Spitfires are young on the D
Rebuilding as a team after back to back Western Conference crowns, the Windsor Spitfires have one of the youngest defensive corps in the Ontario Hockey League.
No less than four of the Spitfires seven defensemen are OHL rookies. And a fifth, second year defender Anthony Cristoforo, has the same 2006 birth year as two of the Spitfires rookie blue liners.
The four Spitfire rookie defensemen are Conor Walton, Carson Woodall, Tanner Winegard and import Josef Eichler. Walton and Woodall both have 2006 birth dates while Winegard and Eichler were both born in 2005. Then there is the aforementioned Cristoforo with his 2006 birth date.
The elders of the Windsor blue line are overager Djibril Toure with a 2003 birth date and Connor Toms, who was born in 2004.
With about a third of the 2023-2024 OHL regular season still to play, the Spitfires are in last place in the Western Conference and chasing the Flint Firebirds and Sarnia Sting for the eighth and playoff spot.