CHL’s best primed for playoffs
Wednesday March 25, 2015
The top 48 teams from across the CHL are set to embark on a long and winding journey over the course of the next two months, one that holds Canadian Junior Hockey’s most prized possession at the end of the road.
Just one team has established their place in the 2015 MasterCard Memorial Cup as the host Quebec Remparts enter the playoffs as the fourth place team in the QMJHL. The 40-25-1-2 Remparts will host the Memorial Cup championship at the Colisee, a 15,000+ seat facility that formerly housed the NHL’s Quebec Nordiques prior to their relocation to Colorado.
With a title run this spring in mind, Remparts Head Coach and General Manager Philippe Boucher has assembled a lineup rich in experience, including the likes of 2013 Memorial Cup Champions Zachary Fucale, Matt Murphy and Brian Lovell along with 2014 President’s Cup Champ Ryan Graves.
“They have an influence in the room. I think they will have a positive impact,” Boucher told La Presse’s Carl Tardif. “Even if some of our guys have not won the President’s Cup, we still have an experienced group with other players who have won at the Bantam and Midget levels.”
The Remparts square off in a first round series with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles that begins on Friday.
“With the championships we’ve all won, Fucale, Murphy, Lovell and I can help, for sure,” said Graves. “Especially when nervousness sets in. We know what is coming, and the four of us together can help the entire team.”
While the Remparts prepare themselves for guaranteed hockey in late May, the QMJHL’s Rimouski Oceanic received the Jean Rougeau Trophy, awarded to the league’s regular season champions.
The Oceanic edged out the Moncton Wildcats by four points with a 47-16-3-2 record to earn the distinction for the first time since Sidney Crosby led Rimouski to a QMJHL title in 2005.
Moving west, the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds locked down the Hamilton Spectator Trophy for the first time since way back in 1985 when the scoring touch of Wayne Groulx led the Hounds to an OHL Championship.
Awarded to the OHL’s regular season champions, the Hamilton Spectator Trophy goes to a Greyhounds team that finished the year with a franchise-best 54-12-0-2 record for 110 points. Sault Ste. Marie’s 342 goals for topped the CHL as the roster included seven different players to score at least a point-per-game.
Though the end-result in the standings is something to behold, the Greyhounds are tempering their tone moving forward.
“It shows that we were the best over 68 games for the regular season,” Hounds winger Michael Bunting told the Sault Star’s Peter Ruicci. “We still have a long road ahead and the journey is just getting started.”
Hounds Head Coach and former OHL Rookie of the Year Sheldon Keefe doesn’t see the accomplishment “as any cause for celebration. We’re not planning a parade for tomorrow,” he said. “It’s a great accomplishment. It’s something to feel good about, but it doesn’t change anything about our team.”
The Eastern Conference’s first place Oshawa Generals join the Greyhounds and Connor McDavid’s Erie Otters as another top contender for the J. Ross Robertson Cup, awarded to the OHL Playoff Champions.
The Generals also set a new single-season franchise mark with a record of 51-11-2-4 for 108 points. They face an old rival in the Peterborough Petes in the first round of the playoffs, marking it the 12th time in the past 40 years that the two East Division foes have locked horns in a playoff series.
The Generals have made it clear that they aren’t overlooking their first round opponent.
“We’re not a cocky group. We’ve worked for everything we’ve ever had,” Generals coach D.J. Smith told Durham Region’s Brian McNair. “We grind, we cycle, we hit you and we’re going to take every game period by period and hopefully beat these guys, but they have some really good players as well.”
Like the Oshawa Generals, the WHL’s first place Brandon Wheat Kings are priming themselves for a first round series against an eighth seeded club, one that has enjoyed a whole lot of recent success.
The Wheat Kings battle the reigning MasterCard Memorial Cup Champion Edmonton Oil Kings that feature returning champs in Brett Pollock, Dysin Mayo, Ashton Sautner and Edgars Kulda among others.
For Wheat Kings veteran blueliner Macoy Erkamps, the prospect of suiting up in his first career WHL Playoff game as a 19 year-old is exciting.
“I’ve been waiting for this my whole career and I can’t wait for it to get started,” the former Lethbridge Hurricanes rearguard told Bruce Luebke of 880 CKLQ in Brandon.
“I’m pretty much a rookie going into playoffs so I’ve talked to lots of the guys and all they say is how hard it is, a more physical kind of game and I think I’m ready for it,” said the 269-game WHL veterean. “The guys say it’s an exciting time and I just can’t wait.”
Brandon enters the postseason as winners of the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy awarded to the WHL’s regular season champs. They’ll be looking for a little payback against an Oil Kings club that has eliminated them from the WHL Playoffs in both 2012 and 2014.
“We’re going into the playoffs with the Scotty Munro, obviously, but we have to put that behind us,” Erkamps told Luebke. “It’s a clean slate going into the playoffs. I know we have a lot of expectations going in but we’re going to try our best to live up to it. I think we just have to play the four-line game that we play and I think we’ll be just fine.”
2015 CHL Playoff Broadcast Schedule:
All games available on Sportsnet NOW
- Friday, March 27 – Game 1, Peterborough Petes @ Oshawa Generals, 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario and Pacific)
- Sunday, March 29 – Game 2, Peterborough Petes @ Oshawa Generals, 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT (Sportsnet 360)
- Tuesday, March 31 – Game 4, Brandon Wheat Kings @ Edmonton Oil Kings, 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario and West)
- Wednesday, April 1 – Game 5*, Brandon Wheat Kings @ Edmonton Oil Kings, 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT (Sportsnet 360)
Follow along with the CHL Playoffs with the OHL Playoff Tracker, QMJHL Playoff Tracker and the WHL Playoff Tracker.