Henry Brzustewicz found Sam O’Reilly with a cross-ice pass in overtime and O’Reilly buried the overtime winner as the London Knights edged the Flint Firebirds 5-4 on Oct. 3 at Canada Life Place.
The goal was O’Reilly’s second of the night and it came just 58 seconds into OT and landed London their first victory in the 2025-26 regular season.
O’Reilly won the faceoff to begin overtime and Flint did not touch the puck until the Tampa Bay Lightning prospect snapped it past Firebirds overage goalie Mason Vaccari.
Great big New York Rangers prospect Nathan Aspinall opened the scoring in his first game of the season for Flint as he used his reach to deke a puck past Aleksei Medvedev of the Knights at 16:58 of the first period.
Charlie Murata’s first goal in the Ontario Hockey League made it 2-0 as he was set up on a short-handed two-on-one by Londoner Matthew Wang and the Firebirds, then took that two-goal lead into the first intermission.
London came out flying in the second period and were rewarded for it.
Some great work by the line of Max Crete, Mike Zakharov and Brody Cook wore down Flint defensively on a shift just before the midway mark of the middle period. As the Knights began a line change, Crete hung in behind the Firebird net and slid a pass in front to Sam O’Reilly for his first goal of the year and a 2-1 score at 9:03.
Just two minutes and 20 seconds later, London tied the game as Cohen Bidgood tipped home his second goal of the year as Knights defenceman Andoni Fimis backed his way along the blue line and got a shot away.
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Just 3:02 after that, London forward Evan Van Gorp zoomed into the Flint zone on a power play and found Linus Funck for his second goal of the year and the Canada Life Place crowd ignited as the Knights took a 3-2 lead.
The Firebirds battled back to tie it before the end of the period as Aspinall got in tight to the net and used a backhand deke to score goal number two in the game and the teams went into the final 20 minutes even at 3-3.
The teams stayed tight until late in the third period, when London held on in the defensive zone as Flint buzzed around.
Noah Read was able to nab a puck and race out to centre where Jared Woolley joined him on an odd-man rush.
Read fed Woolley near the net and Woolley chipped in his fourth goal in three games this year to put London back in front 4-3.
The lead lasted less than one minute.
Wang used his speed to get deep into Knights territory and put the puck on net where Medvedev made a save, only to have the puck ricochet off Funck and in to knot things up 4-4.
That set the stage for O’Reilly’s heroics in overtime. O’Reilly was 20-for-28 on faceoffs.
London outshot the Firebirds 44-31.
The Knights were 1-for-3 on the power play and 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Up next
London will face the Guelph Storm on the road at the Sleeman Centre at 4 p.m., on Saturday, Oct. 4.
The Storm are 3-2 on the season after a Friday night overtime win against the Saginaw Spirit on their home ice.
Coverage will begin at 3:30 p.m., on 980 CFPL, at www.980cfpl.ca and on the iHeart Radio and Radioplayer Canada apps.
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