Easton Cowan was less than 25 seconds away from seeing his 20-game point streak come to an end.
That’s when Sam Dickinson flipped the puck into centre ice and sent Cowan in on a breakaway.
The Maple Leafs prospect deked to his backhand and scored with 20.7 seconds remaining to give the London Knights a 4-3 overtime victory over the Generals in Oshawa on Feb. 11.
It was a game that the Knights had trailed 3-0 with under 12 minutes remaining in the third period.
Two goals by Kasper Halttunen, a single from Jacob Julien and three point-blank third-period saves from Michael Simpson made it possible on what turned out to be a super Super Bowl Sunday for London as they stretched their point streak to 23 games.
They are 21-0-0-2 since Dec. 10.
The opening period was filled with Oshawa power play opportunities.
The Generals were 0-for-5 on the man advantage although two of the penalties to London carried over into the second period.
Strangely the only goal of the first period came at even strength as seconds after a big chance for Ruslan Gazizov was stopped by Oshawa goalie Jacob Oster, Generals defenceman Luca Marelli and forward Calum Ritchie combined to find Beckett Sennecke who had snuck behind the Knights defence. Sennecke scored on a breakaway and Oshawa led 1-0 through 20 minutes.
The Generals cashed in on the penalties that carried over into the second period and increased their lead to 3-0.
Londoner Dylan Roobroeck scored on a 5-on-3 opportunity and then Calum Ritchie sent a behind-the-back pass to Sennecke in the slot and he connected for his second goal of the afternoon.
The Knights were held off the board in three consecutive chances on the man advantage later in the period.
The first 8:26 of the third saw the Generals do a very good job keeping the Knights away from the Oshawa net but Halttunen changed that as he bashed and crashed his way along the boards and got the puck in front where he lasered a wrist shot into the top corner of the Generals net to make it 3-1 for Oshawa.
Less than three minutes later Halttunen spotted Julien in front and he found a way with a man on him to knock the puck into the net to get London to within a goal with 8:51 left in regulation.
A giveaway in the Knights end gave Oshawa two glorious chances to go ahead 4-2 but Michael Simpson made two enormous saves and gave London a chance to push for the game-tying goal.
Halttunen got that at 14:36 of the third period on a setup from Kaleb Lawrence.
The Knights went to a power play in overtime but the Generals killed it off.
The game was winding its way toward a shootout when Sam Dickinson flipped a puck from his own zone into centre ice where Cowan got to it and scored.
Cowan’s 21-game point streak equals a streak by Mitch Marner in the 2015-16 season.
Sergei Kostitsyn recorded a point in 25 consecutive games in 2006-07.
The OHL has not made records for point streaks available for years prior to 1997-98.
London outshot Oshawa 14-9 in the third period 14-9 and then 5-1 in overtime.
The Knights outshot the Generals 39-30 in the game.
London’s power play was 0-for-5.
Oshawa’s was 0-for-6.
Perfection for four former Knights
The University of New Brunswick Reds put an exclamation point on perfection as they pounded the University of P.E.I. 9-1 on Feb. 10 to complete a 30-0 regular season. Former Knights Sean McGurn, Jason Willms, Camaryn Baber and Cody Morgan all play for UNB and have been huge contributors to the first 30-0 season in U Sports history.
The Western Mustangs went undefeated in 2002-03 on their way to a University Cup championship but OUA teams only play 28 games.
Up next
The Knights will meet the Soo Greyhounds at Budweiser Gardens on Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. The teams have met twice in Sault Ste. Marie and the Greyhounds won both games. The first one went to a shootout and the second ended 5-4.
That was London’s last regulations loss. It came on Dec. 10, 2023.
Coverage will begin at 6:30 on 980 CFPL, at http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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