Matt Hackett won't have any lack of motivation against the Windsor Spitfires.

Hackett, the nephew of former Montreal Canadiens goalie Jeff Hackett, began his career with the Spitfires two seasons ago. Despite proving himself as a worthy backup early on, Hackett was dealt early in his second season in a move that netted the Spitfires star goaltender Michal Neuvirth.

Windsor later traded Neuvirth to Oshawa last season while Hackett broke out in a big way this season. The product of London, Ont. was named the Ontario Hockey League Western Conference's most improved player in the league's recent coaches poll while also recently capturing the Canadian Hockey League's goaltender of the week award.

Now that Hackett has made believers out of the rest of the league, he would like nothing more than to get revenge on the team that previously held his rights.

"I love playing them," he said Tuesday. "It's always a good battle and just to prove the coaches wrong that they made a mistake by trading me."

The challenge won't be easy for Hackett and his Whalers. Windsor finished first overall in league standings during the regular season and followed that up by sweeping their first round opponents, the Owen Sound Attack.

The prospect of facing sophomore sharpshooters Taylor Hall and Ryan Ellis is enough to make any goalie nervous. Hackett, on the other hand, is looking forward to the challenge of neutralizing his former teammates.

"I love it - I love the competition," Hackett said. "To play them in the second round of the playoffs is going to be a good challenge for me."

Hackett is familiar with Hall and Ellis after engaging in countless post-practice scrimmages and shooting sessions with the duo.

"Last year me and Hall were rookies so usually we had the task of having to pick up the pucks after practice," Ellis said. "For the most part he was out there working on his game so we'd stick around and work on ours as well."

Hackett earned the starting job in Plymouth this season after beating out Nashville second rounder Jeremy Smith. Head coach and general manager Michael Vellucci went back behind the Whalers bench on Nov. 10 after previous head coach Greg Stefan stepped down to accept a scouting job with the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes.

"(Hackett)'s been our MVP all year long," Vellucci said. "He deserved the opportunity. When I took over he started playing really well. He forced me to (trade) Jeremy Smith."

As the rest of the league saw after the coaching switch, the Whalers quickly became a different team. Plymouth had the worst record in the Western Conference at 6-11-2-0 when Stefan stepped down while they closed the season with a 37-26-5-0 record and fourth in the conference.

Vellucci, who was both head coach and general manager of the 2007 OHL champion Whalers, credits two aspects for the team's revival: confidence and attention to detail.

"I wanted to express to these guys that they needed to believe they were a good team because I believed they were a good team," he said. "Second thing was the systems. I thought there were three areas: our power-play, our penalty kill and our forecheck were three things I concentrated on."

"They played well after Vellucci took back over the team," Windsor head coach Bob Boughner said. "I think that he brought some new energy and new life to the team and they had a great second half and one of the better ones in the OHL."

The second round, meanwhile, is uncharted territory for the young Spitfires. It's easy to forget, with all the success the team has enjoyed over the last two seasons, that Windsor was eliminated in just five games in last year's playoffs by Sarnia.

After their emergence last season, the Spitfires became a team everyone wanted to beat. For that reason, Windsor hasn't had the luxury of taking any nights off, a mentality that prepared them well for the playoffs.

"We did have a bit of a target on our back and everybody brought their best down the stretch there when we had to play some tough games and really started using it as a measuring stick," Boughner said.

"Teams wanted to beat us and kind of make a name for themselves with beating one of the higher ranked teams like us," Ellis added. "It's an easy transition to the games right now in the playoffs because guys are still gunning for us and they want to beat us more than ever now."

There will be plenty of offensive firepower on both sides in this series. Plymouth's trio of Chris Terry, Tyler Seguin and Matt Caria combined for 31 points through five games against Sarnia. The Spitfires will counter with former Kitchener Rangers goaltender Josh Unice after regular season starter Andrew Engelage struggled in the opening round.

Hackett and the Whalers will have their work cut out for them against such a deep and talented Spitfires offence.

"You go down the list of how offensively talented they are," Vellucci said. "It's going to be a team concept where everybody's going to have to play well defensively no matter if you're on the top line or you're on our fourth line."

Visiting fans could play a bigger factor than fatigue in this series. The two rinks are separated by a drive barely exceeding half an hour, with a border crossing in between.

"I think we're both going to have fans coming back and forth over the river and home fans supporting us so that's going to be a nice feature," Boughner said. "I think both teams are going to have a good feeling in either arena."

In a series where few are picking the underdog Whalers, Vellucci likes his team's resolve when pushed into a corner.

"It's a big challenge," he said, "but I think our guys always responded when our backs are against the wall."