Tonio Stranges, Connor McMichel and Jonathan Gruden handled all of the goal scoring duties for the Knights in a 7-3 road victory over the Hamilton Bulldogs on Saturday.
Both McMichael and Gruden already had fond memories of the First Ontario Centre.
It was McMichael’s first home in the Ontario Hockey League after the Bulldogs made him their first-round pick in 2017 and Gruden’s father led Hamilton to their first OHL championship as head coach later that same season.
In a game that saw the Knights pick up where they left off in a 6-2 win over the Erie Otters at Budweiser Gardens on Saturday, McMichael posted a hat trick, Gruden scored the first two goals of his OHL career and Stranges added two more, giving him four over the back-to-back games London played this weekend.
McMichael scored a total of five goals over the two games and now has seven on the year which has him leading the OHL in goals this season.
Ryan Merkley continued t pile up points for the Knights with three more assists. He now has five in his first two games in green and gold.
London’s power play went 3-for-6 in the game and is now clicking at 31.2 per cent this season. McMichael had two of the three and also scored short-handed.
Brett Brochu made his second consecutive start in goal and turned aside 30 of 33 Hamilton shots for his second career victory.
McMichael finding the net early
Heading into the regular season, London Knights’ general manager Mark Hunter said he was interested to see whether Connor McMichael could take a run at a 50-goal season. After four games, the Washington Capitals prospect is on the right track. McMichael has seven goals in four games to lead the OHL. His hat trick on Saturday has him two goals ahead of Quinton Byfield of Sudbury and Matej Pekar of the Barrie Colts. He is tied in points with Ilya Solovyov of the Saginaw Spirit. They are the first two players to hit double digits in 2019-20.
McMichael put on eight pounds of muscle in the summer and says he tried to learn as much as he could from forwards like Niklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin while at training camp with the Capitals. He played in his first NHL pre-season game before being re-assigned to London.
The 18-year old from Ajax, Ont., scored 36 goals and added 36 assists last year in what was his second season in the Ontario Hockey League.
Evangelista piling up assists
Knights second-year forward Luke Evangelista has hit a groove very early in 2019-20. London’s first-round pick in 2018 has put up five points in his first four games and just missed converting a 2-on-oh breakaway with Connor McMichael on Saturday for his first career goal. His biggest performance so far came on September 27 against Erie the Oakville native had three helpers for his first multi-point performance in the OHL and was named the game’s first star. Evangelista’s assists were not run-of-the-mill give the puck to someone and let them do the work. He set up Connor McMichael with a perfect pass going to the net in the first period. Then Evangelista feathered a pass to Matvey Guskov in the second period that Guskov grabbed and ripped into the Otter net. In the third period, Evangelista struck again by getting a puck to Nathan Dunkley in the corner that led to an Alec Regula goal.
Up next
There are weekends in the Ontario Hockey League that require you to prepare for three different opponents in less than three days. The Knights will get the OHL opposite for the next weekend on their schedule. They will play one team one day. Ottawa on Friday. And that’s it.
The 67’s made it to the OHL Championship series last May, losing four games to two to the Guelph Storm. While Ottawa lost some key players like Tye Felhaber and goalie Mikey DiPietro to graduation they still have a solid roster. It features one of the top defence corps in the league and some dangerous scorers in Graeme Clarke, Austen Keating and Marco Rossi.
Coverage will begin at 6:30 p.m. from Shoeless Joe’s on King Street. You can also hear the broadcast on 980 CFPL, at http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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