London Knights Memorial Cup Champions 2016

J. Ross Robertson Cup​ Champions 2016

Team Roster

Matthew Tkachuk, Christian Dvorak, Owen MacDonald, Daniel Bernhardt, Chandler Yakimowicz, Robert Thomas, Chad Heffernan, Sam Miletic, Max Jones, Cliff Pu, Kole Sherwood, Aaron Berisha, Alex Formenton, JJ Piccinich, Mitchell Marner, Ian Blacker, Evan Bouchard, Nicolas Mattinen, Olli Juolevi, Brandon Crawley, Jacob Graves, Aiden Jamieson, Chris Martenet, Victor Mete, Emanuel Vella, Brendan Burke, Tyler Parsons

Head Coach - Dale Hunter 
Assistant Coach - Dylan Hunter 
Assistant Coach - Rob Simpson 
Assistant Coach - Rick Steadman 
Trainer - Chris Maton 
Trainer - Doug Stacey 
Manager - Basil McRae

Matthew Tkachuk’s shot at 7:49 of overtime found its way into the Rouyn-Noranda net and turned the London Knights into MasterCard Memorial Cup Champions.

The victory came exactly 11 years after the Knights’ first Memorial Cup Championship, on May 29th, 2005.

It was London’s 17th consecutive win and ended up being the biggest and the toughest in a game that will be called a classic forever.

Watching most of this was a lot like trying to catch sight of the road runner through the eyes of Wile E. Coyote. It zoomed past in roughly 30 minutes.

Max Jones of the London Knights created two scoring chances on a shot from the slot and a rush wide to the left around a Rouyn-Noranda defender. Another big chance for the Knights came courtesy of a 2-on-1 featuring Mitch Marner and Christian Dvorak, but Marner’s shot ticked off the pad of Huskies goalie, Chase Marchand and trickled through the crease and out.

That kind of play was a regular occurrence throughout the rest of the game. Pucks hit posts and crossbars and legs and sticks and sometimes didn’t hit anything and just went wide.

Goals were hard to come by considering the pace the game was played at, but they happened twice in the second period and then twice in the third.

The Knights opened the scoring on a flip pass from Christian Dvorak that found Mitch Marner inside the Rouyn-Noranda blue line and he fed the puck in front to Tkachuk and he deflected the puck into the Huskies’ net to put London ahead 1-0.

Just 15 seconds after that, Rouyn-Noranda tied it. Timo Meier wrapped a pass in front and Francis Perron got to it and put it in and the teams were back to square one.

In the third period, the teams kept racing back and forth at high speed and it was a speed rush that created the next goal as Alexandre Fortin found Julien Nantel going to the net and he scored to put the Huskies ahead 2-1.

With less than five minutes remaining, the score was still the same and Dale Hunter put Christian Dvorak on the ice for a defensive zone faceoff with Aaron Berisha and Max Jones. They got the puck in front to Dvorak and he scored at 15:49 to tie the game.

The Knights got the best chance to win it in regulation as a Mitch Marner shot from the slot went off the crossbar.

The teams went to the dressing room and came out for overtime and both had glorious, goal-line grabbing opportunities to win, but the puck stayed out until Aiden Jamieson found Tkachuk and he skated down left wing with Dvorak cutting up the middle of the ice.

Tkachuk paused and shot just as Dvorak skated in front of the Rouyn-Noranda net and the puck went in short side through Chase Marchand.

Orginal Article from http://londonknights.com 

AWARDS

• Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy (MVP): Mitchell Marner, London Knights
• Ed Chynoweth Trophy (Leading Scorer): Mitchell Marner, London Knights
• George Parsons Trophy (Sportsmanlike): Francis Perron, Rouyn-Noranda Huskies
• Hap Emms Memorial Trophy (Top Goalie): Tyler Parsons, London Knights

All-Star Team:

Goaltender: Tyler Parsons, London Knights

Defence: Olli Juolevi, London Knights; Haydn Fleury, Red Deer Rebels

Forwards: Christian Dvorak, London Knights; Mitchell Marner, London Knights; Timo Meier, Rouyn-Noranda Huskies