Two goals from both Dante Salituro and Cliff Pu lifted the London Knights to a 5-2 win over the Kitchener Rangers on Friday night.
The win was London’s twelfth in a row over the Rangers, counting regular season and playoffs and dating back to January of 2016.
It also lifted the Knights into sole possession of first place overall in the Ontario Hockey League standings, two points ahead of the Erie Otters. Erie has two games in hand and will make them up this weekend against Saginaw and Windsor.
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Rare short-handed penalty shots triggered the scoring in the fifth meeting between the teams this season.
Joseph Garreffa stole a puck in the London end with the Knights on the power play and deked his way across the slot.
Tyler Johnson was called for throwing his stick at the puck, play was whistled down and a penalty shot was awarded to the Rangers.
Garreffa picked up the puck at centre ice and went through a few more dekes before wiring a shot inside the left post for a 1-0 Kitchener advantage.
The score stayed that way until nearly halfway through the second period.
With a London man advantage winding down, Mitchell Stephens came speeding down right wing and carried the puck behind the Kitchener net. He dished a pass out front to Dante Salituro and the former Ottawa 67s forward buried it for his seventh goal in 14 games.
Garreffa helped to grab the lead back for the Rangers as he took the puck and flew into the London zone on a 2-on-1 with Darby Llewellyn. Garreffa slipped a soft backhand pass to Llewellyn and he made no mistake putting his team back in front.
The Knights battled back using the script they worked with during Wednesday’s win in Flint.
Before the horn to end period two, London took advantage of another power play. Mitch Vande Sompel passed a puck to Cliff Pu on the right side of the Ranger zone and he waited a fraction of a second and then wired a wrist shot past Luke Opilka to make it 2-2.
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Kitchener had a major chance to go ahead again in the third period, but Johnson equalled it with a major save in the London net.
Fans hardly had time to count the seconds that elapsed between that stop and what would eventually hold up as the game-winning goal. Robert Thomas carried into the Ranger end and put a pass onto the stick of Salituro who was headed hard to the net and he scored his second of the night to make it 3-2 for the Knights.
London held on through a Kitchener man advantage that became a two-man advantage that saw the Knights down two men and a stick after Brandon Crawley’s exploded on a clearing attempt.
The Knights made it through some tense times around their net, killed off the penalty and then added empty net goals from Pu and Alex Formenton to finish off the victory.
London played the game without Victor Mete and Tyler Parsons. Both missed the game with upper body injuries.
The Knights have sixteen games remaining on their regular season schedule and will be off until Wednesday when they visit the Erie Otters in a battle of top teams in the OHL standings. Broadcast time on AM 980 is 6:30.
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