Friday night’s game couldn’t end fast enough for the Kingston Frontenacs, as they were handed their most lopsided loss of the season, an 8-1 defeat at the hands of the London Knights.
JJ Salajko got the start in goal for the Frontenacs on Friday, the first in his OHL career, but gave up all 7 goals in the loss.
The Frontenacs had plenty of opportunities to find the scoresheet, playing with the man advantage nine times throughout the game but could never capitalize on those chances, even giving up three short-handed goals to the Knights.
Chris Thibodeau scored the Frontenacs’ only goal of the night.
It took only 26 seconds to break the scoreless tie, after Tommy Budnick took a penalty, Denver Barkey found the top left corner of the net over Salajko’s shoulder to open the scoring and give the Knights a 1-0 lead.
London extended its lead before the 5-minute mark, Jacob Julien took the puck in the corner and centred it for Kasper Halttunen who tapped it in from the doorstep to make it a 2-0 game.
The Frontenacs special teams would give up another goal, this time on the penalty kill. The Frontenacs turned the puck over at their own blueline and Easton Cowan found himself all alone on Salajko, putting it under his right arm and extending the Knight’s lead to 3-0.
Kingston would head into the first intermission up 11-8 in shots.
Denver Barkey found the scoresheet a second time just shy of the two-minute mark of the second period. Kingston turned the puck over at their own blueline on a powerplay to Easton Cowan who cut in down the left side and found Barkey with a cross-ice pass to put the home side up 4-0.
Kasper Halttunen scored his second goal of the game at 13:14 of the second period. London cycled the puck off a faceoff draw on the power play leading to a Sam Dickinson point shot that rebounded right on the stick of Halttunen for a 5-0 game.
Jacob Julien scored London’s sixth of the night two minutes later on an assist from Jackson Edward, and the Frontenacs found themselves down 6 heading into the second intermission.
Kingston finally found the scoresheet in the third period when Chris Thibodeau scored his fifth of the season after the rebound from a Jacob Battaglia shot ended up on his stick and he got one by Owen Willmore.
But the Knights quickly restored their six-goal lead on a goal from Sam O’Reilly, his third this year.
Kaeden Johnson notched his third of the season at 17:52 of the third to put London up 8-1.
The final shots were 36-27 in favour of the Frontenacs.
Kingston finishes off their weekend road trip Saturday in St. Catherines when they face off against their division rivals the Niagara Ice Dogs. They are at home next Friday Oct. 20th against the Soo Greyhounds.
Comments