every single guys has just been incredible.”

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And new faces continue to show up in a Windsor lineup that has been battling injuries throughout the playoffs. Defenceman Grady Spicer, who spent the entire season in the Ontario Junior Hockey League with Brockville, played his second playoff game along with forward Max Brocklehurst, who spent the majority of his season with the LaSalle Vipers.

“It’s just awesome to watch these guys play,” Spitfires’ head coach Greg Walters said.

But while the young faces have helped fill some void, the Rangers have had no answer for Windsor’s top unit of Greentree, Ilya Protas and Noah Morneau, which has produced 

11 goals and 23 points in the series.

“I think this might be the best line I’ve ever played on,” Greentree said. “Protas has the hockey  IQ of a genius and Noah Morneau has stepped it up and we’ve leaned on him.”

With injuries piling up, Walters had planned to move Morneau to a different line for Game 3, but in the end opted to keep the trio together.

“I was going to,” Walters admits. “Thank God I didn’t.” 

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Greentree and Protas now share the OHL playoff scoring lead with 24 points. Greentree has seven goals and nine points in three games against the Rangers. Protas scored his first goal of the series on Monday, but also has nine points in three games. Morneau had two assists on Monday and is fourth in scoring with 16 points in the playoffs  and five points in this series. Morneau could have had a goal on Monday, but hesitated while waiting for Greentree to get loose and fed him for the open-net goal.

“That play there speaks volumes for our team,” Walters said.

And while the big line has indeed been big, the same can be said of goalie Joey Costanzo, who made 28 saves on Monday, including a dozen in the third period when Windsor was outshot 13-6 and 31-25 overall.

“I think Joey Costanzo has been our best player in the playoffs,” Greentree said.

Costanzo now has a playoff-leading 1.83 goals-against average and .923 save percentage.

“Joey was real good to start the game,” Walters said. “Kitchener had a good push at the start and and he made two big saves.”

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Greentree, on a two-man power play, and then with another goal had Windsor up 2-0 after 20 minutes.

Twice Kitchener was able to make it a one-goal game, but Windsor responded each time. Luke Ellinas made it a 2-1 game, but Greentree responded 93 seconds later. After Cameron Mercer made it 3-2 game, Protas responded to restore Windsor’s two-goal lead after 40 minutes.

Greentree added his second power-play goal in the third period, which was Windsor’s sixth in three games. Tanner Lam got the Rangers back to within two goals before Greentree scored into an empty net.

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Game Summary

Monday Result

Spitfires 6 Rangers 3

Windsor 2 2 2 – 6

Kitchener 0 2 1 – 3

First period: 1. Windsor, Greentree 10 (Cristoforo, Abraham) 13:37, 2. Windsor, Greentree 11 (Protas) 16:59. Penalties: Nesbitt W (fighting), Mercer K (instigator, fighting, misconduct) 9:26, Protas W (hooking) 9:49, Garden W (roughing), Andonovski K (holding, roughing) 11:38, Grisolla K (delay of game) 12:15.

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Second period: 3. Kitchener, Ellinas 1 (Pridham, Swick) 3:24, 4. Windsor, Greentree 12 (Protas, Cristoforo) 4:47, 5. Kitchener, Mercer 1 (Arquette, Lam) 5:52, 6. Windsor, Protas 4 (Greentree, McNamara) 13:51. Penalty: Mercer K (slashing) 15:14.

Third period: 7. Windsor, Greentree 13 (Morneau, Prtoas) 1:32 (pp), 8. Kitchener, Lam 4 (Reid) 5:02, 9. Windsor, Greentree 14 (Morneau, Walton) 18:42 (en). Penalties: Pridham K (cross checking) :58, Andonovski K (roughing) 11:26, Garden W (misconduct), Gaymes W (misconduct), Hicks W (misconduct), Spicer W (misconduct), Dirracolo K (misconduct), Mercer K (misconduct), Stark K (misconduct), Xu K (misconduct) 19:58. 

Game stats – SOG – Windsor 7 12 6 – 25 Kitchener 6 12 13 – 31 Goal (shots-saves) – Windsor: Costanzo (W,7-0-1) (31-28). Kitchener: Parsons (L,4-4-0) (24-19). Power play (goals-chances) – Windsor 2-6. Kitchener 0-1. Referees: Darcy Burchell and Drew Jackson. Linesmen: Brian Birkhoff and Dan Kovachik. Att.: 6,436 at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.

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