Rogers Western Conference Final Preview
By Aaron Bell
The last time the Guelph Storm and Erie Otters met in the post-season was in the 2002 MasterCard Memorial Cup in Guelph. A dozen years later they are meeting again in the Rogers OHL Western Conference Championship Series with the goal of getting back to the Memorial Cup on the line for both teams.
Guelph and Erie finished the regular season tied for the league lead with 52 wins each and the Otters finished two points behind the Storm for the Hamilton Spectator Trophy.
Those two points are serving the Storm well and they will host the first two games in the series on Thursday and Friday. The series moves to Erie, who will host the semi-finals for the first time since 2002, on Monday and Tuesday.
The Storm took out the Plymouth Whalers in five games in the opening round of the playoffs and then knocked off the MasterCard Memorial Cup host London Knights in five games to advance to the Western Conference final.
The Otters eliminated the Saginaw Spirit in five games in the opening round and then swept the West Division champion Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds to earn their trip to the conference finals.
The Storm won four of the six regular season match-ups, including a 1-0 road win on January 18th in their final regular season meeting. That was one of three regulation losses the Otters faced all season on home ice.
“They want to beat us more than anything right now and it’s just going to be a battle,” Storm coach Scott Walker told the Guelph Mercury. “We’re happy that we won the series with London, but there’s definitely things we could do better. We’ll go over their systems, but you really have to hammer down your own systems.”
Zack Mitchell has led the Storm offensively in the post-season with five goals and 15 points while Jason Dickinson (4-10-14), Kerby Rychel (2-11-13) and Scott Kosmachuk (6-6-12) have all been chipping in as well.
Robby Fabbri bounced back from an injury in the first round and scored four goals and seven points for the Storm in the final three games of the series against the Knights.
The Storm will also look forward to the return of veteran forward Brock McGinn in Game 2. He has been out of action serving a suspension since the opening round .
The Otters are also fortunate to have a lot of scoring depth up front. Dane Fox leads the way with seven goals and 16 points in nine games but Brendan Gaunce (5-9-14), Connor McDavid (4-10-14) and OHL scoring champion Connor Brown (4-9-13) are all contributing on a regular basis as well.
Perhaps more importantly, the Otters have allowed just 21 goals against in nine post-season games to date with solid play between the pipes from 2014 NHL Draft prospect Devin Williams.
Otters’ coach Kris Knoblauch, who guided the WHL’s Kootenay Ice to a berth in the MasterCard Memorial Cup in 2011, said that his biggest concern heading into Game 1 is shaking off the rust after a nine-day layoff between series.
“You can only practice so much,” Knoblauch told the Erie Times-News. “Otherwise, guys are getting bored out there. They’re not sharp. You can only work on your conditioning so much. Being the end of the year, you don’t want to wear guys out.”
Rogers Western Conference Championship Series Broadcast Schedule:
All games of both the Rogers Western and Eastern Conference Championship Series are also available on OHL Livestream and the OHL Action Pak.
Complete broadcast information is available at www.rogerstv.com/OHLPlayoffs
Click here for the 2014 OHL Playoff Brackets
Loading ...
