Sports · Saginaw
Spirit take a shootout in Windsor, then open a Sarnia home-and-home
SAGINAW, Mich. — The Saginaw Spirit earned their first shootout win of the season Monday in Windsor, then turn quickly to a home-and-home with the Sarnia Sting that starts Friday night across the border.
Stepan Shurygin stopped 34 of 36 shots and all three shootout attempts he faced as Saginaw beat the Spitfires 3-2 at the WFCU Centre, the Spirit said in their game release. Dima Zhilkin scored the only shootout goal after a scoreless overtime. Zhilkin and Braidy Wassilyn each extended point streaks to eight games.
Zhilkin opened the scoring at 6:00 of the first on a feed from Wassilyn. Windsor’s Ethan Garden tied it late in the second, and Beksultan Makysh put the Spitfires ahead early in the third. Jacob Cloutier answered midway through the third with an unassisted backhand to force overtime, according to the Spirit.
Saginaw is next at Sarnia on Friday, Oct. 16, at Progressive Auto Sales Arena, with puck drop at 7:05 p.m., the team said. The Sting visit the Dow Event Center on Saturday, Oct. 17, also at 7:05 p.m., per the Spirit schedule and Ticketmaster listing.
The back-to-back closes a stretch that included a 4-2 home win over Kitchener on Oct. 10 and Monday’s point in Windsor. Fans looking ahead on the calendar will also see Pride Night with Dow and Great Lakes Bay Pride scheduled for Friday, Oct. 23, the Spirit announced earlier this month.
Sources:
Saginaw Spirit / Ontario Hockey League, “Shurygin stops 34 to secure Spirit shootout win in Windsor,” Oct. 12, 2026, https://chl.ca/ohl-spirit/article/shurygin-stops-34-to-secure-spirit-shootout-win-in-windsor/
Saginaw Spirit schedule, https://chl.ca/ohl-spirit/schedule/
Photo: MrMiscellanious, “Dow-Event-Center-Wendler-Arena.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), cropped and color-adjusted; derivative under the same ShareAlike license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dow-Event-Center-Wendler-Arena.jpg
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