The London Knights dominated game one of the OHL Championship series defeating the Oshawa Generals 8-1 in front of a sold-out crowd at Budweiser Gardens on Thursday night.
(Credit: London Knights Twitter)
The Knights opened the scoring on the powerplay nine minutes into the first period as Oliver Bonk scored his fifth goal of the playoffs. Defenceman Jared Woolley scored the second goal for the Knights with three minutes remaining in the first period, as the Knights took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission.
London came out flying at the start of the second period when Oliver Bonk scored his second of the game just 28 seconds into the period. The Knights continued to extend the lead as Easton Cowan scored his 8th goal of the playoffs just past the halfway mark, and Denver Barkey followed with the Knights fifth goal with just under 2 minutes remaining in the period. The Oshawa Generals finally solved Knights goalie Michael Simpson with just 18 seconds remaining in the period as Connor Lockhart scored his seventh goal of the playoffs to make it 5-1 heading into the second intermission.
The Knights didn’t slow down in the third as Jacob Julien scored 11 seconds into the period, and Ruslan Gazizov scored his seventh and eighth goal of the playoffs within the first six minutes.
OHL MVP Easton Cowan put on an incredible performance as he was the first star of the game with 1 goal and 4 assists for the Knights. The Toronto Maple Leafs prospect has now moved into third place in OHL playoffs scoring with 24 points (8 goals, 16 assists).
The Knights defence stood tall and made it difficult for the Generals to get anything going in the offensive zone, as the Knights outshot the Generals 41-25.
Game two will be Saturday night at Budweiser Gardens with puck drop scheduled for just after 7 p.m..
