Ruslan Gazizov’s goal with 2:16 remaining completed a hat trick and stood up as the game winner in a 5-4 London Knights victory over the Wolves in Sudbury on Friday night.
Easton Cowan picked up the puck off a turnover and found Gazizov to the left of the Wolves net. The second-year forward made no mistake and celebrated, using his stick like the bow of a violin.
London held on from there for their second 5-4 win over Sudbury this season.
Cowan ended the night with a goal and two assists.
Special teams were a huge factor early for the Knights. On a Wolves power play, Sudbury elected to make a line change on a delayed offside and London took advantage. Isaiah George whipped a pass ahead to Easton Cowan and he got in behind the defence and ripped a shot past Nate Krawchuk for Cowan’s 16th goal of the season and a 1-0 London lead.
Max McCue scored a goal in his hometown on a tip-in to the right of the Wolves net just over seven minutes later on a Knights power play and made it 2-0. McCue pointed to friends and family in the crowd after the goal and then went right back to work as he found Cowan on another London man advantage less than two minutes later.
Cowan zipped a pass across the high slot to Ruslan Gazizov and Gazizov beat Krawchuk and the Knights headed to the dressing room up by three.
Sudbury came all the way back in period two on goals by Marc Boudreau, Andre Anania and Kocha Delic and the stage was set for a deciding final 20 minutes.
Gazizov put London ahead 4-3 at 4:16 of the third period after Sean McGurn forced a turnover and sent a pass to George Diaco who found Gazizov. Gazizov now has 23 goals on the year.
Off a faceoff in the London zone in the final five minutes, David Goyette slid a pass into the slot to Kocha Delic for his second of the game to make it 4-4.
Gazizov’s third goal put an end to the Wolves three game-winning streak and gave the Knights an important win to keep them two points ahead of the Windsor Spitfires for top spot in the Western Conference with seven games remaining in the regular season.
Logan Mailloux ties Danny Syvret
Logan Mailloux’s blast from the right circle in the second period in Barrie, Ont., gave him 23 goals on the season which moved him into a tie with former Knights captain Danny Syvret for the eighth most goals by a London defenceman in a single season.
Syvret had 23 in 2004-2005. Nick Stajduhar owns the Knights single-season record with 34 in 1993-94. Alec Regula is second with 27 from the shortened 2019-20 season. The goal also moved Mailloux into a tie for the OHL lead this season with Pavel Mintyukov of the Ottawa 67’s.
Some online records will list Chris McCauley and Tony MacKenzie with single-season goal totals in the 40s but both players played forward in those years.
Second round not yet set in GOJHL playoffs
And then there were four. The LaSalle Vipers defeated the Chatham Maroons 6-3 Friday night to move into round two of the GOJHL playoffs.
The Vipers took the series in five games. Chatham was the only team in the Western Conference quarter-finals to lose a series and win a game. London, Leamington and St. Marys all won in four-game sweeps.
The Nationals will face the Lincolns in a best-of-seven semi-final series and LaSalle will go head to head with the Flyers. London won four of the six meetings with St. Marys in the regular season but the matchup had some odd outcomes. Both teams won a game 7-1 and three of the games were decided by a single goal.
The Flyers will face the evntual winner of the Maroons and LaSalle. The Vipers won the season series with Leamington four games to two. Four of the six games were one-goal games.
Up next
London will be in North Bay, Ont., for a game against the Battalion on Sunday, March 12 at 2 p.m.
The Knights edged North Bay 5-4 in their only other meeting this season. Ethan MacKinnon scored the game winning goal for London.
The Battalion come into the game on a five-game winning streak.
Coverage will begin at 1:30 p.m. on 980 CFPL, at www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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