The London Knights earned their second road victory in three days, beating the Steelheads 5-2 in Mississauga on Sunday.
When a team finds itself with one win through the first ten games of a season, the pressure to make major changes can cause some teams to turn their roster upside down.
The Knights knew they were doing the things they needed to in order to stay upright and aside from a swap of goalies and the arrival of Alex Formenton from the Ottawa Senators, they avoided a whole lot of cut-and-paste and preached patience instead.
With two wins in a short span, the strategy appears to be paying some dividends.
Raaymakers stopped 26 of 28 shots for his second win for London. He went 6-1 against the Knights as a member of the Soo Greyhounds and has stepped seamlessly back into the crease despite having not played in any games this season before Friday.
“It’s just about focus,” said the Chatham native. “Other than that, it’s just reading and reacting during the play and being able to trust your instincts.”
Those are the same kind of instincts that had London management predicting he would be a good fit and believing that the team didn’t necessarily need a major overhaul.
How the goals went in
For the Knights, it was a case of “if at first you don’t succeed, try again.” After two first-period power plays failed to produce a goal, two opportunities that came right out of the blue did.
Liam Foudy carried a puck across the Mississauga blue line and lasered a shot under the crossbar on Emanuel Vella for his second goal of the season and a 1-0 London lead.
Then, with time ticking away in the opening period, the puck went bouncing through the slot, Steelheads defenceman Nic Hague fanned on a clearing attempt and Robert Thomas hammered a point-blank slapshot past Vella with 1.3 seconds left. The Knights then led by two goals going to the dressing room.
Thomas found Evan Bouchard coming in from the right point, just 24 seconds into the second period, and Bouchard beat Vella with a backhand to stretch the London lead 3-0.
Bouchard celebrated his 18th birthday on Oct. 20 and leads the Knights in scoring with 11 points in 12 games. He is moving up the draft boards heading toward the 2018 NHL Entry draft in June.
Ryan McLeod of the Steelheads, another top OHL prospect, is also considered a “late birthday” (a player born after Sept. 15 is not eligible for the NHL Entry draft until the following year).
He scored Mississauga’s first goal of the game at 8:30 of the second period as he carried into the London zone and beat Raaymakers with a hard wrist shot to the top corner of the net from the top of the left circle.
Mississauga came charging into the third period and created six scoring chances right away, only to be stopped six times by Raaymakers.
Their seventh chance came behind the goal line and it went in as rookie Keean Washkurak banked a puck in off Raaymakers as he tried to get back into his crease. That closed the gap to a goal at the 2:32 mark.
Sam Miletic swung the momentum back the Knights’ way at 7:13 of the third, ending a string of frustration that had seen opposing goalies make some outstanding stops to rob him.
Miletic kept firing and got some help as his shot deflected off a Mississauga defender and in to give London a two-goal advantage.
Tyler Rollo set up Max Jones with under four minutes remaining and Jones fought through a scrum in front to score his fourth goal in two games and finish the scoring at 5-2 in favour of the Knights.
Two-minute drill
London’s first three goals came in a span of 1:56 that was split by the first intermission.
Raay-zor sharp
Joseph Raaymakers has now played 120 minutes in a London Knights net and has a .953 save percentage and a goals against average of 1.50.
Raaymakers says he has been impressed by the players in front of him through the two games he has played.
“The guys jumped right from the start and we scored another five goals,” he enthused. “That’s what you call a team effort.”
Five minutes of short-handed hockey
When Alex Turko was assessed a match penalty for a check to the head of Steelheads’ forward Trent Fox, the Knights were called on to kill off a major penalty and did so without giving up a single quality scoring chance.
“Any time you can keep the power play from setting up in your zone you have a chance, and the players did that,” said Knights assistant coach Rick Steadman. “They want to see our penalty kill doing better, and everyone on it has stepped up and done a good job.”
Golden shaken
Jacob Golden was involved in a collision with Shaw Boomhower just inside the Mississauga blue line in the first period. Golden left the game and did not return. He will be evaluated this week.
Next up
The Knights come home on Friday for their only game at Budweiser Gardens in the next week as they face the Flint Firebirds on Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m.
After that, it’s back-to-back 4 p.m. starts in Hamilton on Saturday, Oct. 28 and in Guelph on Sunday, Oct. 29.
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