Not every Knights fan leaving Budweiser Gardens on Friday night felt as though they had witnessed a loss by the hometown team.
The Kingston Frontenacs shut out London 5-0, but any Knights’ fan who also calls themselves a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs left the building talking about a guy named Eemeli Rasanen.
After discussing the proper pronunciation of his first name (It’s eh – MEEL), fans quickly turned to what he did on the ice.
Just standing in skates, Rasanen comes close to 6-feet, 10-inches. Standing around is the one thing that the second-round pick of the Maple Leafs failed to do all that much.
Rasanen was named the game’s first star as he scored two goals on big blasts from the blue line and assisted on a third as another point shot hit Linus Nyman in front and went in. All of that came in a span of 12 minutes and 16 seconds in the second period and had the Frontenacs ahead 4-0.
Rasanen’s offensive efforts were bookmarked by a first-period goal from Sam Field and a third-period goal by Sergey Popov.
Second-year goaltender, Mario Peccia made 24 saves for Kingston and recorded his first career Ontario Hockey League shutout.
Knights’ fans were hoping to celebrate the return of Robert Thomas and Max Jones, who made their season debuts after returning from the NHL. Thomas spent three weeks with the St. Louis Blues and then signed his first professional contract. Thomas scored twice for the Blues in the pre-season.
Jones did some scoring of his own with the Anaheim Ducks in exhibition play. He led the Knights’ in shots on goal in the game with five.
Only Frontenacs’ forward, Jason Robertson had more with eight and the Dallas Stars’ second-rounder was held off the score sheet by London.
Jordan Kooy started the game for the Knights and was replaced by Tyler Johnson after the third Kingston goal in a move by Knights’ head coach, Dale Hunter to try to change momentum.
Kooy and Johnson each made 14 saves.
The game saw two fights, which ranks well above what has become the league average in the OHL. One came early as Cole Tymkin was given a penalty and then had to defend himself against an oncoming Paul Larabie of the Frontenacs.
Late in the game, as a Kingston infraction was being called, rookies Andrew Perrott and Bryan Laureigh wound up throwing punches.
The Knights will now head for Oshawa on Sunday evening to face the Generals, who are coming off a loss in Guelph on Friday and sit 2-2 on the year.
The pre-game show gets going at 5:30 on AM980, AM980.ca and the Radioplayer Canada app.
The Knights’ team will be at Palasad South from 2-4 on Saturday playing ping-pong.