Capitals first-rounder Tom Wilson and Plymouth are 31-7 since Jan. 10 (OHL Images)

The London Knights' track record for taking apart a loaded team is quite impressive.

Ahead of Friday's start of the OHL Western Conference final against the vaunted Plymouth Whalers, one cannot help but hearken back to the prognosticating prior to a series about 12 months ago against another team with more NHL draft picks than one could count on two hands. The Niagara IceDogs team that London coolly dispatched in a five-game OHL final went on to send eight players to pro hockey, including Boston Bruins rookie defenceman Dougie Hamilton and not including star forwards Ryan Strome and Brett Ritchie, who were bound by the rules to return to major junior.

What's different about Plymouth? For starters, the Whalers got a good push in the last round in a six-game set with the Owen Sound Attack, plus they buttress their skill with a certain flinty toughness.

"We compete, we do the little things, we take pride in being physical," says Whalers centre Mitchell Heard, who began this season in the AHL. "I think that was one of the big keys for us. London is pretty skilled up front and we're going to have to compete... Their D [defencemen] like to jump into the play so we're going to have to guys backchecking."

Plymouth scored a league-high 291 goals in the regular season, followed by London with 272, although each team prides itself on balance. It is a series of stars; Plymouth's Vince Trocheck won the scoring title and will likely be targeted by a shutdown line, but the Whalers have three NHL first-rounders in behemoth wing Tom Wilson and two-way centres Stefan Noesen and Rickard Rakell. The Knights' trio of two-way centre Bo Horvat, playmaker Max Domi and mobile 6-foot-5 defender Nikita Zadorov could all match teammate Olli Määttä's status as a NHL first-rounder.

"They don't have one particular line that will do all the damage like some teams," London captain Scott Harrington, a Pittsburgh Penguins defence prospect, says of the Whalers. "They have four strong lines that can play well in the offensive end. It will be important for all six of our D to be sharp and our goaltending as well, for our forwards to be coming back. That's something we've worked on all year and something we've worked on since my first year in London [in 2009-10].

"They've definitely got some players who have made quite the name for themselves in the OHL and are high draft picks in the NHL," Harrington adds. "It's going to be a challenge. It's going to take more of a team than a couple of guys trying to shut them down."

Ryan Sproul (right) is the third Greyhound to be named the OHL's top defenceman (Kenneth Armstrong, The Canadian Press)

With Ryan Sproul, it was not just the numbers, but the perseverance.

There is probably little pretending that the Detroit Red Wings prospect was not named the OHL's top defenceman on Thursday because he led the league's blueliners with 20 goals and 66 points in 50 games for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. Focusing just on that, though, would block out how the 6-foot-4 rearguard overcame having each of his final two seasons interrupted by major injuries.

First came a broken jaw in his post-draft season, then a broken arm last fall. Yet Sproul never missed a beat, powering the 'Hounds into the playoffs this season and filling out his game. The 20-year-old was a landslide winner in voting among the OHL's GMs, taking 80 of 95 possible points.

Griffin Reinhart and the Oil Kings begin the WHL Eastern final tonight vs. Calgary (Getty Images)

Bring on the spotlight. Go right ahead and project all that Calgary vs. Edmonton history on to teenagers, including the ones with famous hockey names.

It might seem like it's burdening Edmonton Oil Kings stars Keegan Lowe and Griffin Reinhart — especially this week — to put the Hitmen-Oil Kings WHL Eastern Conference final into both past and present context. Thanks to the delayed start to the NHL season, the series is beginning while both the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers are winding down respective winters of discontent. At the same time, though, the Battle of Alberta "is there even when it isn't there." So any added emphasis on the junior series is welcomed.

"For the kids like us who play underneath the Oilers in Edmonton, it's more exciting than distracting, getting even more attention and stuff like that," Lowe says when asked about the added attention for the WHL series, which begins Thursday at Rexall Place. "We would have liked for the Oilers to do better, but after their season's done, we're the only playoff hockey in Edmonton if we're fortunate enough to still be playing.

"Our team last year was pretty good with it [being the only game in town once NHL regular season ended]," adds the Caroline Hurricanes draft pick, whose father Kevin Lowe, of course, is president of the Oilers. "As much as we want to see the Oilers doing better, it's excitement for us."

[Kelly Friesen: WHL Eastern Conference final preview]

Not one player on either team was alive during the last Flames-Oilers playoff series in 1991, which Esa Tikkanen decided with a Game 7 overtime goal in response to Theo Fleury's steal-score-celly strike that forced a deciding game.

Sabres pick Alex Lepkowski and the Colts are 8-0 in the playoffs (OHL Images)

The Barrie Colts-Belleville Bulls series is wide-open and so is the choice of tipping points.

In Colts centre Mark Scheifele and Bulls goalie Malcolm Subban respectively, each of the OHL's Eastern Conference finalists is fronted by a marquee star who could give his team the boost to go the final. Based on performance, they grade out as dead-even possibilities to win the series and advance to the championship against the Plymouth Whalers-London Knights victor, or whatever's left of the survivor should that saw-off go six to seven games. Who knows, maybe even one quirk in the scheduling could prove to be the biggest obstacle.

Belleville opted to start the series with back-to-back games on its Olympic-sized ice surface. There is also no rest day skedded in between Game 5 at Belleville and Game 6 in Barrie. Depth and recovery is going to have to kick in for the Colts. For whatever this scrap of a sample is worth, they were shut out by Subban during their only visit to Belleville, which was the home leg of a back-to-back. But don't bank that too quickly, since it came while star defenceman Aaron Ekblad was injured.

"I think it's going to be fine," says Colts defenceman Alex Lepkowski, a 20-year-old Buffalo Sabres draft pick "We've been preparing well for the Olympic ice here in Barrie. From our forwards down to our defence, I think we have a mobile team and it's not going to be too much of a factor."

The goalie matchup of Subban and the seemingly ever underappreciated Mathias Niederberger might inveigle both teams to play run and gun. The Plymouth-London Western final shapes up as more of a grind.

The Dale Hawerchuk-guided Colts scored an Eastern-high 239 goals and had the league's most efficient power play. They managed to do that despite the limited availability of Scheifele (78 points in 45 games) and Boston Bruins prospect Anthony Camara (36 goals, 60 points in 50 games). The Bulls, with six NHL draft picks up front and speedy defenceman Jordan Subban occasionally becoming a de facto fourth forward, prefer to pick their spots to run and gun. They are capable of it with the likes of Vancouver Canucks prospect Brendan Gaunce and recent Minnesota Wild signing Tyler Graovac.

"They have a high-tempo explosive attack, a terrific power play," Bulls coach George Burnett says of Barrie. "I think they've maintained their high level of play despite extended absences of three of their top players in Scheifele, Camara and Niederberger.

"When you play back-to-back in your own building, it's something that you want to take advantage of," Burnett adds. "We've worked all year to have that."

Here is a capsule look at the series, which begins Friday (7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet ONE).

Serge Savard Jr. moved the Rocket to Charlottetown in 2003What's happening to the P.E.I. Rocket is the QMJHL has rejected the team's ownership under Serge Savard Jr., not Islanders themselves.

If it's taken to be the latter, then it could be the end of major junior hockey on the Island for a good while. There is a common misconception with franchise failures that "[Sport X] doesn't work in [Market Y]." In reality, as Ottawa 67's owner Jeff Hunt recently said about his CFL venture, "Poorly run businesses don't work anywhere."

The takeaway from Wednesday is the QMJHL, whatever its motives sincere or ulterior, has drawn a line in the stand with some of its smaller-market operations. Last week, another small-market team in the Maritimes, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, were able to keep on keeping on when Léo-Guy Morrissette reached a purchase agreement with businessman Léopold Theriault, who has rounded up investors such as Titan alumnus and Boston Bruins star Patrice Bergeron. It's believed this came about after the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League set a deadline to find a local buyer. It appears the same scenario is afoot on the day after the initial reports the P.E.I. Rocket could be sold to group in Sorel-Tracy, Que.; the QMJHL would purchase the team on behalf of another ownership group" unless enough capital is amassed to buy the team and keep it on Prince Edward Island.

Brossoit plays for the Oilers-owned WHL team while being a Flames prospect (The Canadian Press)

Hitmen defenceman Jaynen Rissling is a diehard Oilers fan (The Canadian Press)It is easy to get taken on a nostalgia joyride with Calgary and Edmonton meeting in a playoff series in April, until you remember no player on either the Hitmen or the Oil Kings was even alive the last time there was a Battle of Alberta in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The two Western Hockey League teams have met once previously in the post-season, but that 2009 series was a 1 vs. 8 first-round matchup between an Oil Kings outfit that was probably just happy to be making its first playoff appearance and a juggernaut Hitmen whose loss in the WHL final is still a source of disbelief. It is noteworthy that the lines between two cities who compete at everything — business, politics, hockey, curling, the CFL — are somewhat blurred, since the world is too small for that.

You probably have to be there to know who is more likely to apply the NHL rivalry on to the WHL. A gut instinct is that attitude might flow a little more from Edmonton. The Oil Kings are heavy faves, plus the big-league Oilers are providing little.

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Sunaya Sapurji examines the job Travis Green has done as the Portland Winterhawks' interim coach-GM in the wake of BenefitGate. (Yahoo! Canada Sports)

Portland star Ty Rattie hasn't the foggiest idea of why people would think he has a grudge against Kamloops' JC Lipon over a check that caused a neck injury in last season's Blazers-Winterhawks series: "It wasn't even a bad hit, it was just the way I got hit." (The Oregonian)

At least the Kamloops Blazers will not have bus legs for the Western Conference final opener at Portland, since coach Guy Charron decided to spread the nine-hour trip over two days. (Kamloops Daily News)

So what is it like to have grown up cheering for a certain Alberta NHL team and be playing for the other city in the Calgary Hitmen-Edmonton Oil Kings series? Or be playing for the Edmonton juniors while being part of the Calgary NHL organization like Oil Kings goalie Laurent Brossoit? (Sportsnet)

How are Calgary Hitmen yearlings such as Chase Lang and Josh Thrower going to hold up in the Eastern final vs. Edmonton? (Calgary Herald)

Having captain Colton Sissons go down with a major injury started the unravelling in Kelowna, writes Regan Bartel. (Regan's Rant)

Hey, while talking about the crop of draft-eligible defenceman, do not omit Kelowna's Madison Bowey. (The Hockey Writers)

What is the outlook like for next season in Medicine Hat? (Tiger Turf)

OHL

In the wake of Saskatoon's playoff stinker, how good does the London Knights' 2014 Memorial Cup bid look by comparison? (London Free Press)

NHL draft prospect Yan-Pavel Laplante and his P.E.I. teammates could be on the move (The Canadian Press)Marriages of convenience seldom last and however the P.E.I. Rocket's saga in Prince Edward Island ends, it looks like it end awkwardly.

Over 10 seasons, the franchise was a team named after a Quebec icon Maurice Richard plunked down in Charlottetown, which was one factor among many that explained why the Rocket have struggled to be as successful as their Maritimes brethren in Halifax, Moncton and Saint John. While not all hope for major junior hockey's future in P.E.I. is lost, at first blush it sounds like ready-to-sell owners Serge Savard and Serge Savard Jr. have set the bar impossibly high for Charlottetown interests to keep the team on the island.

Earlier Tuesday, Réseau des sports (RDS) reported the Savards have given local investors a 10-day window to raise the cash to buy the team. Otherwise, a group includes RDS commentator Marc Denis and active NHLers François Beauchemin and Marc-Andre Fleury will buy it and move P.E.I. to Sorel-Tracy, Que., reviving the old Sorel Éperviers moniker of a team that played in the QMJHL during the 1970s.

This came just one day ahead of the planned rollout for the team's rechristening as the P.E.I. Islanders. So it's a shocker, especially considering that Savard Jr. said on Jan. 15 that the team would not move.