Max Crete scored the lone goal of the shootout as the London Knights defeated the Sarnia Sting 5-4 to sweep their pre-season home-and-home series.
With an inexperienced Knights lineup on the ice at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena London found themselves down by two goals with less than four minutes remaining in the game.
Knights head coach Dale Hunter pulled goaltender Jaden Cholette for an extra attacker and Logan Hawery and Jaxon Cover scored 28 seconds apart to even the game and send it straight to the shootout.
The Ontario Hockey League does not make use of overtime in the pre-season.
Hawery had a goal and two assists in the game and has six points in two pre-season games.
Cover had a goal and an assist and has five points in two games.
Both are 17-years old.
The Knights fired the first nine shots of the game at the Sarnia net but every one of them was turned aside by second-year goaltender Evan Maillet.
The teams sat scoreless until the 17:26 mark of the first period when Komoka native Beckham Edwards found a loose puck to the left of the slot in the London zone and ripped a wrist shot into the net for a 1-0 Sting lead at the end of 20 minutes.
London tied the game and went ahead thanks to a couple of nice plays in the first half of the second period.
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Mike Zakharov was involved in both of them.
First Zakharov pushed a puck ahead to 16-year old Eloan Le Gallic and LeGallic went in alone on Maillet and used a beautiful forehand and then put a shot off the left post and in at 1:56.
Zakharov was at it again just under seven minutes later when he slid a nifty pass across the slot to Hawery and Hawery got the puck in front where Knights defender P.J. Fagan buried a shot to give London a 2-1 lead.
A late second period power play gave Sarnia a chance to tie the game and they did exactly that with just 2.5 seconds remaining in the middle frame as Alessandro Di Iorio threw a puck at the net and Ruslan Karimov tipped it in and the teams went into the final 20 minutes tied.
Di Iorio broke that tie with a breakaway goal at 9:41 of the third period and then 47 seconds later Edwards added his second of the game to give the Sting a 4-2 lead.
Hawery and Cover’s goals erased that lead and then Max Crete made a nice move on a shootout deke and Cholette held the fort at the other end of the ice on Sarnia’s final shooter as London improved to 2-0 in the 2025 pre-season.
Sarnia outshot the Knights 40-33.
Seb Gatto started the game in goal for London and made 12 saves,
Cholette stopped 24 shots for the Knights.
Up next
The Knights will play back-to-back games against the Erie Otters on Friday, Sept. 5 and Saturday, Sept. 5 and Saturday, Sept. 6 to close out their pre-season schedule.
The game on Sept. 5 will be played at Canada Life Place.
The Sept. 6 game will take place at Western Fair Sports Centre in London, Ont.
Tickets to that game will also allow fans entrance into the Western Fair itself.
Coverage of both games can be heard on 980 CFPL, at http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the iHeart Radio and Radioplayer Canada Apps.
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