2013 Memorial Cup: Knights get on same page, but can they write a redemption song vs. Winterhawks?

SASKATOON, Sask. — Now watch Dale Hunter start Anthony Stolarz on Friday, just to destroy a hypothesis.

For London Knights captain Scott Harrington and friends, 60 uninterrupted minutes supporting he same goalie, Jake Patterson, is a bigger windfall than winning the 50/50 draw at Credit Union Centre. Thursday's bloodless 6-1 tiebreaker-game romp over the tapped-out Saskatoon Blades offered little indication of whether London has worked out the bugs in their systems ahead of Friday's semifinal vs. the Portland Winterhawks. Ultimately, the Knights are still the Memorial Cup mix with the Winterhawks and Halifax Mooseheads, who blasted a combined 14 goals by their 'tenders during the round-robin.

Patterson stopped 31-of-32 shots, but Grade-A chances were fewer and farther between. At least it was a complete game from a Knights goalie.

"We've had some up-and-down games and been inconsistent, so it's nice that Jake could have a solid game and play a full 60 for us," said Knights captain Scott Harrington, who was his usual unflappable self while helping London put the game away by the two-period mark. "I'm obviously not a goalie. I don't know what the positive and negative tendencies of a goalie are. But whenever you see Jake out challenging a shot and playing with confidence it rubs off on the rest of us. We know that Jake's ready to go and he's sharp and he's prepared to go to bat for us."

"We're really looking forward to it," said Harrington, who has either one of two games left in an exemplary junior tenure that's included two OHL titles and two stints on Team Canada, but neither a Memorial Cup or a world junior title. "We didn't give Portland our best game last time. It'll be important for us to get off to a good start and go from there."

London's chances of upsetting Portland might come down to whether they can play what can be bluntly be called their annoying game. Bottle up the opposition's top scorers and make life easier for a confident goalie. Wear our defenders with their vaunted cycle, and so on, and so on.

It's a little easier when they're not peeking to see whether it's No. 35 (Patterson) or No. 43 (Stolarz) in net.

"Every goalie has a different style of playing," star blueliner Olli Määttä added. "For a defenceman, it's easier to break out when you know what the goalie is doing. We got used to [Patterson] during the Barrie series and today it was easier to break out."

If nothing else, London is no longer embodying those Blue Rodeo lyrics about wanting to know where their confidence went.

"It's big," Määttä said of trouncing Saskatoon. "Last game we got really embarrassed by Halifax. We battled back and I think we'll be ready to go tomorrow. Portland is one of the best teams in the CHL and they have really good forwards.

To be brutally honest about it, there's not much comparison between the Saskatoon Blades in the second leg of back-to-back games and the Portland Winterhawks after a day of rest then both have the WHL patch on their jerseys.

It was one thing for Patterson and the defencemen in front of him to get on the same wavelength vs. Saskatoon. Playing Portland, with their 100-point scorers Brendan Leipsic, Nic Petan and Ty Rattie, can be very discombobulating. Plus the Knights have rarely looked bobulated for any sustained stretch recently. That is understandable with a team whose peak is supposed to come next season as the Memorial Cup host team.

"Communication is one of the most important things on the ice, letting the guys know when to make passes, when not to," Patterson, 18, said. "If we bring that into tomorrow, I think we'll be good."

Griffith, Ruperts reunited

Getting the most of out of the Ryan Rupert-Matt Rupert-Seth Griffith line could be another hole card for Hunter in a showdown against Portland bench boss Travis Green, who's a pretty fair poker player both figuratively and literally. Having the Ruperts in as twin antagonists has often made it easier for rest of the Knights. They lacked that element in either of their losses, but Hunter noted Matt Rupert, who has had an injury-plagued post-season, is back at 100 per cent physically.

That's why Määttä might have felt justified in saying, "I think we can do a lot better against Portland, offensively, keep the puck down low, cycle."

Of course, it is the Winterhawks, whose overall body of work in both league playoffs and the Memorial Cup is much cleaner than London's. The Knights could also hit the wall on Friday. In the big picture, though, they could be less preoccupied with leaky defence and goaltending, which might sharpen their focus to play along the walls and force Portland into their kind of game.

Like Ryan Rupert said, some doubts have lifted.

"Once you're in that groove, it's just bang-bang plays instead of thinking about it," he said.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.