In Play on Facebook
It took nearly 65 minutes of hockey. But the big moment finally came.
Needing just a single point to break Joel Quenneville's record for most points by a defenceman in franchise history, Ryan Ellis set up Tom Kuhnhackl's second goal of the night, with just six seconds left in overtime, to give the Windsor Spitfires a dramatic, 5-4 win over the London Knights Wednesday evening.
"It was pretty exciting," Ellis said after the game. "I was more concerned about getting the win than the point. And we did it in pretty dramatic fashion."
The wait was worth it for a packed house of 6,363 at the WFCU Centre, who came out to honour a player that has provided them with plenty of thrills in his four-year career.
And no single play has been any bigger this season, for a Windsor club that is finding its way with Ellis leading the charge.
The Spitfires (11-7-0-1) came back from three separate one-goal deficits to hand the Knights (9-5-2-1) their fourth straight loss. Kuhnhackl and Zack Kassian each scored twice, while Jack Campbell made 26 saves, as the Spits won for the eighth time in 11 games.
Trailing 3-2 late in the second period, Kassian took a pass from Alexander Khokhlachev and ripped a wrist shot past London goalie Michael Houser to even the score.
Windsor wouldn't trail again.
Kassian's ninth goal of the season put the Spitfires up 4-3 at the 13:07 mark of the third. But the Knights pulled even just 29 seconds later, as Vladamir Namestnikov pounced on a loose puck in the slot and buried his second of the night, and eighth of the year, past Campbell.
That set the stage of Kuhnhackl's heroics.
With time winding down in a Windsor power play, Ellis fed rookie defenceman Nick Ebert, who set up Kuhnhackl for a one-time blast that beat Houser to the glove side.
NOTES
*Quenneville had 229 points in 197 games from 1975 to 1978. Ellis reached 230 points in just 184 games since 2007.
*The Spitfires have now won three games in the final ten seconds of play in the last two weeks.
*Alexander Khokhlachev had two assists in the win, and moved into second in rookie scoring (9G, 16A) in the OHL.
