Another shootout goal from Tonio Stranges and more saves by Jordan Kooy helped the London Knights edge the Storm 2-1 in a shootout on Saturday afternoon in Guelph.
All game long for both teams it was a case of, “if at first you don’t succeed.”
The London Knights fired 31 shots at Anthony Popovich and had not scored. Liam Foudy took the 32nd and was denied, but as the Knights had done all day, he kept going and backhanded in his own rebound past Popovich to tie the game 1-1 with less than three minutes to go in the third period.
Overtime had chances and strange occurrences, but neither team could break the 1-1 tie. At one point Guelph appeared to have a 3-on-1 only to discover that the net had been knocked off behind Kooy the last time the play had been in the London zone. That forced the officials to stop play.
Based on their play, both teams deserved a point in the game and it just so happened that they both got one. The second point that the Knights earned moved them ahead of Sault Ste. Marie and into sole possession of first place in the Western Conference.
Foudy has now scored in three consecutive games.
Kooy’s 33 saves earned him the game’s first star and will keep him ahead of all other OHL goalies in save percentage and goals against average.
Popovich made 37 stops in all, including five in overtime.
London is now 10-0-1 in their last 11 games. The Storm are 5-1-5 in their last 11.
The Knights will finish three games in three days in three different cities in Erie on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m.
Then they will come home for a Thursday game against Mississauga where their 2004-05 Memorial Cup championship team will be honoured after they were named the Canadian Hockey League’s Team of the Century in May.
How the goals were scored
With the Knights attempting that long change in the second period, Ryan Merkley grabbed a puck inside his own blue line and flung it forward to Barret Kirwin who raced in alone and snapped a shot over the glove of Jordan Kooy for a 1-0 Guelph lead.
That goal nearly stood up the rest of the way. With Kooy and Anthony Popovich kicking and knocking pucks away all over the place, time began to tick down in the third period. Knights forward Nathan Dunkley began to work the puck along the end boards in the Guelph zone. He tied it up with his stick and his skates and eventually got it free to Connor McMichael who flipped a pass into the crease. From there, Liam Foudy lifted the puck into the Storm net for his third goal in three games and a 1-1 tie with 2:52 remaining in regulation time.
Tonio Stranges scored in his third straight shootout, Alex Formenton scored his first shootout goal of the year and Jordan Kooy stuffed two Guelph shooters as the Knights improved to 3-0 this year in games that can’t be decided by 65 minutes of hockey.
The art of stopping the two-on-oh
Late in the first period in Guelph, Jordan Kooy looked up at a two-on-OH-NO! San Jose Sharks’ first-round pick Ryan Merkley had just stepped out of the penalty box when Isaac Ratcliffe, a first-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers fed the puck ahead to Merkley and joined him on a two-man breakaway. Merkley carried in close to the net, tried to draw Jordan Kooy to the left of the net and then dished back to Ratcliffe and he attempted to lift the puck into the net. The pair of NHL draftees executed what they wanted to do seamlessly, but Jordan Kooy put a smile on the faces of the two Knights teams, the one from London and the one from Vegas who owns his NHL rights, as he spread-eagled across the net and robbed Ratcliffe.
Brady Tkachuk set to hit the perfect ten
If he is in the lineup for the Ottawa Senators on Monday night, Brady Tkachuk will officially hit the ten-game mark in the NHL. He has been told that he is staying in Ottawa this year which will quiet the last remaining rumbles around the concourses at Budweiser Gardens about whether there is still a whiff of a chance that the Sens would send Matthew Tkachuk’s kid brother to London. The Knights own his rights after taking Tkachuk in the fourth round of the 2015 OHL Priority Selection. Ottawa drafted Tkachuk fourth overall in the 2018 NHL Entry draft.
Up next
The Knights will finish the weekend in Erie on Sunday as they plat the Otters for the first time in the 2018-19 regular season. The teams played twice in the pre-season in a back-to-back series in London and Komoka.
Erie has been one of the best teams in the OHL beyond regulation. They have gone to overtime or a shootout seven times already this year and have three overtime victories, three shootout wins and just one loss. The Otters continue to be in a building mode after back-to-back-to-back-to-back 50-win seasons that led to Erie’s second OHL championship in 2017. They are led offensively by Kyle Maksimovich and Gera Poddubnyi and 2018 first-round pick, Jamie Drysdale has turned heads as a 16-year-old.
Coverage will begin at 3:30 on 980 CFPL, at www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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