Easton Cowan scored once and added four assists as the London Knights defeated the Oshawa Generals 8-1 to open the 2024 OHL Championship Series on May 9 at Budweiser Gardens.
London forward Jacob Julien had a goal and an assist, Sam Dickinson had three assists and Ruslan Gazizov and Oliver Bonk each scored twice for the Knights.
Denver Barkey had a goal and an assist and was named the game’s third star.
London led the Generals 2-0 at the end of the first period thanks to a power play goal by Oliver Bonk and an even strength goal from Jared Woolley.
Bonk converted from the “bumper” position in the slot in the Generals zone from Jacob Julien and Easton Cowan.
Woolley played his minor hockey in Oshawa and scored his first goal of the playoffs on a wrist shot from the blue line. Cowan and Denver Barkey assisted on Woolley’s goal.
London stretched the lead early in the second period as Bonk joined a rush and snapped a shot past Jacob Oster for his second of the game just 28 seconds after the opening faceoff. Cowan picked up his third point of the night on the play.
Cowan then scored at 10:23 of the second on a beautiful setup from Jacob Julien and Sam Dickinson to make it 4-0 Knights.
An interference penalty on a late hit by Oshawa defenceman Zachary Sandhu on Kasper Halttunen produced a London power play that led to a Barkey goal. Barkey took the proverbial monkey off his back and punted it away in his celebration as Barkey picked up his first goal since the Knights series against the Kitchener Rangers. The Flyers prospect has been producing in every way you can during the post-season and now sits eighth overall in OHL playoff scoring.
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That goal made it 5-0 with 1:50 remaining on the clock.
Oshawa’s Connor Lockhart worked a puck free in the final minute of the period and fed Rasmus Kumpalainen who gave a return pass to Lockhart for his seventh goal of the post-season and the Knights led 5-1 going to the third.
A high flip by Sam Dickinson to begin the third period found Julien and he raced in and scored his eighth goal of the playoffs at the 11-second mark.
Ruslan Gazizov scored on a pair of near carbon copy two-on-ones to make it 8-1 London.
The first was set up by Max McCue and the second by Sam O’Reilly.
The Knights outshot the Generals 41-25 as Michael Simpson stopped 24 shots in goal for London.
Jacob Oster made 25 saves on 32 shots for Oshawa. Noah Bender played the final 18:40 for the Generals and made eight stops on nine shots.
The Knights were two-for-two on the power play and three-for-three on the penalty kill.
The game featured the widest margin of victory in an OHL Championship Series since the Guelph Storm defeated North Bay 10-1 in 2014.
Getting hot at the right time
There was something in the air in both Oshawa and London in early December.
The Generals doubled up the Windsor Spitfires on Dec. 9 and caught fire from there. Oshawa went 31-7-4-1 record from there to the end of the regular season and have lost just five games in the playoffs.
The Knights dropped a 5-4 decision in Sault Ste. Marie on Dec. 10 and then went on a 21-0-2 run after that. And London didn’t stop there. The Knights went 33-3-3 through their final 39 games and they have followed that up with a 14-2 run so far during the post-season.
Up next
The Knights and Generals will play Game 2 of the OHL Championship series on Saturday, May 11, at Budweiser Gardens before the series shifts to Oshawa for Games 3 and 4 on May 13 and 14.
Coverage of all games can be heard beginning at 6:30 p.m., on 980 CFPL, at www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app.
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