Kitchener Rangers, London Knights among OHL’s best bets to be running back to Saskatoon

The NFL is not the only place to see a 3-4 defence this weekend.

Please excuse being meta for its own sake, but one has to tell it like it is. A gifted prognosticator can pick out and project five clear-cut contenders in, say, the Western Hockey League. Recent trends in the Ontario League defy that certitude. Perhaps it only looks this way since the Western Conference has been monopolizing the J. Ross Robertson Cup for more than decade, producing 10 of the OHL's last 11 MasterCard Memorial Cup representatives. People are starting to wonder when an Eastern club will win again.

The Niagara IceDogs, with five members of Team Canada including Boston Bruins-bound (lockout pending) Dougie Hamilton, were awesomely good from Jan. 1 on last season. Then they lost to the London Knights in a five-game final, failing to break through the forest-green forcefield that was now-graduated goalie Michael Houser and the 18 other de facto netminders who kept a lot of shots from ever reaching the net.

There is a logic to why the West is best. The OHL's three flagship franchises, the Kitchener Rangers, London Knights and Windsor Spitfires, each successful programs in based in good-sized hub cities where junior hockey is the game in town, are all in the West. That increases the peer pressure. So does having a solid U.S.-based franchise such as the Plymouth Whalers, who can also attract upper-echelon talent. The Western teams are also more conveniently located for the growing number of OHLers from the Chicago area, Michigan, New York, Ohio or Pennsylvania.

The other side of the league, with no disrespect intended, doesn't have a Kitchener or London equivalent. The East has teams are trying to cope with the rising cost of running a CHL team while playing in markets that are either (a) compromised for attention because of NHL presence or (b) lacking in population growth. Brampton, Mississauga and even the Oshawa Generals and Ottawa 67's fall under (a), although Ottawa's upward mobility might improve once its arena renovations are completed. The Belleville Bulls, Peterborough Petes, Kingston Frontenacs and Sudbury Wolves face challenges that would be alien to teams in the power conference. None of these are excuses for poor performance or management; it's just there.

Really, then, the best way is to identify a Big Three from the West and perhaps a Core Four (still strong, but championship strong?) in the East. The likely NHL lockout is another variable; consider this a survey of who has the strongest nucleus to contend.

Western Conference

Kitchener Rangers — Coach-GM Steve Spott talking a big game, saying his Blueshirts will "treat this like a Memorial Cup (year) where we're going to do what we can to field as competitive a hockey club as we can. That might mean making some bold moves throughout the season."

Spott has added overage centre Dominic Alberga to bring some balance to his lineup, along with 240-pound grinder Nick Czinder. There will be more moves.

A gifted, 30-minute-a-night offensive defenceman can control over a game in junior. It might be hard to think of a realm of high-level hockey where one skater can have as much impact. In Ryan Murphy, who granted could be one of the possible AHL-eligible 19-year-olds, the Rangers probably have the best in the biz. Dallas Stars first-rounder Radek Faksa should know the lay of the land in his second tour of the league and he has a pair of potential 40-goal scorers on his flanks with Matt Puempel (Ottawa Senators, first round, 2011) and Tobias Rieder (Edmonton Oilers, fifth, 2011). Eighteen-year-olds Matia Marcantuoni and Evan McEneny having a clean bill of health is almost like a free-agent signing since the two were limited to 26 games last season.

Last but not least, Anaheim Ducks prospect John Gibson might be the best goalie in the league.

London Knights — Houser is a big loss, but the defending champion Knights appear to have reloaded well. Chicago Blackhawks seventh-rounder Alex Broadhurst has potential should replicate the dynamic element that Vladislav Namestnikov offered last season, feathering passes to 40-goal scorer Seth Griffith. Draft-year forwards Max Domi and Bo Horvat will be more prominent, along with shift disturber par excellence Ryan Rupert.

It is not for nothing that Team Canada's gold-medal chances diminished last January when likely Knights captain Scott Harrington went out of the tourney with a shoulder injury. The Pittsburgh Penguins prospect is a stabilizer.

Plymouth Whalers — The franchse which never misses the playoffs could have four NHL first-rounders among its top-six forwards, including offensive leader Stefan Noesen (Ottawa Senators) and the truculent Tom Wilson (Washington Capitals). Plymouth lost some big pieces from last season's 97-point squad but restocked well by adding two U.S. national team development program grads, physical Ryan Hartman and offensive defenceman Connor Carrick. In goal, 19-year-old Carolina Hurricanes choice Matt Mahalak is coming off a season where he put up better numbers than now-graduated No. 1 netminder Scott Wedgewood, who was on Canada's national junior team. The Whalers are too well-stocked not to be in the mix.

As for the undercard in the East?

Eastern Conference

Belleville Bulls —

Goalie Malcolm Subban and No. 1 centre Brendan Gaunce, taken two choices apart in the first round of the NHL draft in June, give the Bulls two major building blocks. What has held Belleville back for the past two seasons has been a bit of paradox of thrift with their goal scoring. The Bulls struggle to bury chances, so they focus more on defence and then wonder why the goals do not come (they scored fewer than three per game this season). Still, Gaunce, Subban and veteran defencemen Brady Austin and Jason Shaw provide good on-ice leadership. Getting Anaheim Ducks-drafted wing Joseph Cramarossa back as an overage would give them another potent stick within an older lineup.

Brampton Battalion — Stan Butler's Troops figure to remain in the top four in the East at the very least. Their breakout potential might rest with their Czech duo of sophomore centre Patrik Machac (32 points in 61 games in his first tour through the league) and 19-year-old goalie Matej Machovsky (2.36 average, .902 save percentage). Brampton returns nearly its entire defence corps, including overage Cameron Wind and Tampa Bay Lightning draftee Dylan Blujus. One concern is where Brampton will find scoring, although they don't need a lot of it to win.

Barrie Colts — Their chances rest a lot on the availability of 19-year-old world junior forward Mark Scheifele, who played his first NHL games last fall with the Winnipeg Jets. The Scheifelin' One is the centrepiece of the Colts' attack, which will have some added juice after trading for speedster Andreas Athanasiou. They should have a decent foundation defensively between. Overage goaltender, Mathias Niederberger, who figured out the OHL in the second half of the season, is supported by a talented young defence corps that boasts sophomores Aaron Ekblad and Alex Yuill.

Sudbury Wolves — Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Joshua Leivo tore it up while leading the Wolves to the gold medal at last month's Junior Club World Cup in Russia. Whether there is momentum from winning that tourney is an open question, let alone whether it could be a springboard into an eight-month season. Sudbury has a decent cadre of older leaders that includes Leivo and the overage trio of forward Michael Kantor, defenders Frankie Corrado and Charlie Dodero and goalie Joel Vienneau. Seventeen-year-old right wing Nick Baptiste and left wing Brody Silk (who turns 18 in November) are among the likely X factors.

Please keep in mind this is all preliminary. Another team could come from off the map, like the Owen Sound Attack did in their 2010-11 championship season.

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