Johnny Gruden is one of many London Knights newcomers ready to experience OHL action for the first time.
"I've been to a regular season game here once, but I what I want to experience is playing in front of the crowd here," says Gruden.
The 19-year-old Ottawa Senators draft pick joined the Knights in the off-season. With eight veterans graduating, he's one of the key pieces brought in to help keep the team in contention.
"We added a lot of guys coming in," says Associate GM Rob Simpson. "We have good diversity in age group. Our forwards are old, and have tenure...back end is where our youth is."
The roster will be very young Friday night when they open the season against Peterborough. Liam Foudy and Alec Regula are injured and will miss at least the first two games. Connor McMichael may not back from Washington Capitals camp.
"It gives the young guys a chance to make a good impression early, and maybe hold their spot," says second year defenceman Gerard Keane. "It will be interesting to see how things shake out in the first couple weeks."
With five 17-year-old defencemen and one 18-year-old on opening night, they'll be relying heavily on goaltender Jordan Kooy. The veteran keeper has been working our hard in the off-season.
"We're all looking forward to playing games again, it's been a long summer," says Kooy.
Friday's game will be the first that counts since last year's playoff collapse against Guelph. London blew a three-games-to-none lead in round two..
"Anytime you have failure, you lead to success," adds Simpson. "That's a learning curve for us...never take your foot off gas pedal. We want to have a great regular season and great finish to playoffs."
Simpson adds that at this point, they are just worrying about keeping things simple. With so many inexperienced players, their immediate focus is Friday night's opener.
