Londoner Michael Simpson stopped 18 shots for his third shutout of the year and Easton Cowan extended his point streak to 25 games as the London Knights beat the Frontenacs 5-0 on Feb. 24 in Kingston, Ont.
Cowan has now tied Sergei Kostitsyn for the longest point streak by a London player dating back to the 1997-98 season when scoring streak statistics began to be recorded by the OHL.
Sawyer Boulton returned to the London lineup after serving a two-game suspension for receiving an instigator penalty inside the final five minutes of a game and got the scoring going with his third goal of the year. Boulton slid a puck under Kingston goalie Mason Vaccari at 2:51 0f the first period. Sam Dickinson stretched his point streak to nine games with an assist on Boulton’s goal.
Dickinson then helped to set up the second Knights goal with 2:41 remaining in the opening 20 minutes. Dickinson got a puck to Kasper Halttunen on the left side of the Frontenacs zone and Halttunen threaded a perfect pass to the right side of the Kingston net, where Oliver Bonk knocked it behind Vaccari to make it 2-0 London.
The teams held each other scoreless through the second period but the Knights broke through again in the third for a trio of goals.
Sam O’Reilly scored London’s 26th short-handed goal of the year as Ruslan Gazizov set up at the side of the net where O’Reilly lifted in his 16th goal of the season to put London ahead 3-0.
Denver Barkey wired a wrist shot off the crossbar and in for his 29th goal of the year, then Barkey and Gazizov set up Cowan to extend Cowan’s point streak to 25 games with 8:29 to go in the game to finish the scoring.
Gazizov ended the game with two assists.
The Knights outshot the Frontenacs 30-18.
The victory was London’s 20th on the road in 2023-24.
The Knights now lead the Saginaw Spirit by four points for first place overall in the OHL standings after North Bay defeated the Spirit 6-3.
Both teams have 12 games remaining in the regular season.
The 40-win club
The Knights have hit 40 wins in a season for the 16th time since 2000. That will sound like a lot, but when compared to the rest of the Ontario Hockey League, it puts London into a different stratosphere. The closest teams to the Knights on the 40-wins list are the Barrie Colts and the Kitchener Rangers and each of them has hit the mark nine times since 2000.
In that same frame London has won 50 games in a season five separate times and came within one win of 60 victories in 2004-05 when the Team of the Century won 59.
Up next
The Knights head for Ottawa to face the 67’s at 3 p.m., on Feb. 24.
The clubs have met once this year on Oct. 27 at Budweiser Gardens when Easton Cowan took a feed from MaxMcCue in overtime and put the game winner past Collin MacKenzie to cap off a three-point night.
Coverage will start at 2:30 p.m., on 980 CFPL, at www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.