The London Knights stayed perfect this season against the Owen Sound as they finished a weekend sweep of their games with an 8-3 victory over the Attack at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.
Wins over Windsor and Kitchener set the stage for a win that was a lot closer than the final score indicated.
London scored three goals into an empty net and got another one from Landon Sim with 6.6 seconds left to earn their largest margin of victory in a game since a 6-1 victory over the Flint Firebirds on January 7.
Luke Evangelista landed two of those empty-net goals to give him an Ontario Hockey League leading 32 in 31 games. It keeps the Knights’ captain on pace to become the sixth London player to score 60 goals. Dave Simpson, Dennis Maruk, Dave Lowry, Patrick Kane and Dino Ciccarelli are the fab five who have accomplished the feat.
Evangelista finished the day with two goals and two assists. Tonio Stranges had a goal and two assists which gave him six points in a two-game span. Evangelista had a 10-point weekend with six goals and four helpers.
London got off to a fast start in Owen Sound as Stranges found Camaryn Baber in front of the Attack’s net on a power play just one minute and one second into the game. Baber deflected home his tenth goal of the season which gives him a new career high.
Owen Sound got that back on a power play of their own, courtesy of Stepan Machacek at 15:32 of the first period and then went ahead when veteran forward Nicholas Porco scored short-handed in the final minute.
The Knights tied the game on a pretty give-and-go executed by Evangelista and Cody Morgan that Morgan finished off to make it 2-2 just under seven minutes into the second period. Then Tonio Stranges outraced a defender to a puck and roofed a shot on Nick Chenard to put London ahead to stay.
Before the end of the second period Stranges found Sean McGurn at the side of the Owen Sound net on a power play to send the team to the dressing room with the Knights ahead 4-2.
The third period flowed in the first fifteen minutes with an uneventful rhythm until Attack head coach Greg Walters pulled Chenard with just over five minutes remaining. Owen Sound buzzed around the London zone but the Knights got control, Evangelista got to centre and buried a shot dead centre of the open net to put London ahead by three.
With Chenard back in the crease the Attack struck 42 seconds later at the other end of the ice as Cedric Guindon snapped a shot past Brett Brochu to tighten the lead to two again.
Once more Chenard headed to the bench for an extra attacker and once more Evangelista got his stick on a puck and this time from inside his own blue line he bagged his third empty netter in two games, and second from his own zone, to make it 6-3.
With the Owen Sound goal still empty Ben Bujold, London’s first round pick in 2020, took a feed from Max McCue and slid home his first goal in the OHL before crashing, laughing into the end boards and it was 7-3.
Not done there, Ty McSorley got to a puck in the left corner of the Attack zone and found Landon Sim who ripped a wrist shot off the shoulder of Chenard with 6.6 seconds remaining to complete the scoring.
The Knights were 2-for-5 on the power play. Owen Sound was 1-for-6.
London rookie defenceman Isaiah George was a game-best plus-four on the day and currently sits top among rookies in plus/minus and second among all defencemen.
The Attack outshot London 40-38.
Finally hitting halfway
Depending on how schedules work out Ontario Hockey League teams usually hit the halfway point of their season right around January 1. 2021-22 has been anything but usual.
It took the Knights until February 5 to get to the 34-game mark of a 68-game schedule but they did it with a 6-3 win over the Kitchener Rangers. The have reached the mid-way point with a .691 winning percentage which ranks second only to the Mississauga Steelheads.
They are on pace to give up just 180 goals against. That would match their best defensive effort going all the way back to 2013 when London won their second of back-to-back OHL championships. The Knights are on pace to score 262 goals this year.
Evangelista at 30
London captain Luke Evangelista finished the weekend with five goals in two games. He completed his second hat trick of the season against Kitchener on February 5 and now has 32 goals in 31 games joining Brennan Othmann of the Flint Firebirds and James Hardie of the Steelheads on the 30-goal plateau.
The difference for Evangelista is that he hit 30 goals in 30 games. Othmann scored his 30th in his 37th game while Hardie did it in 41. Evangelista is still on pace to become the sixth London Knights player to score 60 goals joining Dave Simpson, Dave Lowry, Dino Ciccarelli, Dennis Maruk and Patrick Kane.
Up next
The Knights are scheduled to be in Saginaw, Mich., to play the Saginaw Spirit on Wednesday, Feb. 9 and then will continue on the road to meet the Kitchener Rangers on February 11 and the Windsor Spitfires on Feb. 12.
The next London home game is set for Wednesday, Feb. 16 against the Guelph Storm. Season ticket holders will be part of a lottery for tickets to that game and the one on Friday, Feb. 18 against Sault Ste. Marie.
If provincial COViD-19 restrictions remain in place as they currently stand the Knights will be able to have a crowd of 4,500 for their game against the Kitchener Rangers on Family Day.
Pre-game shows with Mike Stubbs and Jim Van Horne begin 30 minutes before the drop of the puck on 980 CFPL, http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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