Islanders Prospect Jesse Nurmi Wins Memorial Cup

Jesse Nurmi is a Memorial Cup Champion.

Nurmi and the London Knights won the top prize in Canadian Junior Hockey on Sunday, taking down the Medicine Hat Tigers 4-1 in the Memorial Cup championship game.

Winning it all was certainly the perfect ending for the Isles’ 2023 fourth-round pick (113th overall), who finished the regular season with nine goals and 31 points and posted four goals and nine points in the postseason in his first year in the OHL. He previously played in Finland in the Kookoo system before transferring stateside.

Nurmi scored his first goal in the Memorial Cup tournament with an insurance goal in Friday’s 5-2 win over the Moncton Wildcats. After a Knights faceoff win, the 20-year-old winger received a pass and whipped a shot in front of the right side of the crease to grab a 4-2 lead for London.

Nurmi was part of a dominant Knights team, which went 55-11-2 in the regular season and lost only two postseason games en route to winning the Memorial Cup. London was the runner-up in last year’s Memorial Cup, when Isles prospect Isaiah George, who was drafted 98th overall in 2022, was on the team and won the OHL Championship with the Knights. The 2025 Memorial Cup victory marked the third in franchise history for London.