By RYAN PYETTE THE LONDON FREE PRESS

Every time the Kitchener Rangers added a third-period goal, more and more Knights fans started streaming for the John Labatt Centre exits.

London veteran defenceman Michael D’Orazio saw it. He understood completely.

“I don’t blame them at all,” D’Orazio said. “It was embarrassing. We were embarrassing. We didn’t come to play. We didn’t want to work. We weren’t even a minor midget team out there. We were a bunch of atoms not willing to give it our all. Our veterans didn’t lead, no one wanted to work and they killed us on special teams.”

And you know what? This devastating 8-2 loss to the rival Rangers before what started out as a crowd of 8,921 Thursday night looked familiar.

It resembled the Game 7 beatdown Kitchener laid on the Knights seven months ago in the playoffs.

That 8-3 blowout ended the Knights careers of guys like Nazem Kadri, Justin Taylor and Steve Tarasuk.

These red-faced Knights will have to dig out of the rubble after being dominated by the Rangers on home ice.

“That’s the beauty of the OHL,” D’Orazio said. “You have another game the next day. We better come out Friday for the morning skate and be ready to go (against Ottawa). We have two more games this weekend and we better win them both.”

The Rangers power play humiliated the Knights’ penalty kill. Kitchener finished six-for-10 with the man advantage.

“We were very good, but I’m not going to tell you too much because we play them again on Sunday,” Rangers head coach Steve Spott said.

As Rangers Ryan Murphy (one goal, five points), Jason Akeson (one goal, five points) and 16-year-old Matia Marcantuoni (three points) had their fun, it was hard not to shudder at something else. What if Kitchener still had snipers Jeff Skinner and Jeremy Morin.

“We took pride in our penalty kill,” D’Orazio said. “We were second in the league but we threw that right out the window.”

For the second straight game, London coach Dale Hunter yanked his starting goalie.

Michael Houser allowed four goals in the first 40 minutes. Igor Bobkov got shelled for four more in the third.

The game got so out of hand that when enthusiastic Knights rookie Andreas Athanasiou scored a brilliant shorthanded goal late in the third to make it 8-2, he and his mates didn’t even raise their sticks in celebration.

The sombre 16-year-old simply skated back to centre as the pre-packaged scoreboard bells and whistles did their thing.

“A meaningless goal,” he said. “You always want to score but you want goals that matter. We didn’t play well tonight. These games happen.”

No one knows that better than Spott.

In Kitchener’s first visit here this year, he yanked starting goalie Brandon Maxwell. So the goalie woes have come full circle.

Does this whipping make up for the 9-0 bombing John Tavares and the Knights pasted on the Rangers two years ago at the Aud?

No, he said.

“That was the lowest point in my career,” Spott said. “I’ve referenced that game sheet a few times now. This is junior hockey and these kind of games do happen. That’s not indicative of the Hunters at all. It was just a poor night.”

Hunter hockey teams never get beat like this at home. They may not always have the top talent, but they rarely get outclassed.

When the Knights lost to Owen Sound early on this year, they trudged through massive penalty problems. Against Oshawa two weeks ago, they dribbled it away in overtime.

There’s no excuse this time.

London’s Daniel Erlich dropped the mitts. So did Jared Knight. The shutdown line — Sanza, DeSousa, Brown — wasn’t a factor, the defence looked weak and the Knights’ forwards had no zip.

“The difference between winning and losing,” Erlich said, “is hard work.”

They didn’t do it against the Rangers.

There’s a silver lining for the Knights in this uneven rivalry.

By Sunday night, the Knights will have played the Rangers four times already. They only meet six times in a season.

Game glance

Rangers 8, Knights 2

Kitchener goals: Jason Akeson, Jamie Doornbosch, Gabriel Landeskog, Jonathan Jasper, Matia Marcantuoni, Matt Tipoff, Ryan Murphy, Zach Lorentz

London goals: Michael D’Orazio, Andreas Athanasiou

Next: The Knights are back at it Friday against Ottawa at 7:30 p.m. at the John Labatt Centre. It’s House of Red time in support of the troops.

ryan.pyette@sunmedia.ca

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