The 2015 OJHL playoffs took 83 games, and were as full of storylines as any post-season I can remember. When the No. 1 seed in both conference goes down in the second round - albeit both for very different reasons - you know there was an air of crazy surrounding proceedings. With the finals two days gone, and the defending Buckland Cup champion Toronto Patriots preparing for the Dudley Hewitt Cup that begins Tuesday, I thought I would go back by round, and discuss a few prevailing thoughts I have surrounding each one.
The two biggest stories of the first round definitely came out of the Southwest, where the upstart Orangeville Flyers and Buffalo Jr. Sabres gave their higher ranked, and more experienced foes, big runs for their respective money.
First-year Flyers' bench boss Jamie Caruso had his power play humming along nicely, and while Oakville bench boss Mike Tarantino got his troops to rally after going down 3-1 to win in seven games, it was an extremely tough, dramatic series. It was only fitting, then, that Blades' forward Ryan Garvey scored with only seconds on the clock to win in the final contest at Oakville's beautiful Sixteen Mile Sports Complex.
The No. 8 Jr. Sabres may have come into that series with No. 1 Georgetown as big underdogs in the standings, but Raiders' head coach and GM Greg Walters certainly was not comfortable. Buffalo had toppled big teams down the stretch in the regular season, and especially at their beautiful new home, where they had finally settled after a tumultuous beginning of the year, they were a tough nut. I really believe that series, that went to seven games as well, took a ton out of the Raiders, especially their biggest gun Steve Hladin, and played a role in their surprise later demise. That being said, Georgetown did find a way at home in Game 7.
Opinions on how the 4 v 5 series in the Southwest between the Toronto Jr. Canadiens and North York Rangers would go varied greatly. JRC had come into the playoffs on an absolute tear, while the Rangers had stalled due to mass absences on the D-Corps. North York had talent, but how much mileage could the top parts of its lineup, and second-year goaltender Gianluca Baggetta, ultimately take against a physical and more veteran Jr. Canadiens club. They did answer, making life difficult most of the time for anyone on Toronto not named Anthony Repaci or Justin Maolino; and a couple of dramatic overtime wins at Scotiabank Pond stretched the series to six games. Baggetta was especially brilliant behind a defence that was young, without it's captain, and asked to play very different roles than it was used to (ie Will Reilly). Nevertheless, North York's inability to win at home killed them.
With all due respect to the St. Mike's Buzzers, their first round series with the No. 2 Toronto Patriots was never in doubt. More on the Pats later!
In the Northeast, the No. 1 Aurora Tigers raised some alarms with a far more difficult first round series against their ancient rivals, the No. 8 Newmarket Hurricanes, than many predicted. They found a way after five games of course, with three of the five being one-goal games, but they won anyway. If Newmarket could've held early leads, however, this might have been a bigger deal. That being said, the youthful and energetic Hurricanes, and especially '96 birth year forward Sam Hu, made some fans.
Perhaps the biggest question heading into the NE playoffs was surrounding the Whitby Fury, who fired their head coach Tom Boyle one game before the end of the regular season, and then had to take on probably the most aggressive team in the league, the Cobourg Cougars (speaking of questions, more on Cobourg later!) Without a sudden coaching change in Whitby, however, I do wonder if this could have been a brilliant series. The Fury had a roster with a lot of talent, including Ryan Kirkup, who was one of the best players in the OJ last year, and had brought in a bunch of guys around deadline day. Although the Fury made it tough on a game-to-game basis, the No. 3 Cougars ended up with the sweep, albeit with three of the four wins coming in one-goal games.
Marty Abrams' top heavy Wellington Dukes were in tough against the Trenton Golden Hawks, and despite one of the league's top one-two punches in Abbot Girduckis and Joe McKeown, the Dukes fell in four hard-fought contests. Trenton's Brady Wiffen, who many considered to be the toughest forward to stop in the OJ last year, counted for seven points in the four games.
Also missing their head coach were the Kingston Voyageurs, as their bench boss Colin Birkas was handed a heavy suspension late in the regular season. That being said, the veteran Vees found two Alex Tonge overtime winners, and went on to sweep the underdog Stouffville Spirit. Both Adam Brady and Tonge were absolute animals in the series, but that will be a broken record in these playoffs - I promise you. Stouffville's most consistent producer was veteran offensive-minded defenceman Mike Giacometti, who once had double digits in goals in the OJHL regular season. A quick series was a godsend for the Vees, however, as their road to the finals proved to be as grueling as it could be.
