By Nathan Waters
The Flint Firebirds ended their season on April 4 in a 5-1 series defeat to the Kitchener Rangers, wrapping up their 2024-25 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) play. For Firebirds fans it was a sad, though not-unexpected, conclusion to another exciting season before an offseason of flux for Flint’s junior hockey team.
Regular Season
Flint started the season on Friday, Sept. 7 with a 7-4 win over last year’s champions, the London Knights. However, the Knights roared back the following evening, beating Flint by a score of 5-2. This pattern would come to describe the up and down nature of the Firebirds’ whole season.
October saw the team keep a .500 record going 5-5, but November saw a 3 win – 10 loss slump.
December showed some light for the holidays with an improved record of 6-4, though things began to backslide in the new year with the ‘birds going 4-8.
February again brought a bit of hope with a much improved 7-4 record before Flint finished out the season with only one win in six to end March at 3-7 and an overall season of 29 wins and 39 losses, including 5 overtime losses.
Playoffs
Their up-and-down season earned the Firebirds 6th seed in the playoffs and a series date with the 3rd seed Rangers and their star goalie, Jackson Parsons. (Parsons was first in the league in both wins and shut-outs this season.)
The first two games were played at Kitchener Memorials Stadium, with a closely fought battle during game one where the Rangers pulled out an overtime win.
The second game was more lopsided. The Rangers raced out to a two goal lead midway through the first period, before Nathan Aspinall could pull one back for Flint. Sadly, that would be all of the luck Flint would have that night with the final score ending 6-1.
Play then shifted to Dort Financial Center in Flint for the next pair of games. Here, Flint would get its first win of the series. Kaden Pitre and Matthew Wang scored 78 seconds apart early in the third period and Firebirds’ goalie Nathaniel Day earned a 38-save shutout.
Ultimately though, game four was another lopsided affair that saw Flint hold off Kitchener for the first period before what would seem like a near-replay of game two, this time Flint’s Connor Clattenberg being the only scorer in a 5-1 loss.
Game five and a return to Kitchener gave the series a sense of symmetry with another closely fought battle and Flint falling just short. A 2-1 loss would see the Firebirds exit the playoffs and end their season.
Flint Firebirds Nathan Day (#31) during Game 3 against the Kitchener Rangers on April 1, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the Flint Firebirds)
Players
In 2023, Day was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in the 6th round (184th overall). The 20-year-old goaltender played in the 2024 Young Stars Classic hosted in Penticton B.C. by the Vancouver Canucks organization. The event featured young prospects from the Canucks and Oilers as well as the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames.
Day would also make a preseason appearance for the Oilers before returning to the Firebirds for their 2024-25 season.
At the conclusion of the Firebirds season Day signed a three year Entry Level Contract (ELC) with the Oilers per a release from the Edmonton organization. He has since started playing with the Fort Wayne Komets of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL), an Oilers development affiliate, playing four games and earning two wins.
The 2024 NHL entry draft saw three more Firebirds drafted. Connor Clattenberg was selected and will join his goaltender in Edmonton, while Nathan Aspinall was drafted into the New York Rangers organization. Kaden Pitre follows in his brother and fellow Firebirds alum, Coulson Pitre, who was drafted in 2023 by the Anaheim Ducks, by being selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning. The group is rounded out by team top scorer and midseason acquisition Sam McCue, who was drafted to the Toronto Maple Leafs. All three players have yet to sign ELC’s and time will tell whether these local players make it to the top level.
Flint Firebirds Kaden Pitre (#17) celebrates scoring against the Kitchener Rangers on April 1, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the Flint Firebirds)
There are a further seven players who are newly eligible for the 2025 NHL draft per the season program. Forward Christopher Thibodeau, center Jimmy Lombardi, center Josh Colosimo, left winger Jeremy Martin, center Max Anderson, defenseman Artem Frolov, and defenseman Ryan Fellinge could all see their names called in late June at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
The Firebirds have had at least one player drafted to the NHL since relocation to Flint in 2015. This continues the trend of the team having a player drafted going back to the organization’s inception, as the Detroit Compuware Ambassadors (later, and more commonly known as the Plymouth Whalers) in the 1990-91 season.
Off Season and Beyond
The Firebirds will return to play with a new look team when the 2025-26 season begins. The OHL Priority Selection took place on April 11 and 12 where the Firebirds selected 15 players from the eligibility pool. While a complicated process, the selection rules can be found here. Draftees attended an orientation camp from April 25 – 27 at 810 Sports Complex for a series of games.
Flint may lose 8 to 11 players currently on the roster due to exceeding the maximum age. OHL teams players are typically between 17-20 with the ability to have up to four 16 year olds and three players over 20.
The OHL season will resume the third full week of September.
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