It was pretty clear since December that only four teams had a realistic shot at representing the O in the Memorial Cup this year.
Form held across the Ontario Hockey League over the first round of the playoffs. The favourites to make the conference final have arrived unscathed (Or, at least somewhat scathed and certainly chastened).
It was pretty clear since December that only four teams had a realistic shot at representing the O in the Memorial Cup this year: Windsor and London in the West, Belleville and Brampton in the East. Just about the best any other team could hope for was a game stolen here, maybe even a shot at a series upset. But the idea of getting past two or three of these teams in consecutive series in the post-season … well, there was no George Mason here, no Cinderella to make the juniors' final four.
Now, how do you sort it out?
I'm leaving the Western Conference to fellow sportnet.ca CHL writer Patrick King, though I'll try to catch up with the teams in the next few days. For now I'll focus on the right side of the road map.
Belleville secured the first seed and so the series will open there on Wednesday. And if it goes seven games it will end at the Yardmen Arena on April 26. The Bulls ran the table in March the last two weeks of the regular season to secure home-ice advantage.
You can get too caught up in streaks - what these teams have done through two rounds of the playoffs, through the last 10 games of the regular season, since the world juniors, whatever. Throw Belleville's struggles against lightly regarded Sudbury and sixth-seeded Niagara out the window. Ditto Brampton's tight conference semi-final win over Mississauga St Michael's. If you're trying to get a read on Belleville vs. Brampton, all that matters is what the two conference finalists have done head to head since the January trading deadline. By season's end in the Eastern Conference, the Bulls and the Battalion weren't just focused on the race for home-ice advantage in the playoffs - they knew that they were setting the table for playoff hostilities.
The teams met twice since the trading deadline and, as chance would have it, I made it out to both games. The teams ended up splitting the series with the road team winning each trip.
The first meeting was Belleville's 3-2 win over Brampton at the Bunker on the afternoon of Feb. 22. A couple of recurring and expected themes emerged that day for Belleville.
The Bulls' hopes against Brampton ride, as they do on a lot of nights, on the narrow shoulders of goaltender Mike Murphy.
Look, this isn't a knock against Murphy. There's no knocking a guy who'll collect his second consecutive OHL goaltender of the year award this year - especially when you consider that last season he knocked off the defending GOY who is a year later the presumptive Calder Trophy winner.
But you wouldn't pick Murphy as your most likely looking candidate to be a difference-maker. Physically, there's nothing much to him. The measurements on his player profile might be generous-they're certainly not understated.
Murphy told me that he reckons he's a better puck-stopper this year than last - not just a year older but wiser for the experience he has had working with Carolina's goaltending consultant, Tom Barrasso. (Hey, somebody has to like Tom Barrasso. Just consider it irrefutable evidence of Murphy's good nature.)
Anyway, Murphy stoned the Battalion in Belleville's win. He turned aside 41 of 43 shots. No fluke. That performance was in keeping with his standard during the season: a 2.08 GAA and a save percentage of 9.29.
There wasn't much to choose between the teams that day. Late in the first period, Belleville jumped out to a lead on a goal by left winger Eric Tangradi, the team's captain and most likely threat up front. Brampton picked up two goals in the second period, by Thomas Stajan on the power play and Matt Kang respectively, to catch up and pass the visitors. Midway through the third period, the Bulls squared the contest on a goal by Brandon Mashinter, a sort of bull-in-the-china-shop type winger.
The winner was scored with less than three minutes to go on a power play, P.K. Subban doing the honours. It was a pretty neat solo effort, Subban coming in from the point and beating Battalion netminder Thomas McCollum with a backhander. I wrote about P.K.in a column early in the season. With his heroics at the world juniors he has moved into a dead heat with a Hall of Famer for my all-time favorite Pernell.
The parallels between the current Sweet Pea and the classic model might not be obvious but they are there: superior athleticism allows them to go at their respective games in an unorthodox and even counter-intuitive way. The former champ was a master of defence in a game of offence; P.K. is a blue-liner whose first line of defence is to keep possession of the puck and stay on the offensive. P.K. has never been short of confidence but he has been a game-changing force late this season, probably a carry-over from the world juniors.
Subban's winner against Brampton came on the power play, just the Bulls' third of the game but that's enough. He's normally the catalyst, the puck going through him to generate the man-advantage chances (29 assists in 56 regular-season games, eighth in the league). This time he was the finisher.
If Murphy and Subban are the defining players in the series, it's bad news for Brampton. They weren't when the two teams met less than a week later in Belleville. Final score Battalion 4 Bulls 1.
Murphy had one of his weaker outings (at least statistically) making only 21 saves on 25 shots. Belleville had nine power plays but nothing to show for it. P.K. was a minus-1.
I'll leave it to Brampton right winger Scott Tanski to explain what the Battalion did that game and what they have to do in the conference final.
"We have to get the puck deep rather than carry it over the blue line," Tanski said. "We have to win the battles along the boards. It's not any easier or harder to do on the big ice surface. (Yardmen Arena has an Olympic-sized sheet.) We have to generate traffic in front of the net because Murphy will stop what he sees and will make the first save."
It seems like a pretty simple strategy. There's a little more to it, mind you. Rather than trying to keep the puck away from Subban on the dump-and-chase, Brampton looks to get the puck where he has the first touch. Two reasons: 1. Subban is likely more dangerous if he receives the puck from a teammate who chases down a dump-in - Subban will be free of checkers in that case; 2. Putting the puck into Subban's corner gives the Brampton's forwards, most notably Anthony Peluso, a chance to make him pay a physical price.
If Brampton is going to win, the kids with pro futures are going to have to make a big impression. They did that night in Belleville. Evgeni Grachev and Cody Hodgson, the future in New York and Vancouver respectively, each picked up a goal and an assist. Goaltender Thomas McCollum, Detroit's first-rounder last June, only had one shot beat him. Matt Duchene didn't register a point but still looked to be full value for his status as NHL Central Scouting's No. 2-ranked North American skater. The big goals, however, came from the guys in the ensemble: Stephon Thorne picked up the winner five minutes into the third period and Peluso picked up a bit of insurance a shift later. And Tanski was the lone Brampton player to go plus-three.
For all 60 minutes in that game in Brampton the outcome was in doubt. The only really decisive stretch was that final 20 minutes in the last game in Belleville. That game moved the Battalion into a tie in points with the Bulls in the standings - with Brampton owning the tiebreaker. In other words, if the earlier game was important, it was doubly so in their last tilt of the regular season. As it turned out, Belleville regained the advantage, running the table through to the middle of March, while Brampton dropped a single game late in the campaign, to the Majors in Mississauga.
If form were going to keep on holding, then you'd project that the road team would win each of the seven games and Brampton would skate away with victory in Game 7. It's not going to turn out exactly that way - you have to figure that a home team will be good for a couple of wins. I suspect that this series will go six, maybe seven, and I'd be surprised if there isn't an OT tucked in there somewhere. I'm always inclined to bet most recent form head-to-head and if it were just one game I'd be a lot more confident.
Stuff that fell out of my notebook:
