Special Night for Knights
Sam Dickinson scored three goals and Henry Brzustewicz added two, powering the London Knights to a 6-2 Ontario Hockey League victory Friday night over the North Bay Battalion.
William Nicholl contributed one goal and one assist for the Knights, who excelled on special teams, scoring two goals with the man advantage and two while shorthanded.
Goaltender Aleksei Medvedev made 31 saves for London, which improved its won-lost-extended record to 12-4-0 for 24 points, second in the Midwest Division.
Nolan Laird and Reyth Smith scored for North Bay, while goaltender Charlie Larocque made 27 saves before a crowd of 9,061, the largest to see the Battalion play this season.
North Bay is 8-8-2 for 18 points, tied for third place in the Central Division with the Sudbury Wolves, who lost 3-2 in overtime to the visiting Barrie Colts. The Battalion completed a two-game road trip, which started with a 5-4 win Thursday night over the Windsor Spitfires.
London’s special teams provided a 3-0 first-period lead, scoring one shorthanded and two power-play goals, starting with penalty killer Dickinson’s tally at 5:09, five seconds before a hooking call against Nicholl expired. Dickinson broke in on Larocque on an odd-man rush, going from backhand to forehand to put the puck over the goaltender’s blocker.
Brzustewicz connected at 10:24 with Ethan Procyszyn off for high-sticking. The defenceman blasted the puck through heavy traffic from the mid blue line.
Dickinson struck again at 14:26, snapping the puck from the top of the left circle. Wyatt Kennedy was serving a holding call when rearguard Dickinson scored what proved to be the winning goal, assisted by Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk.
Nicholl made it 5-0 at 9:04, one-timing a Jared Woolley pass from high in the right circle, before the Battalion posted a pair of goals.
The onrushing Laird snapped the puck past Medvedev from the left circle off a short pass from Dylan Richter at 12:47. Kent Greer had the other assist on Laird’s second goal.
The Troops then went hard to the net on a three-on-one rush, with Smith cashing the rebound of a shot by Greer after he took a centring pass from Jacob LeBlanc at 16:22.
Dickinson scored his team-leading 11th goal unassisted at 6:07 of the third period to account for the final score. He fired the puck from the left-wing boards after it was cleared from a scrum in the crease, with Larocque turning his back to the play in scrambling to regain his feet.
The Battalion is idle until it plays host to Windsor at 7 p.m. Thursday.
BATTALION BULLETS: The Knights’ home arena opened in 2002 as the John Labatt Centre and became Budweiser Gardens in 2012. Starting this season, it’s known as Canada Life Place … The Battalion went 0-for-6 on the power play. London was 2-for-3 … Owen Van Steensel led the Battalion in shots on goal with seven. Brzustewicz paced the Knights with six … The Troops, who left North Bay on Wednesday, overnighted at London both Wednesday and Thursday … The Knights visit Memorial Gardens on Jan. 23 … Opening lines saw Procyszyn centring left winger Van Steensel and right winger Moses, Andrew LeBlanc centring left winger Stepan Chukharev and right winger Jacob Therrien and Ryder Carey pivoting left winger Laird and right winger Lirim Amidovski. Briir Long centred left winger Smith and right winger Richter … Defence pairings had Bronson Ride with Kennedy, Brayden Turley with Jacob LeBlanc and Aaron Enright with Greer … The Battalion was without Declan Gallivan, Ihnat Pazii, Anthony Romani, Zach Wilson, Natan Teshome and Mike McIvor … Carter Nadon again backed up Larocque … Among the missing for London was Logan Hawery, with Canada White in the World Under-17 Challenge at Sarnia … Cowan, who had two assists, has at least one point in all of his 12 games, with nine goals and seven assists for 16 points … The referees were Matt Mannella and Jesse Wood-Schatz, a Western Hockey League official in an exchange program. Photo/article credit - North Bay Battalion
