For the first time since Jan. 20, the London Knights have company at the top of the Ontario Hockey League standings.
The Guelph Storm held off the Knights 5-4 at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph on March 6 at the same time that the Saginaw Spirit were falling 3-2 at home to the Flint Firebirds.
The single point for Saginaw means the Spirit and London sit tied with 90 points apiece and each team has seven games remaining on their regular season schedule.
Easton Cowan managed to score twice for the Knights to extend his point streak to 30 games which tied Jordan Kyrou for the longest steak in the OHL in the past decade.
The Storm built a 3-0 lead early as they scored three times in the opening period.
Six-feet-six-inch forward Vilmer Alriksson pushed down the ice and poked a puck through Michael Simpson to grab the first goal of the game at 10:42 of the first.
That goal seemed to energize a Guelph team that kept the puck out of their net early on as the Knights outshot the Storm 7-2 through the first 10 minutes of the game.
Guelph went to the power play and cashed in again at 15:15 on a one-timer by Braeden Bowman and then jumped ahead by three as Union’s Brody Crane snapped a shot in for his ninth goal of the year.
London got two of those goals back in the second period as Sam Dickinson and Sam O’Reilly combined on a beautiful give-and-go that saw Dickinson score his 18th goal of the season to make it 3-1. Jackson Edward of the Knights then threw a puck on goal from inside the blue line and it hit a body and was smacked into the Storm net to get London to within one heading into the final 20 minutes.
Just 1:22 into the third period, Denver Barkey stole a puck on the left side of the Guelph zone and found Easton Cowan in front and he buried his 31st goal to tie the game 3-3. In doing so, he extended his point streak to 30 games. That tied Kyrou, now with the St. Louis Blues, who had a 30-game point streak as a member of the Sarnia Sting in 2016-17.
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Guelph grabbed the league back at 6:46 of the final period as Ryan McGuire was able to get to a puck in behind the Knight net and was able to get it to the side of the net, where McGuire whacked away until the puck squeaked across the goal line to give the Storm a 4-3 lead.
A broken stick led to the eventual game winner as Isaiah George’s stick snapped just below the top of the shaft and caused a puck to slide in front to Leo Serlin and he scored to give Guelph a 5-4 advantage with just under seven minutes remaining.
Cowan’s second goal of the game made it 5-4 but London could not come up with the tying goal in the final minutes.
The Knights outshot the Storm 47-21 as Brayden Gillespie made 43 saves in net for Guelph.
Former Knights headed to U Sports natuional championship
Four former London Knights players engaged in a fairly quiet Atlantic University Sports championship celebration on March 5 as they blanked Moncton to with a sixth straight Atlantic title. Last year’s co-captain in London, Sean McGurn, along with Camryn Baber, Cody Morgan, Jason Willms and the rest of their UNB Reds teammates are now 35-0 on the year. As they begin the quest for the University Cup from March 14 to 17, they will have gone 373 days as a program without losing a single game.
UNB is expected to grab the top seed for the tournament that will also feature former Knights player Cole Tymkin who is a forward with Brock. Tymkin played in London from 2016-20.
Up next
London will host the Sarnia Sting at Budweiser Gardens on March 8 at 7 p.m.
The Knights have not seen Sarnia since a 5-1 London win on home ice on Dec. 29, 2023.
After making it to the Western Conference final for the first time in franchise history, the Sting are in danger of missing the playoffs in 2024. They sit six points back of the Flint Firebirds for the final spot with eight games remaining on their schedule.
Coverage of the game will start at 6:30 p.m., on 980 CFPL, at www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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