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WHL

The Brandon Wheat Kings are holding their first-round games at Winnipeg's MTS Centre and owner Kelly McCrimmon would love to see a major junior team play there permanently: "From a Brandon standpoint, it would provide us with a natural rival. We don't have a natural rival." (Winnipeg Sun)

While many Ontario cities are having record high temperatures, out in Regina the Pats are hoping it's not Beach season. As in Moose Jaw Warriors agitator Cody Beach. (Regina Leader-Post)

Question: did Sven Bärtschi really need the confidence he got from his Calgary Flames stint? He was already averaging two points per game for Portland. (Portland Tribune)

Medicine Hat Tigers goalie Tyler Bunz has signed his NHL entry-level deal with the Edmonton Oilers. (Edmonton Journal)

The Edmonton Oil Kings are becoming famous for being good. (Sportsnet)

Speaking of Portland, the Winterhawks have signed Minnesota high schooler Keegan Iverson. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Graduating Swift Current Broncos captain Taylor Vause is playing for the Dallas Stars' top farm team. (Southwest Booster)

It's been 23 years since there was WHL playoff hockey on Vancouver Island. (Victoria Times-Colonist)

It might be grasping at straws but the eighth-seeded Everett Silvertips have played top-seeded Tri-City close in their past three meetings. (Everett Herald)

Edmonton Oil Kings forward Henrik Samuelsson plays with the same edge that often made his father, Ulf Samuelsson, reviled during his NHL career in the 1980s and 1990s.

The elder Samuelsson, depending on whom is telling the tale, was either a tough customer or a dirty player (the latter being a majority opinion in Canada). So it is interesting that Henrik Samuelsson, in the 2 1/2 months since he joined the Western Hockey League regular-season champion Oil Kings after playing for his father's team in Sweden, has already incurred three suspensions. The rugged winger will miss the Oil Kings' first two playoff games after getting a five-minute major and game misconduct for clipping. That's led to questions of whether that Samuelsson nameplate is a target.

Halifax Mooseheads centre Nathan MacKinnonParity is not spelled with a Q.

In a season where the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is hosting the MasterCard Memorial Cup in Shawinigan in May, there was a 10-point buffer between the elite eight who have home-ice advantage in the first round and the other nine teams. (That's right, they played a nearly 6 1/2-month regular season just to eliminate the P.E.I. Rocket, which seems about as efficient as cutting the grass with nail clippers.)

Last season, the 11th-seeded Victoriaville Tigres were the lone lower seed to reach Round 2. This season's 6 vs. 11 matchup is similarly intriguing. Phenom Nathan MacKinnon and the precocious Halifax Mooseheads, relying on their 16-year-old superstar to spearhead their attack and another 16-year-old in goalie Zachary Fucale, drew a tough out in the Moncton Wildcats, who boast a game-stealing goalie in Roman Will and retain a few remnants of

Make no mistake, the first round is expected to play out according to form; by BTN statistician extraordinaire Rob Pettapiece's reckoning, the most likely outcome in all but one series is a five-game win for the favourites. The other is projected to be a sweep. But one thing experience has taught us about the QMJHL is the form charts can usually be thrown away after the first round. Last season's final four included the fifth and eight seeds. It will be no surprise if the Jonathan Huberdeau-

Nail Yakupov has been limited by injuries since January (OHL Images)

Time waits for no one in the post-season. Not even Nail Yakupov.

With little to dispute over the favourites in the Ontario Hockey League's Western Conference — the London Knights got the regular-season banner, the Plymouth Whalers have momentum — Yakupov's status kind of commands the focus. The consensus top prospect for the NHL entry draft has had his season disrupted by injuries and a controversial suspension. For all his talent, he has only posted 16 points in 15 OHL games since returning from the injured knee he suffered in the world-junior gold-medal game, raising doubts if he even would go No. 1 in June. His status for the start of the playoffs is also an open question after he was belted by Owen Sound's Mike Halmo on March 10.

The story going in might be whether the Sting, the fourth seed in the West, are able and ready to deliver on their potential and be a sleeper. Here are capsules on all four series in the conference, which each begin Friday.

Brendan ShinniminThe two seemingly battled neck-and-neck all through the season, right down to the final couple of weeks when a six-game winning streak by the Tri-City Americans earned the team the nod over division rival Portland Winterhawks for the top seed in the WHL's Western Conference.

They argue on the hockey rink as much as they argue philosophy; the Americans' recent graduates to the National Hockey League include goaltender Carey Price and defensive defenceman Clayton Stoner. The free-wheeling Winterhawks have recently produced future offensive stars Ryan Johansen and Nino Neiderreiter.

Indeed, the two mixed it up several times this year, nine times, and on four occasions the Winterhawks scored five goals or more on the league's top defensive team. On three occasions, the Americans held the league's best offensive team to one goal or fewer. The team's systems are much different, with Portland employing fantastic stars in Ty Rattie, Brad Ross, Joe Morrow, Oliver Gabriel and Cam Reid, who all cracked the point-per-game barrier this season. The ace in their sleeve — Sven Bärtschi — will be again available to the team now that his emergency call-up to the Calgary Flames ended with three goals in five games.

Jack Campbell (Mike Carroccetto photo)Reminding fans that junior hockey is not about wins and losses is a bold tack to take at the end of the season where there was not enough of the former and too many of the latter to satisfy a fanbase, or at least the media. But hey, Kyle Dubas did not become major junior hockey's first millennial general manager by playing it safe.

Suffice to say, Dubas' rookie season as GM of his hometown Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds seems to have been as rocky as the Canadian Shield. The 25-year-old made the big splash to add three-time world junior goaltender Jack Campbell (as he put it: "At the time I thought, quite honestly, this was a guy who can steal rounds in the playoffs") from the Windsor Spitfires. The way it played out, with Campbell and the 'Hounds finishing out of the playoffs and the team getting upbraided by alumnus and Windsor coach Bob Boughner for some goal celebrations during a meaningless game on Saturday, pretty much lets one of junior hockey's more aggressive media corps say whatever it wants.

Ninth place with nine NHL draft picks speaks pretty loudly. It's not an enviable situation. So it was interesting to see what spin would come out of it. From Peter Ruicci:

Asked if he believes the Greyhounds underachieved, Dubas answered in the affirmative.

"Yes, with regards to wins and losses," he said. "We didn't make the playoffs and when you're one of the two teams that didn't in your conference, yes, that's disappointing."

But the GM also spoke of other ways he believes junior teams must measure success and failure.

"Fans deserve a winner," he said. "But we're also in the business of developing players. Guys such as (rookie) Darnell Nurse, Ryan Sproul and Nick Cousins were among those who absolutely maximized their development. Others didn't maximize their development. But with regards to off-ice conditioning, work in the classroom and in the community, players maximized their development. And those things are important in order to get the culture to where we want it to be, in order to be able to build a winner." (Sault Star)

Is that what people wish to hear? The tail does wag the dog quite a bit in major junior.

CHL goal scoring champion Emerson Etem (WHL.ca)The Western Hockey League's Eastern Conference was a dogfight down the stretch, so it's no surprise the first round seems full of fairly even competition.

After all, only nine points separated third-seeded Calgary from eighth-seeded Kootenay. As late as the final two weeks of the season, those teams were within a couple points of each other in the standings.

The Emerson Etem-led Medicine Hat Tigers are clawing it out with the Saskatoon Blades. The overachieving Calgary Hitmen are up against the highly-talented Brandon Wheat Kings. The star-studded Moose Jaw Warriors square off against their rival neighbours, the Regina Pats. And the top-seeded Edmonton Oil Kings take on last year's WHL champions, the Kootenay Ice.

The Eastern Conference post-season opens Thursday when Brandon faces off against Calgary at the Scotiabank Saddledome. The other seven WHL series begin on Friday.

(4) Medicine Hat Tigers (42-24-2-4, 90 points) vs. (5) Saskatoon Blades (40-29-1-2, 83 points)

Season series: Saskatoon 3-1-0-0. Odds favour: Medicine Hat 63 per cent. Prediction: Medicine Hat in 4.

Why Medicine Hat should win: The Tigers' elite 1-2 scoring punch, Etem and Hunter Shinkaruk, will be more than a handful for the Blades' back end. The two snipers scored a combined 110 goals and 198 points in the regular season. It seems quite likely Blades goaltender Andrey Makarov could see Etem and Shinkaruk in his nightmares by the end of the series.

At the other end of the rink, Tigers puck-stopper Tyler Bunz has proven to be one of the Dub's top netminders in both the regular-season and post-season. The Edmonton Oilers prospect let in a total of eight goals in a five-game series against Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and his Red Deer Rebels in last year's playoffs. One has to think if Bunz could shut down Nugent-Hopkins and company, he should be in good shape against a less talented Blades offence.

Niagara IceDogs star defenceman Dougie Hamilton and defence partner Shayne Rover (Terry Wilson, OHL Images)

The Niagara IceDogs had just finished polishing off another road win and coach-GM Marty Williamson was calling out his two stars for a defensive lapse that led to their foe's only goal. In a nutshell, that might illuminate the difference between the IceDogs of a year ago who thought they could go to the MasterCard Memorial Cup and this iteration who very well will.

Much has has been made of the IceDogs boosting five members of Team Canada and 12 NHL draft picks and Mark Visentin becoming the OHL's first goalie to have 10 shutouts in a season. What's been underplayed is how Niagara, which could get into 1980s-style shootouts and do quite well, is clamping down on opponents. Since Williamson went all in at the trade deadline to add a fifth member of Team Canada, defenceman Jamie Oleksiak, they have allowed four goals in a game exactly twice. And one of those instances was the Connor Crisp game.

"When we're at our at our best, our offence is coming from the defence," Williamson said after the 5-1 win in Ottawa on Mar. 9 that wrapped up Eastern Conference race a week early. "They're starting to get it, they still struggle... I got Dougie [Hamilton] in the corner and Stromer [star centre Ryan Strome] making a mistake like we did on the goal, big mistake, I was pretty mad at them, but they came back from it.

"When you play good defence, you're not a chase team and you're coming from a position of strength. When you're a chase team, you're not going to create turnovers, you're going to take penalties. When we're attacking them from the right position and when we're on our game, I think we're a damn good team."

It is tempting to think the 'Dogs could pull a Moses Malone by rolling through the East in, "Fo', fo', fo'." (Hey, the less their not-exactly-rocking playoff theme song is played, the better.) Of course, two seasons ago in Barrie Williamson had a stacked team who went 12-1 while winning the East and was swept by the Taylor Hall and Adam Henrique-led Windsor Spitfires in the final. It might be better for Niagara to face some more adversity. They have been been the beast of the East since the last of their drafted players trickled back from the big league, going 39-9-0-1 since mid-November.

Here are capsules of the Eastern Conference series. Play begins Thursday.