Beau Jelsma’s goal with 1:11 left in overtime gave the Barrie Colts a 5-4 win over the London Knights on Saturday night at the Sadlon Arena in Barrie, Ont.
Jelsma jumped off the bench and went right to the net, took a pass from Nathan Allenson and put a shot under the arm of Owen Flores.
The Knights fought back to tie the game twice in the third period and survived a Tyson Foerster hat trick performance to earn an important point in their quest to clinch the Midwest Division in the Ontario Hockey League.
Any combination of points earned by London or missed by the Guelph Storm over the final weeks of the regular season will do it.
Luke Evangelista scored in his fourth straight game and now has 53 goals on the season with six games remaining.
Evangelista also had an assist.
Isaiah George had a goal and an assist as well. He scored the goal that forced overtime at the 12:34 mark of the third period.
Landon Sim of the Knights had tied the game 3-3 earlier in the third.
Ruslan Gazizov had the other goal for London. Ethan Cardwell scored the other goal for the Colts. Cardwell teamed with Foerster and Jelsma to score all four goals for Barrie. Foerster was playing in just his fifth game since being returned from the American Hockey League’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Barrie outshot London 35-29.
The game was the only one that the Knights will play against an Eastern Conference opponent.
London has now earned at least a point in nine of their last 11 games.
Ironman Morgan
Knights forward Cody Morgan played in his 250th game on April 1. Morgan was selected by the Kingston Frontenacs in the first round of the 2017 OHL Priority Selection.
He was then traded to the Windsor Spitfires as a 16-year old in a deal that sent veterans Sean Day and Gabe Villardi to Kingston as the Frontenacs loaded up for a run in the 2018 OHL Playoffs.
Morgan made a stop in Flint before being acquired by London for his overage season. He has missed just 10 games during his OHL career. Dylan Hunter is the all-time leader in games played by a London Knight. Hunter played in 315 games from 2001 to 2006.
Former Knights driving lines in the NHL
In Matthew Tkachuk’s only season in the OHL, he was part of the best line in all of junior hockey that year with Mitch Marner and Christian Dvorak. The trio helped London to capture the 2016 Memorial Cup.
Now, Tkachuk finds himself on the best line in the NHL with the Calgary Flames. Tkachuk, Elias Lindholm and Johnny Gaudreau have combined for 127 goals and 242 points and they occupy three of the top four positions at the top of the plus-minus leaders.
The only thing the line lacks is a good nickname. Two other former Knights have that honour. Corey Perry and Patrick Maroon have teamed with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in Tampa Bay to form the School Bus line. As John Matisz of TheScore.ca reported, Maroon gave it that name earlier in the year because all three players take turns driving it.
Up next
London will be in Saginaw, Mich., on Wednesday, April 6, to meet the Spirit.
The Knights are 3-0 against Saginaw this season and have outscored the Spirit 19-13.
Saginaw has the lowest point total in the OHL at the moment but will not be guaranteed the first overall pick in the 2022 OHL Priority Selection. The four teams that do not make the post-season will be placed in a lottery due to the unbalanced schedule in 2021-22.
Coverage of London and the Spirit will begin at 6:30 p.m. on 980 CFPL, at http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.