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Brampton Battalion coach Stan Butler knew he was in tough when flu-ridden forward Evgeny Grachev could not make it to the game-four starting gate against the Windsor Spitfires.

But it only got worse for Butler, when late in Windsor Spitfires 4-1 victory to snatch a 3-1 series lead in the OHL final, Battalion goalie Thomas McCollum was hobbled and was forced to abandon the game after a crash with Spitfires forward Dale Mitchell.

The Brampton coach was miffed that referees Darcy Burchell and Brent Holdsworth nailed Mitchell with only a two-minute minor for goaltender interference and a 10-minute misconduct.

"I don't know how that it was not a five-minute penalty," Butler said. "For some reason, the referees went back to 1970's standards."

What Butler didn't see was that his own player, defenceman Josh Day, caused the collision when he tripped the hard-skating Mitchell into McCollum.

The Battalion coach was asked afterwards as to the seriousness of McCollum's injury, and Butler replied "I don't know. I'm not a doctor."

The 4-1 result disappointed the capacity crowd of 4,861 at the Powerade Centre, which was the largest gathering for a Battalion home game in the club's 10-year history.

With or without McCollum, the Battalion now face an elimination game in Windsor on Friday as the Spitfires hope to celebrate their first J. Ross Robertson Cup as OHL champions since 1987-88.

After winning the first two games of the series, Brampton surprised the Spitfires in Windsor on Monday with a solid 4-2 victory. But Spitfires coach Bob Boughner reminded his club before Wednesday's outing that they not only have played well on the road this season — 26-7-1 in the regular season and 7-2 in the playoffs — but that they hadn't lost back-to-back games with a full lineup all year.

Boughner received a lift from a pair of experienced playoff veterans to regain control of the best-of-seven final. Shutdown defenceman Ben Shutron and forward Scott Timmins, acquired midseason by the Spitfires from the Memorial Cup finalist Kitcheners Rangers, scored the first two goals of the game.

"You can see what they mean to our team," Boughner said. "Shutron gets the first goal of the game playing against their top players. I think he might have blocked seven or eight shots. I thought Timmins played one of his strongest games of the playoffs.

"It's a tough job [Timmins has] in shutting down [Brampton's Cody] Hodgson and [Matt] Duchene. But a big part of [Timmins'] game is he's the best face-off man.

"They are veterans who say the right thing and the others feed off that."

Shutron and Timmins, along with backup goalie Josh Unice, were traded from Kitchener to Windsor in early January for prospect Brandon Maxwell, overager Jacob Lalonde and three draft picks.

"It was tough to say goodbye to an organization like the Rangers," said Timmins, of Hamilton, Ont. "I owe them a lot. But when you go to a team like Windsor you can't complain with the success they've had and hopefully I'll get a shot at another Memorial Cup."

And how do last year's Rangers compare to this season's Spitfires?

"Both teams are fast and have a lot of skill," Timmins said. "This team may be a little tougher."

The Spitfires scored the only goal in the opening 20 minutes, when the point shot from Shutron squeezed through the pads McCollum. Timmins put Windsor in front 2-0 in the second period with a deflection, but Brampton's Hodgson set the stage for the final 20 minutes with a breakaway goal late in the middle stanza. The Spitfires, however, added to their lead with two third-period goals from Andrei Loktionov.