London Knights GM Mark Hunter on the trade for Arvin Jaswal and what he is seeing from his team so far

On Oct. 25 the London Knights made a trade with the Barrie Colts for 18-year old goaltender Arvin Jaswal. The Colts received a 2nd round pick, a 3rd rpund pick, a conditional 3rd and a 4th round pick from the Knights in exchange.

Jaswal has yet to play in 2026-27 as he rehabs an injury but is expected to return in early November.

Mike Stubbs spoke with London General Manager Mark Hunter about what went into the move and what Hunter has seen from his team through the early part of this year.

Mike Stubbs: Tell us about the move to acquire Arvin Jaswal from the Barrie Colts.

Mark Hunter: I always like good depth in my organization. I really believe I do. We have a couple of good young guys playing in Junior B right and bringing in Jaswal I just think it gives us three goalies that can play in the league and we'll go from there.

Mike Stubbs: Will we see time for each of them now? How do you work that?

Mark Hunter: You know, I'll leave that up to the coaches, Dale [Hunter] and [goaltending coach] Dave Rook, and see how, who they want to play and deserves to play. And plus, Jaswal is out for another two weeks so there's a couple of weeks here that we'll see where our goaltending situation goes and see who steps up.

Mike Stubbs: That competition factor… can you talk about that in sports where we can see that as being something that is really healthy for a team?

Mark Hunter: I really believe in that part, Mike, because we've all got to be pushed and I think sometimes people get comfortable. I’m not saying that [Brian] Cooke got comfortable or [Aleksei Medvedev] got comfortable or anything like that, but I want to see how the other two guys respond.

Mike Stubbs: Arvin Jaswal had a 13-game personal win streak last year. We know he's six-foot-three. Tell us things we might not know about him.

Mark Hunter: He was on a good team last year. They went to the finals and lost to Kitchener. He's only 18 so he's a younger goalie and I think he has a real good understanding of the game and he's got a good attitude and wants to improve.

Mike Stubbs: Finally, let's talk about what you've seen from your team so far. 8-3-0-1 start. Recently you picked up a win against Sarnia and then suffered a loss in Owen Sound.

Mark Hunter: Well, I like to see more consistency in our team. I think we've had good moments and we've had, you know, average moments. I think we've got to be more careful, with penalties. I think it's been a problem ongoing this year. We took a couple majors that had poor timing and they were hard to kill off. So we've got to be smarter. We've got to play more consistent and if we do that the sky's the limit.