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| London Knights Captain Scott Harrington leads his team into the OHL post season |
The London Knights are playoff bound again. And this is where
they’ve been every season since the 1999-2000 season where they finished
out of a playoff spot. And while they’re well on course to beating last
season’s tally of 99 points in the regular season the London Knights
are some ways off beating their franchise record of 120 points in a
regular season.
It's been a season where we’ve seen two very different teams.
First up, was a team that won 24 straight games from November through
December, almost tying the CHL record. And secondly, a team that looked
so vulnerable that anyone could beat them, on any given night.
But that is the beauty of junior hockey. While people look up
to these athletes, some of them future NHL players, it’s often hard to
forget that most of these players are in fact in their teens. And yet,
the pressure of a hockey crazy city like London rests on the shoulders
of these young men.
“You have ups and downs during the season,” added Knights assistant
General Manager Rob Simpson. “It is tough on the players. We’re just
focused now on peaking at the right time heading out of the regular
season and onto the playoffs.”
This season’s capturing of the Hamilton Spectator trophy as
regular season champions sees the Knights take home the top seed in the
Western Conference for the sixth time since 2003. And while last
season’s team captured so many hearts across the country, coming to
within one goal of the Memorial Cup, this season’s team has much more
potential to go one better.
But they’re inconsistent on occasion.
In London’s defence though, the OHL’s Western Conference can be an
unforgiving place for the underprepared. The NHL’s top draft picks
usually come from this side of the league and the Memorial Cup
representative, more often than not, comes from this half of the
province as well.
“After you won 24 games in a row, sure losing a few straight will
seem like a let-down,” added Simpson. “Now, we’re feeling the playoffs
and playing solid. The boys know if they play this certain way and
everyone plays the way they’re supposed to, they can win hockey games.”
The Knights crop of 1994 and 1995 born players form the core of
this season team, and the scary part for most teams in the league is
that all of these players will be back next season, unless they make the
NHL. What has impressed me the most with the London Knights this season
is the ability for a player to fill in when others might be going
through a minor mid-season slump.
Take Bo Horvat for instance. There’s a great chance he’ll be
London’s top pick at the 2013 NHL Draft, higher than the more popular
Max Domi. Why? Because Horvat is showing what he can do on a regular
basis when top players like Domi or Seth Griffith are missing from the
line-up. At the time of writing, Horvat has 57 points in 62 games, fourth in the line-up behind Domi, Griffith and Alex Broadhurst.
Then the Seth Griffith injury came along. Up until he broke a bone on
his right hand on Feb. 10, Griffith went about four years without
missing a game. When you do the math, that goes back to 256 regular
season games, split between the Knights and St. Mary’s Lincolns (Jr. B),
as well as 40 playoff games and four in the Memorial Cup. With the
injury Griffith’s hopes of challenging for the OHL scoring title are
pretty much over but his teammates stepped up in his absence. In the
weeks following Griffith’s injury, you wouldn’t notice that the leading
point getter wasn’t playing because the team was offensively strong.
And if you thought booting the Knights (and indeed the London
Lightning) out of the Budweiser Gardens so that the World Figure Skating
Championships can be held in the city would change anything; think
again. “Many of the guys on our team have the experience of
playing and winning the OHL last season,” said Simpson. “Playing on the
road will give us some team bonding right before the playoffs, and when
we do comeback, I know the city of London will be happy to have us
back.”
“They will have missed their London Knights hockey.”
This season’s playoffs will be interesting. A quick glance at the OHL
Western Conference standings sees a London-Saginaw matchup. As
champions the Knights will have home ice advantage throughout the
series. “Home ice advantage is key heading into the playoffs whether it
is in the Western Division or in the league as a whole,” said Simpson.
“It’s more of an accomplishment where we’ve guaranteed ourselves four
out of seven games in every series.”
Last season it was a late addition Austin Watson that made all the
difference in the playoffs and in the Memorial Cup. This season, General
Manager Mark Hunter made the decision to stay put with the current crop
of players and instead signed a bunch of blue chip prospects.
Whether that will mean a different result that last season? Only time will tell.
Image Credit: Metro News London
