The New Year’s celebration began early at Canada Life Place on Dec. 31 as the London Knights defeated the Sarnia Sting 9-3.
London captain Denver Barkey led the way with five assists but wasn’t the only Knight to have a big day offensively.
Landon Sim recorded a hat trick in front of the premier of Nova Scotia, Tim Houston, who was in attendance. Sim is from New Glasgow, N.S.
Edmonton Oilers prospect Sam O’Reilly had a goal and three assists while Evan Van Gorp had three assists for the second straight game.
The Knights built a whole lot of New Year’s Eve electricity into the atmosphere of the sellout crowd with four goals in each of the first two periods.
Sim got things going with the first two of his three in a span of just one minute and six seconds to put London up 2-0 by the 7:06 mark of the opening period.
After Ruslan Karimov cut into that lead with a power play goal Van Gorp raced down the ice just 35 seconds later and fed a gorgeous pass to Rene Van Bommel to restore the two-goal London lead.
Montgomery hit the scoresheet at 12:40 of the first as he fired a Barkey feed over the shoulder of Nick Surzycia for his first of the game and a 4-1 advantage for the Knights heading to the second period.
That ended the day for Surzycia as he was replaced by rookie Evan Maillet.
A short-handed goal by Tyson Doucette of the Sting cut London’s lead to a pair but it also prompted another offensive burst by the Knights that had them up 8-3 through 40 minutes.
Cam Allen kept his London scoring streak going with his ninth goal of the season at 9:46n of the second period.
Allen now has two goals and five points in four games as a Knight.
Sim completed his hat trick on a power play at 11:45 of the second period as O’Reilly spotted him standing beside the right post for a tap-in.
Noah Aboflan scored for the second straight game on a laser of a shot to the top corner to make it 7-2 and then Montgomery netted his second of the day with under four minutes remaining in the middle period and London led 8-2.
Sarnia scored their final goal of the game with 57 seconds to go in the second as Alessandro Di Iorio found the top corner on Austin Elliott from a sharp angle.
London added one final goal in the third period as Barkey snuck a pass out front to O’Reilly and he connected for his 14th goal of the year.
Sarnia actually outshot the Knights 36-34.
London was 3-for-5 on the power play.
The Sting were 1-for-7.
The Knights played the game without forward Will Nicholl who was out again due to illness.
Logan Hawery returned to the London lineup after missing the Knights game against the Flint Firebirds because of illness.
Knights stay hot during World Juniors
Over the past five World Junior Hockey Championship tournaments that have taken place during December and January, a total of 13 Knights players have taken part. That averages out to 2.6 top end players out of the London lineup each season and yet the Knights overall record during that time has not taken the hit those statistics would suggest.
London has a record of 30-6-1-2 over those stretches for a winning percentage of .775.
With Oliver Bonk, Easton Cowan and Kasper Halttunen away last year, the Knights went 7-1.
So far this year with Bonk, Cowan, Halttunen, Jesse Nurmi and Sam Dickinson away, London has posted a record of 6-1.
Up next
The Knights and Sting will kick off 2025 with a rematch at Progressive Auto Sales Arena in Sarnia, Ont., at 2 p.m.
The game will mark the fifth of six meetings of the season between the two clubs.
Coverage will begin at 1:30 p.m. on 980 CFPL, at http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the iHeart Radio and Radioplayer Canada apps.