The Atom Jr. Stars traveled to London last Wednesday for a mid-week matchup against the London Bandits. Hoping to rebound after a couple of tough games, the Stars unfortunately started slow and finished early, allowing London to score in the first minute and in the last minute, and to steal the win.
London opened the scoring just 0:56 into the game. It was obvious our opponents were ready to play. A stunned Stars’ bench, down by one early again, knew they had a long fight back ahead of them. Enter Taylor Honsinger who, for the next 35:00 turned away everything London threw at him. As he worked to keep our team in the game, some improved passing by the Stars created the occasional offensive pressure. However, all to often we struggled to clear our zone and allowed London to stay on the attack. Hanging on, it wasn’t until 3:24 remaining in the 2nd that we found the mark. With the teams playing 4 on 4, Brad Verhoeven tied the game at one after being denied on his first shot only to gather up his own rebound and fire it home over a sprawling London goalie.
Into the 3rd we found ourselves short-handed just 2:00 in. A face-off in London’s end after an icing call, allowed our penalty killers a chance to control the puck and keep it deep in their end. Precious seconds ticked off the clock. As the Stars continued to battle, a pass towards the net found Nik Churchill who buried a wrist shot in the top corner, beating the London goalie’s glove hand and giving the Stars the lead with a short-handed marker. Honsinger continued his strong play making several key saves, now giving our team a chance at victory only to have London tie the game at two with just 4:08 remaining. Continuing to work hard, the Stars managed to hold off a surging London team. With less then 2:00 remaining, London took a slashing penalty, opening the door for a Stars power play and chance to reclaim the lead in the dying seconds of the game. Unfortunately, a Stars victory wasn’t to be. Down a man, London carried the puck into our zone and without the defensive presence of our forward line, was able to put a hard shot on net that found its way up and over Honsinger’s left pad, to just cross the goal line and give them the lead. The 0:60 remaining wasn’t enough time for the Stars to mount another comeback and a 3-2 victory went to London.
Assists to Drake Hunter, Chase Cookson, Tyler MacMillan and Luka Dennis