Rene Van Bommel and Sam O’Reilly recorded hat tricks and Easton Cowan had four assists as the London Knights clobbered the Sarnia Sting 9-0 at Progressive Auto Sales Arena on March 9.
Aleksei Medvedev made 28 saves for his third shutout and sixth team shutout of the year.
Van Bommel recorded his first career hat trick, added an assist and even got into a fight in the third period.
O’Reilly netted his second career hat trick and is now up to 26 goals on the season.
Cowan has 11 points in his past four games.
The win gave London fifty victories on the year for the seventh time in their history – all fifty have come with Dale Hunter as head coach.
With injuries to Denver Barkey and Evan Van Gorp and two game suspensions being served by Landon Sim and Ryder Boulton for exceeding the fighting threshold in the OHL, Hunter juggled some of his lines and Noah Read took advantage early.
Playing with O’Reilly and Cowan to start the game, Read banged in a puck from in front of the net just 19 seconds into the game to give London a 1-0 lead.
Van Bommel put the Knights ahead by a pair as he beat a Sting defenceman one-on-one and finished with a beautiful backhand past goalie Nick Surczcia at 17:38 of the opening period.
London added six goals in the second period to blow the game open.
O’Reilly cashed in twice on power plays, Kasper Halttunen and Blake Montgomery scored singles and Van Bommel added two to complete his first OHL hat trick.
Halttunen had a goal and three assists.
Van Bommel won a race to the puck while killing a penalty and poked it by Evan Maillet who had come into the Sarnia net in relief of Surczcia after the sixth Knights goal. The puck had just enough on it to get across the goal line and London led 8-0 through 40 minutes.
Cowan slung a pass to O’Reilly during a third-period power play and the Edmonton Oilers prospect hammered home a one-timer to complete the scoring.
Medvedev was called on to make a final big save on Tyson Doucette who got in alone late in the third.
London outshot the Sting 35-28.
The Knights were 3-for-4 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
Dale Hunter: 1001 wins
It took just 1,490 games for Dale Hunter to reach 1,000 career regular season victories. Only he and Brian Kilrea have been able to reach that mark.
Kilrea has 1,194 wins.
Hunter’s first win came on Nov. 11, 2001 in a 6-3 win over the Kitchener Rangers. Logan Hunter had a pair of goals in that game and Rick Nash, Mike Stathopoulos and Corey Perry each had a pair of assists.
Hunter has won the Matt Leyden Trophy three times as the Ontario Hockey League’s Coach of the Year. Only Hunter and Kilrea have earned the honour more than once.
Hunter’s all-time regular season record is 1000-390-17-83.
He has led his teams to five OHL titles, two Memorial Cups and is on the verge of an eighth Hamilton Spectator Trophy as OHL regular season champions.
He has also led his team to 40 wins in 17 different seasons. In six of those seasons the Knights have reached 50 victories.
Up next
London will play a home-and-home against the Guelph Storm on back-to-back days beginning March 11.
The 2005 Memorial Cup championship teamed will be honoured prior to the game on Tuesday.
It has been 20 years since that Knights team won the first-ever league and Memorial Cup titles for the franchise.
London and Guelph will play again on March 12 at the Sleeman Centre.
The Storm currently sit in 10th place in the Western Conference.
Coverage of both games will begin at 6:30 p.m., on on March 11 and 5:30 p.m., on March 12 on 980 CFPL, at http://www.980cfpl.ca and on the iHeart Radio and Radioplayer Canada apps.