Niagara IceDogs goalie Mark VisentinNo. 1 Star - Mark Visentin, Niagara IceDogs (OHL)

With the Niagara Ice Dogs as the odds on favourite to win their series against the Brampton Battalion, you probably wouldn't have expected them to get out-shot to the extent they did in Game 1 of their OHL Eastern Conference semifinal series at home. It was a very high-event, high-excitement game, yet each goaltender kept the other team off the score sheet despite the shots being 36-26 after regulation time, with Mark Visentin the busier of the two, oddly enough, given Niagara's star power.

Visentin, with the score tied 1-1 in the third period, made a terrific sliding save to rob Patrik Machac with his left pad. All-in-all, with the Ice Dogs taking the first game and drawing first blood on an OT goal by David Pacan, Visentin stopped 44 of 45 Brampton attempts. Not bad for a guy who had his equipment stolen the night before the game.

John Gibson has a .953 playoff save percentage (OHL Images)A gritty shutout win on the road, a defensive struggle that requires to overtime and Brandon Saad getting blanketed highlighted the start of the quarter-finals. On with the post-game questions!

Kitchener 2 Plymouth 0 (Rangers lead Western Conference semifinal 1-0) — So is this a reprise of the Guelph-Plymouth series or what? The Whalers started the post-season two weeks ago by being stymied on home ice by Guelph goalie Garret Sparks in their playoff opener.

Make no mistake, the Rangers have gleaned heavily from what Guelph did to keep up with the bigger and more skilled Whalers. For one night, it was enough, as Tobias Rieder's playoff-best eighth goal in the final minute of the second period stood as the winner.

From Josh Brown:

"They stuck to the game plan for 60 minutes," said Kitchener head coach and general manager Steve Spott. "We have to play a certain style against the Whalers and we did that."Plymouth dropped two games to the Guelph Storm before roaring back to win four straight in the OHL quarter-finals. The losses didn't go unnoticed by Kitchener.

"Guelph played a certain style that was based on hard work. We challenged our guys … that every time they came back to the bench the rest of the team could say he was emptying his tank. To a man we did that." (Waterloo Record)

The Whalers overcame that "certain style" in Round 1 and are certainly capable of doing so again. The Rangers arre better equipped defensively. Ace defenceman Ryan Murphy held up well while picking up extra minutes while overager Cody Sol was sitting out a misconduct, while Ben Fanelli had a lot to do with Plymouth's power play finishing 0-for-4.

Brothers Rob, Joe and Mark Manchurek (OHL Images)

As the old saying goes, you cannot tell the players without a program. In the case of the Manchurek triplets, that would only provide so much help.

The probability of a given birth resulting in triplets, without fertility aids, is about one in 8,000. So the fact that the few hundred hopefuls expecting to be chosen in Saturday's Ontario Hockey League priority selection draft includes triplets — defenceman Rob Manchurek, centre Joe Manchurek and winger Mark Manchurek — is notable on its own. As veteran hockey chronicler Bob Duff detailed, there's an excellent shot all three will be chosen on Saturday. However, they're not banking on all ending up with the same team.

The days of all three brothers playing as teammates are about to come to an end.

"There's huge potential that three of them are going to be playing different places,'' said Ken Manchurek, father of the three boys.

Born Aug. 10, 1996, Joe is the oldest brother, followed by Rob and Mark.

"It's extremely fun,'' Joe Manchurek said of being a triplet. "Everything about it is fun. You're never bored.

As the great bard Shakespeare once asked via his tragic character Juliet: "What's in a name?"

The answer -- for those among us who have gone through life having their monikers  mispronounced and mangled -- is a lot. It's who we are and it's usually one of the first things we learn to write as children. A name can give clues to people about us -- gender, ethnicity, whether our parents were hippies -- without ever meeting.

"What makes a good name is if it has a ring to it and if it rolls off the tongue," said Sarnia Sting forward Justice Dundas.

Ocean Check

Dundas knows first-hand about what makes a great name because he has one. He currently has his own bracket in the Hockey News' Name Tournament after he advanced to the second round with a win over Victoria Royals defenceman, Keegan Kanzig.

And so with the OHL "Priority Selection" scheduled to get underway on Saturday morning, Dundas has helped us pick the best, most interesting names available to teams selecting:

Ocean Check - Centre, London Knights - Gold

Connor McDavid, 15, is the consensus No. 1 for the draft based on his age and skill, but Ocean Check is by far the top pick in the Name Draft.  Both first and last name are gold for headline writers everywhere -- just think of all the recycled Czech Republic you could use. According to his Minor Midget AAA Knights' page one of his nicknames is "salty" which is pretty cute. In the league draft guide, Check is listed at 5-11 and 159-pounds, so he's not really a large Ocean, yet.

Phenom Nathan MacKinnon leads Halifax into Round 2 vs. Quebec (The Canadian Press)Be it resolved: if Patrick Roy should ever leave for the NHL, he should at least drop in during the playoffs as a media consultant.

You know the formula in the playoffs. The shopworn clichés become a greater and greater fallback as the playoff stakes get higher and higher. Any strategic adjustments are guarded more closely than state secrets. Then there's Roy, who as the Quebec Remparts coach, GM and part-owner seems to understand that his role as a junior hockey coach is part mentor, part motivational speaker and part boxing promoter. Look at the way he played up his team's tilt that could include up to three future NHL first-rounders per side, most notably the Remparts' Mikhail Grigorenko and the Halifax Mooseheads' Nathan MacKinnon.

From Willy Palov:

Roy seems as seduced by the possibility of a wide-open offensive free-for-all as the fans.

"We're just going to let our guys go," Roy said. "We'd like to see Grigorenko play against MacKinnon. That's what the fans are going to come for and that's what we're going to look to give them. In the games in Quebec we have last matchup but we're going to let them play. In Halifax, I have no idea what (Mooseheads coach Dominique Ducharme) is going to do. But on our side we're going to go offence against offence; no doubt about it. Hopefully we're going to play the same type of hockey that we did in the first round." (Halifax Chronicle-Herald)

It could be a deflecting technique, for all one knows. Roy might toss out a checking line against MacKinnon. If he doesn't, that's because checking MacKinnon requires being able to keep pace with the Cole Harbour comet, which is a daunting task.

The Quebec-Halifax series, with 2012 and '13 NHL draft hotshots Grigorenko, Anthony Duclair and Adam Erne leading the Remparts with Halifax countering with the trio of MacKinnon, Martin Frk and Jonathan Drouin,   by far headlines a second round. The other storylines revolve around star defenceman Brandon Gormley rejoining Shawinigan after a two-month absence and whether Saint John, fresh off a sweep, can halt Baie-Comeau's Cinderella run.

Here is a look at Round 2, which commences tonight.

Marcel Noebels has settled in as Portland's first-line centre after a midseason tradeWhen the Portland Winterhawks traded two first-round bantam draft picks and forward Seth Swenson to the Seattle Thunderbirds on Jan. 10 for forward Marcel Noebels, the collective reaction around the WHL was a resounding "uhhh, what?"

It wasn't surprising that the struggling Thunderbirds decided to trade Noebels, as this is likely his last year in the WHL. Additionally, rumours persisted that he didn't see eye-to-eye with first-year Seattle coach Steve Konowalchuk, and he struggled to shed the "soft" label from scouts.

But Portland paid a price usually reserved for a true superstar when they acquired the 6-foot-2 German, a fourth-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010. Eyes rolled at the suggestion that a player with 10 goals and 24 points in 31 games with a -22 rating could command such a haul.

Three months later, Portland coach and general manager has no regrets and once-skeptical fans seem to be coming around to the idea that Noebels may in fact be a player that could elevate the Winterhawks to WHL title contenders for the second straight season.

"He added size and depth to our roster right away, and he's a high-character guy," Johnston said. "Sometimes you overpay to a degree at the trade deadline, but if you feel you need it you either have to do it or sit there with a hole in your lineup."

Noebels has found a home on a line between offensive heavyweights Sven Baertschi and Ty Rattie, and he's not just along for the ride. Some might dismiss Noebels's eight assists in a four-game sweep of Kelowna in the first round as a product of being on the ice with two stars.

Those who watched the series know, however, that several of those goals were created by Noebels's speed, skill and/or tenacity. In particular, Noebels has excelled since coming to the Winterhawks at pressuring opposing defensemen and creating turnovers. Against the Rockets' young defensive corps, Noebels had a field day.

Sixteen-year-old Aaron Ekblad is the OHL's top rookie (OHL Images)Ability has never been in question with Aaron Ekblad — it was always just a matter of believing how soon he could thrive in the Ontario Hockey League after entering at age 15.

The Barrie Colts defenceman, heralded as a future great blueliner out of Canada, added another accolade on Thursday when he was honoured with the Emms Family Award as the OHL's rookie of the year. In doing so, Ekblad matched the 2005-06 feat of the previous player, current New York Islanders centre John Tavares, who entered the league a year early with the Oshawa Generals after receiving exceptional status. Perhaps more impressively, Ekblad is just the fourth defenceman to win and first since Bryan Berard did so 17 seasons ago.

Such is the fast track Ekblad is on that he's in position to offer advice to the presumptive top two picks in this weekend's OHL priority selection draft. Centre Connor McDavid, whom the Erie Otters are expected to draft No. 1 overall, received exceptional status to enter the league this year like Ekblad did. The Kingston Frontenacs are expected to use to the No. 2 pick on Roland McKeown, a defenceman who's been compared to Ekblad.

"I've been contact with both of those guys recently," Ekblad, 16, said on a conference call Thursday. "They've been asking me questions about confidence. A good piece of advice that [Barrie coach and Hockey Hall of Famer] Dale [Hawerchuk] has always told me is look at the good things. Look back at what's happened that's positive and learn from that. You're going to make your mistakes and you're going to get down on yourself at times, but it's good to focus on the positives. That's the best advice I can give those two."

The 6-foot-3, 207-pound Ekblad tallied 29 points in 63 games while helping the Colts improve from 10th and last in the Eastern Conference to fourth. He was second in scoring among rookie rearguards after London's Olli Määttä, who is two years older and already has two world junior championships under his belt. It wasn't all a smooth ride, though.

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ... please come by for the Chatravaganza at 12 noon ET/9 a.m. PT!

WHL

This just in: Medicine Hat's Emerson Etem is a very dangerous scorer, which is why Rob Vanstone is taking the Tigers to topple the Moose Jaw Warriors. But can Etem get it done in the playoffs? (Postmedia News, Moose Jaw Times-Herald)

How Portland Winterhawks coach-GM Mike Johnston learned from last season in retooling for this season's playoffs. (Portland Tribune, Kamloops Daily News)

Who needs to score first? Not the Edmonton Oil Kings. (Edmonton Journal)

How is it fair the 70-point Red Deer Rebels missed the playoffs in the Eastern Conference and the 54-point Everett Silvertips got in over in the West? (Regina Leader-Post)

With two-time 100-point man Jordan Weal moving on, it will be offence by committee next season in Regina. (Regina Leader-Post)

Victoria Royals coach-GM Marc Habscheid expects some healthy competition for jobs