Knights defeat Kitchener as London winds up in second consecutive shootout
The London Knights edged the Kitchener Rangers 4-3 in a shootout on Oct. 13 at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
It was the second straight shootout for the Knights and the second straight 4-3 final after a loss to Erie on Friday, Oct. 9 but London wound up celebrating the win after Thomas Zocco and Marcus Nordmark scored shootout goals and Aleksei Medvedev stopped both shots he faced at the other end of the ice.
The London Knights edged the Kitchener Rangers 4-3 in a shootout on Oct. 13 at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
It was the second straight shootout for the Knights and the second straight 4-3 final after a loss to Erie on Friday, Oct. 9 but London wound up celebrating the win after Thomas Zocco and Marcus Nordmark scored shootout goals and Aleksei Medvedev stopped both shots he faced at the other end of the ice.
Zocco’s five game goal streak came to an end after overtime but his goal still wound up being the biggest of the night.
“The move I made [against the Otters] didn’t end up working so I had to change something up,” said Zocco. “It was great to get back into the win column because Kitchener is a big rival for us.”
The Knights got off to their quickest start of the season offensively and got their power play going as Jaxon Cover sent a puck from the left side of the Rangers net, up and over two Kitchener sticks and down onto the ice on the other side of the slot where Carson Harmer hammered it past Jason Schaubel for his 2nd goal of the year.
That put London up 1-0 just 1:52 into the game.
From there the period flew by.
The teams played just over twelve straight minutes without a single whistle and went to their respective dressing rooms to literally catch their collective breaths.
Cohen Bidgood put London up 2-0 at 3:28 of the second period while the Knights were on the penalty kill with one of the strangest goals he will ever score.
Bidgood got to a loose puck along the left-wing boards in his own end and cleared it high in the air. It sailed into the Kitchener end of the ice and dropped down and through the legs of Schaubel and London led 2-0.
Kitchener got that goal back on the same power play as Luca Romano deflected a puck across the crease to Cameron Arquette and Arquette tapped it in at the 4:36 mark of the second.
Less than two minutes later Jonathan Kapageridis came flying down the ice with Evan Van Gorp on a 2-on-1 and ripped home his second goal of the year which earned him his team-leading tenth point and made it 3-1 for the Knights.
“We had a little bit of a rough stretch and needed to clan some things up,” admitted Kapageridis after the game. “For the most part we did that tonight.
The Rangers connected on a late period power play as Luca Santala scored against his former team.
Santala played one game in London before being traded to Kitchener to keep the Knights under the import player limit.
Kaden Schneider tied the game on a solo rush at 12:14 of the third period with his first goal of the season.
The Rangers outshot London 28-24.
The Knights were 1-for-3 on the power play.
Kitchener was 2-for-3 on the man advantage.