QUEBEC CITY , P.Q. —Established as the favorite to repeat as the Memorial Cup the Saint John Sea Dogs has been surprised by the Ontario Hockey League champion the London Knights 6-3. Usually playing against the best center on the other teams Austin Watson scored the goal that made the difference in favor of team coached by Mark Hunter.
Seeing their opponent opened the scoring in shorthanded situation in first period, London came back scoring two goals in span of 1:24 ending the opening stanza with a 2-1 lead.
The Knights takes a two goals lead for first times in games with 12:41 gone in middle frame before the team coach by Gerard Gallant cut London lead to one. London still had the lead 3-2 after forty minutes of play.
London had a chance to set the tone early in the opening period when referee signaled first penalty of the game to Saint John forward Jonathan Huberdeau 16 seconds in.
Instead of taking advantage of their first opportunity with a man advantage, Saint John get on board first only 1:21 after Huberdeau penalty began with Charles-Olivier Roussel shorthanded.
London tied the score on their first real good scoring chance in the opening period. Second effort paid off following a bad angle shot taken by Knights defenseman Scott Harrington. Max Domi has been credited of London first goal in the tournament for their team at 14:11.
An axiom said you can take a gift when it happened. That’s exactly what London did against the Sea Dogs on Knights second goal of the first period. Vladislav Namestnikov tipped a backhand over Saint John goalie Mathieu Corbeil’s shoulder giving them their first lead in the game at 15:35.
You would expect to see one team wanting to take control and being more aggressive .but instead of that neither team seemed to want to push too hard possibly to prevent a costly mistake.
Instead of taking a shot on goal to score, players seemed to look for the perfect play, giving the other team’s players time to position themselves defensively.
As the game moved on, both teams began to take more chances. Putting more pressure in offensive zone, London put the puck on net getting good scoring opportunities. Taking a first shot on net Taylor Furry centered Austin Watson and Seth Griffith crashed Saint John net resulting in Knights third goals of the game, scored by London right winger Griffith at 12:41 of middle frame.
Usually alert London goaltender Scott Houser certainly felt really bad after Saint John second shorthanded goal in the game. Scoring the opening goal being a man short in first period, the Sea Dogs did it again in second, this time with Danick Gauthier in the box. Seeing the shot from Jonathan Huberdeau right from the blue line, the Knights netminder saw the puck go between his pads at 17:57 cutting London lead to one goal 3-2.
This is the kind of soft goal a coach doesn’t want his team to give, especially at this time of the game.
When you play with fire you run the risk of burning yourself. Already being blanked by Saint John in first seven power play chances, London finally got one with a man advantage. Scoring London’a second goal of the game, Namestnikov scored his second of the night 53 seconds into third period, reestablishing the Knights two goals lead for second times in the game.
St. John missed several chances to cut opponent leads in first five minutes of third period, once on power play the other in a shorthanded situation for the third times in games. Saint John saw their chance to come back in the game take a severe blow with London,s Ryan Rupert scoring their fifth goal.
Being shutout in first four occasions with a man advantage, Saint John came back scoring their third goal on their fifth power play. Taking a shot from the point, Nathan Beaulieu saw teammate Ryan Tesink deflected his shot going behind Michael Houser at 12:01 reducing London lead to one goal for second time in the game.
Trailing by one with only 1:53 left in the third period, Saint John killed all chances to at least tie the game when they were accessed two penalties.
London put the last nail into Saint John’s coffin when Namestnikov completed his hat trick with his third goal of the night, beating Sea Dogs netminder top shelf on Corbeil short side at 19:07.
Next game is on Sunday night with Shawinigan facing the London Knights in the round robin portion of the tournament.
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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