Barrie Colts, Ottawa 67′s grind out opening wins in OHL playoffs; the post-game questions

The home teams each won on opening night in the Ontario Hockey League playoffs, but two of the contests were very tight. The third, not so much

Ottawa 3 Belleville 2 (67's lead Eastern Conference series 1-0) — How important is it the grand scheme for Ottawa to need overtime, considering they are the big favourite? It was perhaps more crucial symbolically than it was as any show of superiority that the 67's, who won 3-2 by the margin of two Tyler Toffoli goals, got it done in extra time.

Last season, they lost Game 1 on home (in name only since the game was at Scotiabank Place) to Sudbury. With a host of injuries, they downward spiralled out of the playoffs and were swept. This represented a 180-degree turnaround, although it was far from a thorough 20-man effort.

"I was saying to the boys at intermission before overtime, 'you're never going to have more fun than this in your life, so embrace it. Battle your hardest,' " said 67's captain Marc Zanetti, who was named the game's first star. "Last year we lost Game 1 in overtime, so today, to win, was a real high for us. Belleville's a strong team, they know how to attack your weak spots. Today was important because we saw how we can't freak out and go crazy on each other when we're not scoring. The boys responded very well, battled really hard."

Did the Bulls provide sufficient reason to revise any Ottawa-in-5 predictions? Seventh-seeded Belleville could point to a superb first period, where they had a 19-8 shots on goal advantage and could have come out ahead rather than tied 1-1 were it not for the 67's Petr Mrazek in goal. (Mrazek did left in a softy in the next period.) They played Ottawa evenly in the third. One does wonder if they can sustain that across an entire game. There is also the small fact that they didn't cash in when they earned four consecutive power plays.

"I liked the way we played the first 20 minutes," Bulls coach-GM George Burnett said. "The second period was a complete tilt of the ice in their favour. We started to play the game very softly, a lot of swings, a lot of stick checks and paid the price for it. I thought our third period was strong although we didn't generate many chances. Two-two going to overtime, feeling pretty good, the puck bounces at the blueline and that's generally the way things change in overtime. And that's the wrong guy [Toffoli] to have behind your defence in overtime."

Barrie 3 Mississauga 1 (Colts lead Eastern Conf. series 1-0) — What was that about Ivan Telegin being Barrie's X factor? The Winnipeg Jets prospect, on a night when offensive space was sure to be at a premium, did the dirty work of getting open and the fun job of letting fire. The Russian, who had only three goals in 18 junior playoff games, got the first two Colts markers to stake them to a lead entering the third period. (Barrie's final marker was an empty-netter.)

What was a perhaps underplayed storyline? The Colts took the opener with their captain, Colin Behenna, sitting out the second-last game of a suspension. They are due to get a lift upon his return, so starting out well without him is impressive. Or one could highlight Mathias Niederberger stopping 26-of-27 Majors shots, including a penalty-shot bid by Spencer Cobbold. All the talk about goaltending coming in was about Mississauga's Brandon Maxwell.

Niagara 8 Oshawa 2 (IceDogs lead Eastern Conf. series 1-0) — What is the biggest threat to the IceDogs headed into Game 2 on Friday? That's a noodle-scratcher. Overconfidence, maybe?

The way Niagara got on Oshawa, taking a 5-0 lead after one, was thorough and perhaps expected. At least one public-address announcer in another city played it for laughs by giving the score backwards ("after one period in St. Catharines, it's Oshawa 0, Niagara 5"). IceDogs coach-GM Marty Williamson called the win a "confidence-builder," as if his team was paralyzed by self-doubt coming in.

Is this as bad as it looked for the Generals? Well, they have home ice for Game 2 on Friday. They also got goalie Kevin Bailie out after one period, sparing him from getting shell-shocked. Niagara's also put a lot of other teams away early in such fashion at its bandbox of an arena.

This just got out hand early. First Alex Friesen scored in the second minute. In the third minute, Oshawa got a delay-of-game penalty and Ryan Strome scored off the ensuing faceoff and it was officially feeding time at the Garden City shark tank.

However, Oshawa's habit of giving up too many power plays did carry over into the first playoff game. Niagara was 4-for-7 with the extra skater.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.