KNIGHTS WIN BIG OVER WHEAT KINGS
The London Knights improved to 2-0 at the 2016 MasterCard Memorial Cup with a big 9-1 victory over the WHL Champion Brandon Wheat Kings.
The London Knights built a 5-0 lead before the game was 25 minutes old and held the Wheat Kings’ highly skilled offense in check and largely to the outside all night.
Many of the plays that happened tonight mirrored plays that happened in London’s opener on Friday against the Red Deer Rebels.
The Knights also had a five-goal lead in that game and, like Friday, they initially broke through on the power play. Mitch Marner found Matthew Tkachuk at the side of the net and he slipped a cross-crease pass to Christian Dvorak and the Frankfurt, Illinois nativ,e chipped a shot over an outstretched Jordan Papirny in the Wheat Kings’ net.
The Knights went through a very business-like glove tap or two to celebrate and then went right back to work.
Goals from Cliff Pu and Aaron Berisha put London up 3-0. Berisha’s goal was his second of the tournament and came on a gorgeous passing play on a man advantage from Pu and Max Jones that had Papirny to his left and gave Berisha a whole lot of net to shoot at.
With the game moving toward the end of the first period, the Knights created a 2-on-1 and cashed in with just over half a minute remaining as Marner fed Tkachuk and London went to their dressing room up 4-0.
J.J. Piccinich banged in his own rebound at 4:30 of the second period to put the Knights up 5-0.
Brandon got their only goal of the game on the power play at the 6:26 mark of the second period as 2014 first overall pick, Stelio Mattheos got a puck past Tyler Parsons.
London scored twice more before the end of the second as Christian Dvorak picked up his fourth goal of the tournament and Max Jones ripped home his first and the Knights had a 7-1 lead through 40 minutes.
Dvorak completed the hat trick and took the tournament goal scoring lead just 43 seconds into the third and then Daniel Bernhardt converted a nice feed on a power play to end the scoring.
Logan Thompson played goal in the third period for Brandon. Brendan Burke replaced Tyler Parsons with 12:22 to go in the game and made 11 stops, including a big glove grab on Ivan Provorov.
The Knights get right back onto the ice on Tuesday against QMJHL Champion, Rouyn-Noranda. Game time is 10:00pm eastern standard time. You can hear the broadcast on NewsTalk 1290 and at player.cjbk.com
