Eight Knights Reach Multiple Points, Helping London Past Sarnia 9-3
By Carl Chimenti
The London Knights (29-6-0-0) scored four goals in each of the first two periods and they beat the Sarnia Sting (12-19-2-5) in the annual New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day, home and home series 9-3, Tuesday afternoon at Canada’s Life Place.
Eight players from the Knights had multiple points with first star, Landon Sim (St. Louis Blues), scoring a hat-trick and Denver Barkey (Philadelphia Flyers), the second star adding five assists. Sam O’Reilly, (Edmonton Oilers) was named the third star, with a goal and three assists. Blake Montgomery (Ottawa Senators) had a goal and two assists, Evan Van Gorp (3 assists), Henry Brzustewicz (2 assists), with Rene Van Bommel and Noah Aboflan rounding out the eight, scoring a goal and an assist each.
Ruslan Karimov (8th), Alessandro Di lorio (5th) and Tyson Doucette with his team leading 16th goal, and second in his last two games, scoring shorthanded unassisted for the Sting. The shorty was just the second for the Sting this season, with Easton Wainwright scoring the first on November 2nd in a 5-3 road win, against the Brampton Steelheads. Mitch Young had a pair of helpers. Ryan Brown extended his point streak to team high nine games (7-7-14) with an assist.
Nick Surzycia started in net and played 12:40 with 4 saves on 8 shots and Evan Maillet came in and played 47:15, stopping 21 of 26 shots in relief. Sarnia was better on the shot clock 36-34 and in the face-off circle 35-32.
Knights goaltender Austin Elliott remains perfect with a 15-0 OHL career record, after turning away 33 of 36 shots. On the power-play Sarnia went 1/7 and London 3/5. The two teams will wrap up the home and home with a Wednesday afternoon tilt, (puck drop, 2:05pm) at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
London scored four times in the first period and skated off with a 4-1 lead after the first twenty minutes. Sim scored the first two goals, one on the power-play at 6:00 and followed that up with an even strength goal at 7:06. The Sting came back scoring on the power-play at 10:17 from Ruslan Karimov. Karimov was left alone in front and picked up a rebound and beat Elliott to the far post with Young and Brown assisting on the scoring play. Unfortunately the Knights countered with their third marker – 18 seconds later, on a goal from Rene Van Bommel at 10:35. Montgomery wrapped up the opening period scoring at 12:40 which led to a goalie switch, with Maillet replacing Surzycia. Both teams had 11 shots on goal.
The second period saw the Sting scoring twice, the first and last goal, but in between, the Knights lit the lamp four times to open up an 8-3 margin through forty minutes. Doucette scored a shorthanded talley, unassisted, as he gathered a loose puck at the London blue-line and went in alone and beat Elliott through the five-hole. London proceeded to score four straight goals as Cam Allen scored on the power-play at 9:46 and Sim scored his hat-trick goal at 11:47. Noah Aboflan at 14:11 and Montogomery scored his second of the game at 16:15. The Sting’s scored late as Di lorio from Young, scored on a seeing eye shot, from a bad angle, at 19:03. The shots were close with London registering 15 to Sarnia’s 13.