Knights captain refines touch

By RYAN PYETTE, SUN MEDIA
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London Knights assistant coach Pat Curcio has been drilling the same message into Adam Perry’s head for the past few weeks.
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Shoot the puck, shoot the puck, shoot the puck.
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Something must have sunk in. By game’s end, the London captain was wearing a sombrero — the Knights’ adopted symbol for a hat trick — following a 6-3 victory over the Owen Sound Attack before 9,080 last night at the John Labatt Centre.
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A four-goal outburst in the second period set the stage for London’s fourth straight win and Perry’s first multi-goal game of the season. The 20-year-old Peterborough native now has nine goals in 21 games after 45 last season.
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“He (Curcio) has been on me and on me about shooting more,” Perry said. “On my first one, I just went over the blue-line and let it go and sometimes those go in and sometimes it doesn’t happen for you.”
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But the universal rules of hockey remain intact. You can’t score if you don’t shoot the puck and you can’t become a goal-scorer if you don’t hit the net.
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It’s not that Perry had forgotten those lessons. But as a team leader, it’s one of his roles to help players bond on and off the ice and he compensated by becoming a bit more of a playmaker than a finisher.
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“It’s part of it,” he said. “But we all know what we need to do out there. We need to keep working hard, go to the net and that’s when good things happen.”
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No one had to tell that twice to London’s leading scorer Pat Maroon, who bagged his first goal after going an agonizing nine games without one. The 19-year-old from St. Louis had a four-game stretch in October when he had at least two goals, then nothing since that streak.
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“It’s a huge monkey off my back,” he said. “I wasn’t doing some of the things I had been doing (when he scored 12 times in his first 11 games) but it feels great to get one again.”
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“(Perry) gets three and he’s a goal-scorer and that’s what we need from our older guys. When I wasn’t scoring, Justin Taylor stepped up and scored. That’s why I like our team and think we can go far. When some guys aren’t scoring, other ones step up and fill in.”
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For most of the past five years, the London offence and power play has been a work of art. This season, it’s a work in progress.
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But it’s a positive signs for the Knights that two of the guys expected to lead the charge have picked up the pace again. Maroon tipped in a power-play point shot by newly acquired forward Sean O’Connor, who will face his old mates in Plymouth tonight and tomorrow in a home-and-home set.
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“I thought O’Connor and I worked well together,” Maroon said. “I gave him the puck in the middle and we created a couple of chances. It’s going to be good with him on board.”
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After trailing by a pair to an Owen Sound team that had won six of its past eight, London’s rally marked the first time it won a game this season when trailing after the first period. Knights forward Jadran Beljo got his team going by scoring on a short-handed effort from an unlikely angle on Owen Sound goalie David Davenport.
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The goal answered the Attack’s own short-handed effort in the first period when Wayne Simmonds finished a pass from Scott Tregunna. Owen Sound GM Dale DeGray has already indicated the two veteran forwards would be for sale at the right price this season.
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London will likely need more offence to mount a serious challenge at front-running Kitchener in the Midwest division standings. But if Perry and Maroon keep scoring, the Knights are going to be dangerous with or without extra help.
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Jon Abbott, who previously called the on-ice action for the Knights broadcasts on Rogers Television, has left the London area to work full-time for Team 1200 AM in Ottawa. The Aylmer native made his debut on Wednesday as a colour commentator for the 67’s game against the Belleville Bulls.
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Russ Courtney, who has done on-air work at Western and Fanshawe College, has taken over the play-by-play duties and is working with colour commentator and former Knight Rick Doyle.