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Knight Watch: London clinches playoff spot for 24th straight season; Cohen Bidgood achieves career highs; Gatto wins pair last weekend; Three to be inducted into Knights Hall of Fame; Two at home against Eastern foes this weekend.
The London Knights are heading to the playoffs for the 24th straight season.
A lot would have had to go wrong for the Knights — and right for the teams chasing them — down the stretch for this not to happen, but they booked their ticket all the same. Monday’s win over Owen Sound was the clincher.
Cohen Bidgood scored two goals and tallied four points in the contest, both career highs for the forward.
Ryan Brown extended his point streak to 13 games, and Jesse Nurmi‘s streak reached 11 games after picking up two points in the win. Brown’s is the longest streak by a Knight this season, and five games shy of the OHL benchmark this year, accomplished by Flint’s Alex Kostov and Owen Sound’s Tristan Delisle.
Sebastian Gatto was in net for both of London’s wins last weekend, stopping 63 of the 68 shots he faced.
London has two more home games this weekend, and they’ll face a pair of teams from the Eastern Conference who are making their only trips to Canada Life Place this year. One of them, the Barrie Colts, has the second most points in the league, and the other, the Sudbury Wolves, is trying to firm up the final playoff spot in the conference.
Barrie comes in as one of the OHL’s hottest teams, having lost just twice since the calendar changed over to 2026. Sudbury, on the other hand, has dropped a dozen games since the start of the new year.
There will be a special ceremony before Friday’s game, as the Knights will induct the newest members into the Don Brankley Hall of Fame. Brandon Prust and Jim Sandlak will enter in the player category. Sandlack tallied 125 points over parts of three seasons with the Knights. He was a fourth overall pick of the Vancouver Canucks in 1985 and went on to play 11 seasons in the NHL.
Prust, a popular member of the 2005 Memorial Cup-winning team made the Knights as a free agent and went on to play 177 regular season games with the club before playing nine NHL seasons.
Norman “Rocky” Farr will be inducted as a builder.
UPCOMING GAMEDAYS
Friday (Feb. 20, 7:00pm) vs. Barrie Colts (38-11-2-4, 2nd in Eastern Conference)
The Colts may be the hottest team in the OHL with just one regulation loss in their last 20 games, winning 18 of those contests. Ben Wilmot returns to London in this one. He has 12 goals and 22 points in 16 games since joining the Colts. Barrie has five players with more than 20 goals. Kashawn Aitcheson leads OHL defencemen with 24 goals, 13 of which have come with the man advantage. Twenty-two of his 55 points have come on the powerplay, but he still leads all defencemen with a plus-36 rating. He’s a big reason why Barrie has the league’s second best powerplay, operating at a 27.9 efficiency. Defenceman Gabriel Eliasson leads the OHL with 100 penalty minutes, and the Colts are the second-most penalized team. Captain Cole Beaudoin has five goals and 13 points in his last three games. Emil Hemming is another dangerous forward for Barrie. He’s coming off back-to-back two-goal games. The Knights did beat Barrie back in September, a 4-0 shutout win on the road, but both teams were missing some key pieces who were away at the World Juniors. Sebestian Gatto posted a 31-save shutout in that London win.
Sunday (Feb. 22, 2:00pm) vs. Sudbury Wolves (22-31-2-0, 8th in Eastern Conference)
Jean-Cristoph Lemieux has found his scoring touch with the Wolves, scoring 10 goals in 15 games, as many as he had in 33 games with Windsor before being dealt at the deadline. He was a major piece in the trade that saw Sudbury’s former captain, Nathan Villeneauve, go to the Spits. Fans may need to do a double take when they see Lemieux, as he wears number 66. He and Jan Chovan are Sudbury’s only 20-goal scorers at the moment. Chovan has 12 goals on the powerplay, fourth most among OHLers. Former London Junior Knight Ethan Dean has five goals with the Wolves. Ilderton native Liam Ladds, who had season-ending shoulder surgery, had three goals in 24 games this season split between Sudbury and Peterborough. Sudbury got the better of London when they played in November. Sam O’Reilly scored twice for London, and Nathan Villeneuve and Kieron Walton both had three-point efforts for the Wolves. All three players are now with new teams.
KNIGHTS BY THE NUMBERS
24 – The London Knights have clinched a playoff spot for the 24th straight season, extending the longest active streak in the OHL.
10 – Ryan Brown has recorded an assist in 10 straight games, making him just the second OHLer this season to have an assist streak of 10 or more games.
4 – Cohen Bidgood‘s four-point effort on Monday made him the third Knight to record four points in a game this season, and the first to score two goals while doing it.
8 – Sebastian Gatto has won eight of his last nine starts.
A LOOK AT THE LOCALS
– Peterborough’s Brennan Faulker has recorded points in seven of his last 10 games. His next goal will be his 20th of the season.
– Harrison Franssen scored twice against Peterborough on Friday to reach 20 goals for the first time in his OHL career.
– Noah Nelson returned to Owen Sound’s lineup last weekend for the first time in two months. He recorded an assist in the Attack’s shootout loss against the Soo on Saturday.
