London Knights vs Saginaw Spirit - Round 2, Game 1

Okay, so in the Knights first-round series, I went to game 1, did a recap and intended on doing a recap of every game in the series for you lovely people. That didn't happen. I ended up doing just one other game in the series, game 4, the deciding game. The second round series I will totally (maybe) do every game! I did go to game 1 between the London Knights and the Saginaw Spirit in the second round playoffs series, so here's the recap!

London was coming off their round 1 sweep of the Windsor Spitfires, while the 5th seed Saginaw Spirit beat the 4th place Sarnia Sting in 6 games to advance to the second round.

The first game of this series was held in London at the John Labatt Centre in front of 9,000 fans even. Puck drop was at 7 and if you showed up late, you missed a good start.

Saginaw and London both showed up earlier in this one, trading chances with neither team taking full command of the tempo. London's Michael Houser and Saginaw's Jake Pateron both made some key stops early. Saginaw went high blocker on Houser early, looking to get one by him, but his blocker hand was sharp.  Paterson had to face some scrambles in the slot but he was solid on these plays. London was the first to reach the scoresheet on a great transitional play. Jared Knight chipped it off the boards to Max Domi, who dropped it for the pinching defenseman Jarred Tinordi who wired a wrist shot top shelf on Paterson.

Eric Locke opened the scoring for Saginaw
going high glove hand on Michael Houser

Saginaw drew a penalty shortly after and went to work on the powerplay. Defenseman Brandon Archibald moved the puck up to Garret Ross who brought it over the blue line, where it sort of got knocked away and bounced into the slot to an on-rushing Eric Locke who was left unchecked in the slot and blasted a wrist shot high glove side on Michael Houser.

The last about seven minutes was pretty back and forth and the game slowed down until 3 minutes left. The Rupert brothers and Austin Watson got a good cycle going that resulted in Matt Rupert putting in his first of the playoffs to the give the Knights the 2-1 edge and Saginaw got physical from there. Both teams laid the body in the final two minutes but the Knights would bring their lead into the intermission.

The second period picked up where the second period left off, physically. The two teams came right back at each other after the intermission (which features some 9-13 girls synchronized figure skating that was actually really good) and it remained scoreless for much of the period. They exchanged powerplay chances, but neither were able to capitalize, with the opposing team's penalty kill playing very well. In the last third of the period, Justin Kea tackled the Knight's player and sent London to the powerplay. The Knights worked the ensuing powerplay very well, and Greg McKegg danced out of the corner and fired one five-hole on Paterson, increasing the Knights' lead to 2, and that was all for the second period. The two teams played very competitively with each other and kept it close, with the shots being 22-19 London after two periods.

Austin Watson scored twice in the third on route
to being the game's first star

Early on in the third, the Knights were given a penalty that many of the fans found questionable, and let the referees know about it. London killed off this powerplay and shortly after were awarded with their own. Austin Watson managed to poke one home in front right before being ploughed into the ice. This gave the Knights a 4-1 cushion with about 13 minutes left.

With just under 11 minutes remaining, Saginaw came down on a rush, and Brad Walch fired a slapshot right by Michael Houser's glove hand from the slot. This could be a thing to watch for in this series, both goals that beat Houser were glove side, after Saginaw initially tried to beat him on the blocker side. He will likely work on this in practice, as he looked very displeased with himself after the second goal.

Austin Watson would add an empty-netter for the nets, giving him his second goal of the game and the Knights' a 5-2 lead, and that's how it would finish.

How do you think this series will end? Let us know down below!

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