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The London Knights were looking
for the sweep |
Game 4 in the first round OHL series between the Windsor Spitfires and London Knights went down on Thursday, March 29th. Windsor was the home team and were looking to fight off a sweep at the hands of the Knights.
Windsor came out quickly, peppering Knights goaltender Michael Houser early and took a quick 5-1 lead in shots and forced Houser to come up big. The Knights survived the onslaught and countered 4:09 in. Ryan Rupert scored on a goal that took a bad bounce and got by Windsor goalie Jaroslav Pavelka. Then about 4 minutes later, Windsor has a defensive lapse and Andreas Anthanasiou threads a pass through to Brett Welychka who goes top shelf on Pavelka on the partial break. A few minutes later, Brett Cook had the puck behind the net, and went to skate out front when Windsor forward Kerby Rychel poked it off his stick and into the net. A very even first period that had a bit of everything, hits, goals, great saves. A great period from Houser making 12 saves and a solid period from Pavelka making 8 saves and a few of them very key.
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Leafs prospect Greg McKegg
scored a great goal on a 3 on 2. |
Just a few minutes into the second period the Knights find themselves on a 3 on 2 and a great give and go between Vlad Namestnikov and Greg McKegg with McKegg finishing it off, and giving the Knights a 3-1 lead. Shortly after, Bo Horvat was on a partial breakaway and was hauled down by the Spitfire defenseman, drawing a penalty. Ryan Rupert grabbed his second goal of the game on that power play, making the game 4-1 Knights. Chris Tierney added another goal for the Knights in the second and it was 5-1. After that goal, things got chippy. Hits were being thrown around and Brett Welychka showed that he could drop the gloves as well, and was in a spirited tilt that I'll rule a tie. A scary moment for Knights fans when Olli Maata held the puck in at the line and tried to slip a check from Windsor's Hunter Smith when the two collided knee-on-knee and Maata had to leave the game. The extent of the injury is unknown right now, the Knights will be hoping it's not serious. That was all for the Knights dominated second period where they outshot the Spitfires 14-7.
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Cullen's even got a sweet
mustache. |
A fairly tame first 3rd period by London-Windsor standards followed. There were a few pushes and a couple of misconduct penalties given to Windsor, but nothing too physical happened. Windsor brought in their back-up goalie John Cullen to finish off the game and season for the Spitfires. This is Cullen's last season and he's a favourite in Windsor and a classy move by the Spits to get him some game time in a game that slipped from their grasp. He even had a little fun, making a glove save then skating out to the circle to drop it and play it out. Windsor added another goal in the third to bring it to 5-2, and Ryan Rupert scored again on the powerplay to record his first playoff hat trick and his first three goals of this playoffs. Chris Tierney added his second of the game shorthanded to make it 7-2 with a much smaller crowd remaining. On that same power play for Windsor, Athanasiou broke away with his speed to get around the Windsor defense and slip one past Cullen for the second shorthanded goal of the powerplay for the Knights. Michael Clarke chipped one past Houser with 36 seconds remaining to bring it to 8-3. Windsor then put out all of their over-age players for one last shift of their OHL careers.
It was a hard-fought series between the two teams, even though the Knights swept it. It was a much closer series than the number of games would indicate. The Knights will look forward, and await their next opponent while Windsor can only reflect on their season and hope for better next year.
What did you think of the series? How will the Knights do the rest of the playoffs?
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