London Knights begin northern road trip with wild OT win
It took a late Jaxon Cover goal in regulation and then another Cover goal in overtime, but the London Knights kicked off their northern road trip with a 5-4 victory in North Bay on Oct. 29.
After London had taken a 3-0 lead through the first half of the game, the Battalion battled back and tied things up on a goal by Arseny Pronin with 8:44 remaining in regulation time.
As the clock ticked down toward the final minute, the Knights worked the puck around the offensive zone. Eventually the puck found Cover, and the first-round pick of the Ottawa Senators found the back of the North Bay net with 1:01 left on the clock.
London got through the next 60.6 seconds, but with 0.4 seconds remaining Evgeny Dubrovtsev got to a puck in a scramble off to the left side of the Knights’ net and flung it through bodies, sticks and skates and over the goal line to even the score at 4-4 and send the game to OT.
London controlled possession in overtime. Cover made two moves to hold the puck in at the left point of the Battalion zone and then sliced down the left side of the slot, where he made a give-and-go play with Cooper McAslan. McAslan slid a pass back to Cover for a tap-in and the game winner.
“I didn’t have the wheels in overtime to get through, so I had to use body position,” said Cover. “[McAslan] was able to get to the slot and I slid the puck to him, and he hit me back with a beautiful pass.”
It was Cover’s first OT winner in the Ontario Hockey League and his fifth goal of the season.
“We won two faceoffs in overtime and that was huge,” said London assistant coach Rick Steadman. “I thought they read the play well and took what was given.”
Steadman says a lot of credit needed to go to four defencemen who logged a whole lot of minutes.
McAslan, Caleb Mitchell, Juho Piiparinen and Jacob Vandeven played a four-man rotation all night, and Kosta Housseas added a few shifts in his first OHL game.
The Knights were missing both Jonathan Kapageridis and Cody Wood, who will be eligible to play against the Sudbury Wolves after completing suspensions.
Maksim Sokolovskii remains out with a lower-body injury.
Mitchell opened the scoring after a big jam-up behind the Battalion net trapped the puck for a little over 10 seconds. When it popped free, Marcus Nordmark saw that no one was covering Mitchell coming off the left point, and Nordmark found him for Mitchell’s first goal of the season.
Second-period goals by Nordmark, who picked a top corner on Mike McIvor in the North Bay net, and Kane Barch, on a power-play blast, had London ahead 3-0.
North Bay began to climb back into the game when Oskar Konobelj got a puck through from the middle of the blue line on a delayed penalty call at 16:03 of the second period. Cam Warren then batted a puck across the goal line with 15.3 seconds remaining in the second, after Brian Cooke had made an initial save.
The Battalion completed the comeback in the third period, which set the stage for the crazy finish.
Both teams recorded 30 shots on goal.
London was 1-for-3 on the power play and North Bay was 1-for-4.