London Shutout Drummondville 4-0 in Their Memorial Cup Opener; Oliver Bonk Earns Player of the Game

The London Knights kickstarted their Memorial Cup tournament against the QMJHL champs, Drummondville Voltigeurs. The game ended with a resounding 4-0 victory for the Knights. The win was largely attributed to the outstanding performance of goaltender Michael Simpson, who made several crucial saves throughout the game. Additionally, Oliver Bonk, a top prospect for the Philadelphia Flyers, showcased his ability to impact the game at both ends of the ice.

The game started extra chippy and physical with both teams clearly eager to set the tone early on. Jousting on faceoffs, big hits, and chirping after the whistles, this game had it all.

London's special teams, especially their powerplay, have been a major strength all season. Drummondville seemed to have missed this memo as they took some unnecessary penalties in the first period, resulting in six minutes of penalty kill time, including a 5-on-3 situation. However, credit to Drummondville's penalty kill for stepping up and getting the job done.

While it didn’t count as a powerplay goal as the penalty had just expired, Sam Dickinson collected the puck at the top of the faceoff circle and made a perfect east-west pass over to Ruslan Gazizov who slid his shot fivehole on Drummondville’s goalie, Riley Mercer, to open the scoring.

Dickinson’s defense partner Oliver Bonk got in on the action a little later after finding some quiet ice to hammer home his one-timer in the exact same spot where Dickinson made his pass from on London’s first goal.

Bonk was awarded Player of the Game, finishing with a plus-3 rating, a goal, and an assist.

The hitting didn’t stop in the second period, if anything, the physicality ramped up another level. The Voltigeurs had an early push to start the period but London’s Michael Simpson was there to answer the bell.

Simpson made four high-danger stops, including a spectacular post-to-post save to keep Drummondville off the scoresheet in the second period. In our Memorial Cup preview for the London Knights, we discussed how Simpson aims to have a strong bounce back after a rather disappointing performance in last year’s tournament with the Peterborough Petes.

He left an exclamation mark on this game with a stellar performance stopping all 31 shots he faced to help London get off on the right foot at the 2024 Memorial Cup.

Jacob Julien made a nifty move off the faceoff, going forward off the draw, and swinging the puck to Gazizov who once again put the puck through Mercer’s fivehole, giving the Knights a 3-0 lead just 20 seconds into the third frame. Two minutes later, Bonk threw the puck towards the net from the point which took a double deflection off of Landon Sim’s stick first, and then Kasper Halttunen’s shoulder to extend London’s lead.

Winnipeg Jets prospect, Jacob Julien, finished the night with two assists, plus-2, and was 14/22 on faceoffs.

Drummondville dominated the third period in London’s end, but the formidable defense of London prevented the Voltigeurs from creating any significant scoring opportunities.

Shot blocks from the Knights were another storyline from this game, most notably from New York Islanders prospect Isaiah George, as they made a strong effort to put themselves in shooting lanes and sprawl out in sacrifice of their body for their netminder.

London’s next game is against the Moose Jaw Warriors, who dropped their tournament opener to Saginaw yesterday. The puck drop for that game comes just after 7:30pm EST on Monday.