Owen MacDonald scored twice and Tyler Parsons made 24 saves as the London Knights blanked the Owen Sound Attack 4-0 at Budweiser Gardens on Friday night.
The victory by London ended the Attack’s run of nearly two calendar months without a regulation time loss. Owen Sound fell one day shy. In fact, in the last 18 games the Attack have played, the only team to beat them has been London and they have done it twice in the past week. The Knights have now won four consecutive games.
After London’s 7-6 comeback win in a shootout last Saturday, they began to focus on their defensive game. That attention continued early against the Attack as London held them without a shot for the first 11:35 of the first period. The first shot came on a dump-in from outside the Knights’ blue line that Tyler Parsons was forced to cover. Owen Sound had just five shots on goal through the first 20 minutes.
READ MORE: Preview: London Knights vs Owen Sound Attack
Owen MacDonald picked up his 30th point of the season to open the scoring, tying his career-best mark from last year as he chased down an Evan Bouchard flip pass into the Owen Sound zone and beat Attack goalie Michael McNiven with a shot up high.
MacDonald moved past his career best total early in the second thanks to a little help from Adrian Carbonara.
The former Barrie Colt missed three games after being injured last Friday against Erie, but took a feed from Nic Mattinen, made a move to the Owen Sound net and although the puck was knocked off his stick, Carbonara stayed with it and fed MacDonald in front for a tap-in to put the Knights up 2-0.
A power play goal lifted the London lead to 3-0 at 12:16 of the second period as Knights’ captain J.J. Piccinich was handed a tap-in for his 20th goal. Cliff Pu worked the puck out of the right corner and Max Jones trickled it along the goal line to Piccinich, who was left to knock the puck into the net.
Attack forward Petrus Palmu got Owen Sound’s best chance in the third period and his best chance to keep his 15-game point streak going, but he just couldn’t settle down a rebound to the left of the London net and his streak eventually ended.
The Knights have the claim to fame of ending Jeremy Bracco’s 26-game point streak earlier this season. It still stands as the longest one of 2016-17.
Mitchell Stephens’ sixth goal in his last four games completed the scoring as Robert Thomas threaded a pass in front to Stephens on a power play and London completed their second shutout in their last three games. The Knights have outscored their last three opponents 14-1.
Victor Mete did not play the game. He is still out with an upper body injury after being struck in the head by a puck on January 13th. Mete is back practicing with the team, but has been wearing the yellow (non-contact) jersey all week.
London will visit the Saginaw Spirit on Saturday for the final regular season meeting between the teams. Saginaw is fighting for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They trail the Flint Firebirds by four points going into Saturday’s game. Broadcast time on AM 980 is 7:00.
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