A four-point night by Evan Van Gorp powered the London Knights to a 6-3 win over the Sarnia Sting in London’s third pre-season game.
Logan Hawery set up the first goal of the game when he slid a pass to the edge of the Sarnia crease to Van Gorp and the Watford, Ont., winger tapped it home.
Less than five minutes later it was Hawery who took a feed in the slot for Henry Brzustewicz and ripped in his first goal of the pre-season and the Knights brought a 2-0 lead into the second period.
Kaeden Johnston scored his fifth goal in just three opre-season games to give London a three-goal bulge just 19 seconds into the middle frame.
London’s second-round pick in 2024, Caleb Mitchell fired home his first goal as a Knight as he made a nice move off a faceoff to open up some ice.
Van Gorp then scored back-to-back goals in a span of 2:35 to complete his hat trick and put London up 6-0.
A Ryan Brown power play goal before the end of the period made it 6-1.
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Brown scored another power play goal at 9:08 of the third and then finished a natural hat trick with his third goal of the game at 15:30.
Van Gorp finished with four points and was named the game’s first star.
Johnston had a goal and two assists and Brendan Gerber picked up a pair of assists.
The Knights outshot Sarnia 36-30.
Alexei Medvedev made 13 saves in just over 30 minutes. He was replaced by Finn Wilson at the 10:16 mark of the second.
Wilson made 14 stops on 17 shots.
Nick Surzycia and Evan Maillet split the goaltending duties for the Sting.
Twelve Knights away at NHL training camps
Both Owen Willmore and Ryder Boulton have returned from the Ottawa Senators prospect camp, leaving a dozen London players with National Hockey League teams.
Here is the list as the NHL opens the pre-season on Saturday, Sept. 21.
Denver Barkey – Philadelphia
Olivcr Bonk – Philadelphia
Easton Cowan – Toronto
Sam Dickinson – San Jose
Ruslan Gazizov – Anaheim
Kasper Halttunen – San Jose
Jacob Julien – Winnipeg
William Nicholl – Edmonton
Jesse Nurmi – New York Islanders
Sam O’Reilly – Edmonton
Landon Sim – New Jersey
Jared Woolley – Los Angeles
Up next
The Knights and Sting will close out their pre-season schedules with one more game head-to-head.
The game will happen at Progressive Auto Sales Arena in Sarnia, Ont., on Saturday, Sept. 21 at 7 pm.
Coverage will begin at 6:30 p.m., at www.980cfpl.ca and on the Radioplayer Canada app and the iHeart Radio app.