Philadelphia Flyers prospects Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk help lead the London Knights in claiming their second straight J. Ross Robertson Cup as Ontario Hockey League champions.
After winning it all last year in 18 games, the 2024-25 Knights bested their performance by completing the playoff round in just 17 games. They ran through the first three rounds with sweeps against Owen Sound, Erie, and Kitchener before beating Oshawa in 5 games.
Barkey, the captain of the Knights, missed 7 games due to injury but returned just in time for Game 5. He didn’t record a point last night but finished the OHL postseason run with 9 goals and 20 points in just 10 games. Bonk, on the other hand, collected 14 points in 17 games.
San Jose Sharks prospect Kasper Halttunen was named as OHL Playoff MVP after scoring 7 goals in the championship series. He finished the postseason run with 15 goals and 21 points but Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan led the way with 39 points.
They now set their sights towards the Memorial Cup, which is the prestigious CHL tournament that pits their 3 junior league champions as well as the host city against each other for national supremacy.
This year’s tournament is will run from the 22nd of May to the 1st of June and it will be held in Rimouski, the home of the Oceanic. The Knights are the first team to have completed their playoffs but Moncton currently has a 3-1 edge over Rimouski in the QMJHL and Medicine Hat has a 3-1 lead over Spokane in the WHL.
Flyers prospect Spencer Gill plays for the Oceanic but unfortunately hasn’t returned from an ankle injury he suffered in March. He ended his season with 35 points in 51 games after having been selected by the club in the 2nd round of last year’s NHL Draft.
At the very least, Rimouski has their place set for them in the Memorial Cup as the host city but it would mean a lot more if they were able to take home the Gilles-Courteau Trophy as league champions. They last won the league in 2015 and the Memorial Cup all the way back in 2000.
As for the Knights, as dominant as they’ve been, they had the Memorial Cup on their minds all season. They were surprisingly ousted in the Final last year and are looking to their claim their first Cup since 2016. With Cowan, Barkey, Halttunen, Bonk, and Sam Dickinson all healthy and ready to go, they’re going to be very hard to stop.
This will be the last time that both Barkey and Bonk suit up for the Knights with the former collecting 184 points in just 114 games since being drafted by the Flyers in the third round in 2023, whereas the latter quietly put up 107 points in 112 games in that same time frame.
Both players are expected to feature prominently for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL next season unless they impress in training camp and force their way onto the NHL roster. Gill will look to bounce back from his injury and give the Oceanic a strong finale to his junior career.
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