Alex DeBrincat admits there have been some lucky goals during his record 19-game goal-scoring streak.

Burying an empty-netter with 26 seconds left in London Friday is one of the more fortunate.

“Anytime you have a streak, you have some luck,” said the Erie sniper, who tied Mike Ricci’s 28-year-old OHL record run in the final half-minute of a 4-1 win at Budweiser Gardens. “The puck’s kind of bouncing my way in those games. I try not to think about it too much. Usually, when you’re worried about it, then it doesn’t happen or you grip your stick too much.

“Just try to play my game.”

Ricci’s streak was the talk of junior hockey circles back in 1988-89, but until DeBrincat hit 18 games Thursday in Windsor, there was some feeling his feat had buzzed along under the radar a bit.

Not even his linemates Dylan Strome and Taylor Raddysh were teasing him about it.

“They didn’t want to jinx it,” the OHL’s leading scorer said. “It’s been pretty quiet, other than (Friday). Twitter’s kind of blowing up about it.

“I just stay off it. Sometimes, it’s better that way. It is what it is.”

It’s not like he hasn’t been just barely scraping by along the way. He has produced 26 goals and 47 points in the 19-game binge.

The only other player who scored in 10 straight games this season is his linemate Raddysh.

The 19-year-old Blackhawks prospect knows how difficult it is to score in every game over a month-and-a-half stretch. It’s right up there with getting a hit every day in a high-level baseball league.

His coach is impressed by the competition he’s faced and the number of big goals he produced during his streak.

“Sometimes, guys who score a lot of goals can score score them against bad teams,” Kris Knoblauch said. “You can have three, four, five-goal nights and it really adds to your stats. Or you win 7 or 8-1 and you may be scoring the fifth, sixth or seventh goal. Those aren’t very significant. But right now, for him to score in this many games against good teams back-to-back, that’s pretty remarkable.”

It’s not his favourite DeBrincat achievement, though.

“The three (straight) 50-goal seasons, those career standards, I think that one over such a long period of time is up there,” Knoblauch said.

No one is going to match either of them any time soon.