Guelph Storm up 2-0 on Plymouth Whalers, Oshawa Generals avoid sweep; OHL post-game questions

The Guelph Storm have the second-seeded Plymouth Whalers in a two-game hole, while neither Eastern Conference division champion will sweep its first-round series after losing Sunday.

It all adds up to a hurly-burly first weekend in the Ontario Hockey League's second season. Bring on OHL Post-Game Questions:

Guelph 5 Plymouth 3 (Storm lead Western Conference series 2-0) — Many believed the Whalers, minus captain Beau Schmitz, would be slow getting into this series. How is Guelph up two games, though? The Storm have flip-turned the notion that bigger, older teams win in the playoffs upside-down. In the short run, their relatively tiny forwards such as Jason Dickinson, Scott Kosmachuk (two points tonight), Brock McGinn, Cody McNaughton, Francis Ménard and Tanner Richard, none of whom is listed at so much as 190 pounds, have been too much for the Whalers to handle. They outworked Plymouth to create an advantage in possession time and made Plymouth's Schmitz-less back line look like it was a step behind.

New York Islanders-drafted defenceman Andrey Pedan has also been a tower of strength, taking the heat off potential NHL first-rounder Matt Finn on Guelph's back end. Pedan has had a propensity to take bad penalties — he had 152 PIMs in the regular season — but so far has been able to focus. That said, he's still spent 10 minutes in the box through the first two games.

What does Plymouth tell itself now that it needs to win four of the next five games? It's probably some variation on saying that they haven't played well enough to be upset about the result. Ottawa Senators first-round pick Stefan Noesen (two goals) and goalie Scott Wedgewood, who kept this from being a blowout, were good on Sunday. Plymouth didn't show much else, though. It needs to exert more pressure on 18-year-olds Finn and Pedan and try to get them to takes some of mistakes that reveal their youth. They also have to try to get to Guelph goalie Garret Sparks; the Toronto Maple Leafs pick did allow a soft third-period goal. The rub for Plymouth is they didn't take advantage of that opening.

London 3 Windsor 2 (Knights lead Western Conf. series 2-0) — What is the Knights' big take-home from a game where they came back on the road? Their power play, which has been garden-variety all year long, got untracked with leading goal scorer Seth Griffith sniping two goals in the second period after a string of Spitfires penalties.

Let's see: Austin Watson got off the schneid by scoring the game-winner and NHL draft prospect Olli Määttä has looked right at home in his first exposure to the playoffs. One would expect that from someone who was in a medal game at the world junior, of course. Let's be honest, though, only so much stock cannot be put in handling an eighth-seeded team whose best player is done for the year.

The Spitfires lost what coach Bob Boughner called "our Game 7," so what chance is there of a comeback? The fact the Spitfires drew their smallest crowd ever to the WFCU Centre (4,460, although some teams would kill for that turnout) shows some people have taken the hint.

In playmaker Alexander Khokhlachev's absence, the Spits are counting on 17-year-olds such as Michael Clarke, Ben Johnson, Chris Marchese, Kerby Rychel and Brady Vail. All a team can ask from its players is everything they have, but that might be too much. Windsor's also been forced to take too many penalties while chasing the Knights' persistent forwards, which is a bad recipe for a team with the league's fourth-worst penalty kill.

Oshawa 6 Niagara 4 (IceDogs lead Eastern Conf. series 2-1) —

Now that they've avoided a sweep, how do the Generals respond now that they have less pressure on them in Game 4 at home? For one night at least, the Gennies, who received a five-point effort from captain Boone Jenner, played with the urgency they will need to upset the deeper IceDogs.

They finally pressured IceDogs goalie Mark Visentin, who had not allowed five goals in a game since Nov. 11. It is a cliché, but the Oshawa's best players was its best players. Here one speaks of Jenner (three goals, two assists), Scott Laughton (2G-2A) to Lucas Lessio, who snapped in the winner with 3:31 left after being booed every time he touched the puck the entire night. (Lessio was drafted by Niagara in 2009 but never reported.)

Coach Gary Agnew's gamble on 17-year-old goalie Daniel Altshuller (46 saves in his first playoff start) paid off brilliantly. So did using his timeout immediately after Ryan Strome capped a three-goal run by putting the IceDogs ahead with 8:23 left. At that point, it did seem like Niagara had a handle on it.

Why is this a good loss for the IceDogs? There will be no Fo-Fo-Fo, but this is a team which perhaps needed to feel some wind in its face. Niagara, coming off consecutive blowout wins, might have played just well enough to be losing for 40 minutes. However, that two-goal deficit might have made them realize they still have to earn it. Strome (2G-1A), whose focus seemed to drift early in the game, also got back in a rhythm.

Why did Agnew not turn to Altshuller earlier in the series? Good post-hoc question. The older Kevin Bailie played more down the stretch. He was mercy-hooked in Game 1 and most coaches will go back to the goalie whose teammates let him down.

Altshuller is only 17, but has big-game experience from the world under-17 challenge and Ivan Hlinka U18 tourney. He certainly deserves to start Game 4.

Belleville 4 Ottawa 3 in overtime (67's lead Eastern Conference series 2-1) — Temporary setback for Ottawa or a turning point for Belleville? You wouldn't like Petr Mrazek when he's angry. The Ottawa goalie has a way of coming back strongly after the type of result that he takes personally.

So this inclined to believe it's the former might point out the Bulls earned some breaks. Their first goal was on a Daniil Zharkov throw-in-on-net shot that ricocheted in off defenceman Jake Cardwell's skate. The turning-point tally came when Michael Curtis was gifted with a 150-foot breakaway by the dreaded turnover inside the blueline.

From Don Campbell:

The counter-point is the Bulls have been in each game despite having no power play to speak of, 0-for-13 with a short-handed goal against. They have succeeded somewhat in keeping the 67's, whose captain Marc Zanetti is in suspension limbo, off their game. Ottawa still has the better team and if it can use Monday's off-day to work on their own sputtering PP (1-for-12, one shorty allowed), they can regain control of the series.

Brampton 4 Sudbury 2 (Battalion lead Eastern Conf. series 2-0) —

Where are the Battalion winning this series (and if any English teachers are reading, is that "where are" or "where is?")? When the Wolves went on their Cinderella run last spring, sweeping second-seeded Ottawa and playing stacked Mississauga tough in second-round sweep, they were able to come out of the zone with speed and push the pace.

That did not happen in either game at the Powerade Centre. Battalion coach Stan Butler, whose team got a hat trick Sunday from Phoenix Coyotes second-rounder Philip Lane, has eschewed that passive 1-2-2 trap and instead forechecked aggressively. Sudbury's simply played far too much behind its own blueline.

From Gary McCarthy:

Thirty-three shots in two games. What chance does Sudbury have of coming back and fulfilling those wishful predictions they'll take it in seven games? The Wolves, who are desperately missing overage scorer Andrey Kuchin (he's still nursing an injury at last report) are home for the next two games and will be playing desperate. They can also take solace in the fact they allowed just one goal playing 5-on-5 on Sunday. Also, there's leading scoring champion Michael Sgarbossa's unusual pattern vs. Brampton: he either gets blanked or gets multiple points. He's been blanked in each of the first two games.

Saturday

Sarnia 4 Saginaw 3 in overtime (Western Conf. series tied 1-1) — How much momentum will the Sting draw from the come-from-behind win? Sarnia, whose committment has occasionally been described as ephemeral, might have had a breakthrough with their late rally on the road. They got a two-point night from Nail Yakupov,
but the plumbers such as Dominic Alberga (assist on Anthony DeAngelo's equalizer) and Craig Hottot (great board work to feed Tyler Brown for the OT winner) helped bring them back.

It did go a long way to helping coach-GM Jacques Beaulieu's Sting lose the complex they've built up toward Spirit goalie Jake Paterson.

So is the 17-year-old Paterson, the youngest playoff starter in the OHL, going to be rattled by the overtime loss? Not necessarily. While every coach is wont to betray any lack of confidence in his goaltender at this of year, Saginaw coach Greg Gilbert pinned the loss on his team not clearing the crease sufficienty well. That came to the fore on the Sting's tying goal.

From Kyle Austin:

Kitchener 3 Owen Sound 2 (Rangers lead Western Conf. series 2-0) — How did Tyler Randell's absence affect the Rangers? Not much, going by the result. This was the quintessential find-a-way playoff win, with Edmonton Oilers pick Tobias Rieder deflecting in a Ryan Murphy point shot late in the third period for the winner.

One would expect Randell will not be back before the series is over for his head check on Artur Gavrus that left the rookie with an injury that's not a concussion, but well, you know (Attack GM Dale DeGray, to Josh Brown: "I'll call it an upper body injury. But anybody that has watched it knows what it could be.").

Randell's cooling-off period might not affect the Rangers until later, when he's trying to re-integrate into the lineup.

Do the Attack have enough healthy bodies to get back in the series? They were already running with 10 forwards before forward Kurtis Gabriel left Saturday with a leg injury. The Attack have played through injuries to major contributors such as Gavrus and Jarrod Maidens all season, but the remaining players only have so much to give.

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