QMJHL playoff preview; upsets to be named later

Parity 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-

(8) Chicoutimi Saguenéens (35-24-3-6, 79 points) vs. (9) Acadie-Bathurst Titan (32-31-2-3, 69 points)

Season series: Chicoutimi 1-0-1-0. Odds favour: Chicoutimi 75%. Prediction: Chicoutimi in 6.

Why Chicoutimi should win: The Sags earned a favourable matchup against the Titan. Both are fairly quick teams with scoring punch, giving this potential to be a very up-and-down series. In the event that transpires, one likes the Sags' chances. They have the fab four of Ottawa Senators prospect Jean-Gabriel Pageau, fellow former Gatineau Olympique Christian Ouellet, draft prospect Charles Hudon and veteran Guillaume Asselin sparking the attack. One or two of them might go cold offensively, but the chance of all four is remote, one would think.

Goalie Chris Gibson also played for Finland in the world junior championship, so he should be up to the job of keeping his wits about him against an offensively potent team. This is really a hot-hand kind of matchup; the Titan are no slouches scoring-wise since Zach O'Brien, Sébastien Trudeau and Matthew Bissonnette combined for 279 points, far more than other teammate trio in the league. Is is open to question how much depth there is behind them, though.

(7) Rimouski Océanic (40-26-2-0, 82 pts) vs. (10) Val-d'Or Foreurs (31-32-0-5, 67 points)

Season series: Rimouski 2-1-1-0. Odds favour: Rimouski 71%. Prediction:Rimouski in 6.

Why Rimouski should win: Give this one to the Océanic by virtue of having been stress-tested in the Telus East division as opposed to the less competitive Telus West. Jérôme Gauthier-Leduc, the Buffalo Sabres-drafted defenceman who attended Team Canada's final selection camp, is also highly capable of controlling play, at least in a matchup vs. a 10th-place hockey club. (It's a quasi-homecoming for Gauthier-Leduc, since he used to play for the Foreurs' northern Quebec rival, the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies.)

Rimouski is the more potent team up front thanks primarily to Alex Belzile (92 points) and Alexandre Mallet (81). This is by no means a cakewalk for them, which is why the call here is that the Foreurs should stretch it to six games at least. There's a lot of travel involved in the series, plus the Foreurs have a talented young goalie in workhorse François Tremblay, who represented the Quebec league in the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game. Ultimately, Rimouski's superior supporting cast, which also includes speedster Francis Beauvillier and Columbus draft pick Jakub Culek, gives it the slight edge.

(6) Halifax Mooseheads (39-22-2-5, 85 pts) vs. (11) Moncton Wildcats (30-31-4-4, 67 pts)

Season series: Moncton 5-3 (one overtime win, one shootout win). Odds favour: Halifax 68%. Prediction: Halifax in 7.

Why Halifax should win: This probably the series many have circled for an upset. Wildcats coach Danny Flynn will likely design some system intended to stymie MacKinnon and his friends. The Wildcats also have Will, who deserves to be drafted by a NHL team this summer. It's also this Halifax's group's first playoff experience together.

The upshot for the Mooseheads is they are the deeper club, with five 20-goal scorers and a solid top-pair defenceman in Konrad Abelthauser, although they could sorely use Sawyer Hannay (concussion) on the back end. They will be without suspended forward Darcy Ashley until Game 5, though, since he's been suspended after getting a major penalty and game misconduct in the final regular-season game.

Flynn's Wildcats have some of the characteristics of an upset-minded team, but they are too top-heavy on offence. Once they get past the Triplets, the Alex Saulnier-Marek Hrivik-Allain Saulnier line, the 'Cats don't have a 20-goal or 45-point scorer. Provided rookie coach Dominique Ducharme finds a matchup that works to slow them down, the Mooseheads can punch out some low-scoring wins.

(5) Quebec Remparts (43-18-5-2, 93 pts) vs. (12) Drummondville Voltigeurs (28-31-2-7, 65 pts)

Season series: Drummondville 3-1-0-0. Odds favour: Quebec 80%. Prediction: Quebec in 6.

Why Quebec should win: Phoenix Coyotes draft pick Louis Domingue was shaky by times in last spring's playoff tournament, but he is getting the call from Remparts coach-GM Patrick Roy, at least for now. Drummondville's track record against the Remparts is a point in its favour, but the dynamic is different when teams play each other many times in a row. Roy and his bench staff, plus his charges on the ice such as likely top 10 NHL pick Mikhail Grigorenko, should be able to break down the Volts piece by piece over the run of the series. This is a good matchup for a young Remparts team, since the Volts are also very callow with only five players born before 1993.

Ultimately, you want Patrick Roy in the playoffs. You need Patrick Roy in the playoffs. Because at some point he's going to say something and you know it's gonna be good.

(4) Victoriaville Tigres (44-18-1-5, 89 pts) vs. (13) Baie-Comeau Drakkar (29-34-1-4, 63 pts)

Season series: Victoriaville 5-2-0-0 (one shootout win). Odds favour: Victoriaville 89%. Prediction: Victoriaville in 5.

Why Victoriaville should win: Too much offence and too much momentum heading into the playoffs for the reeling Drakkar, who faded like cheap denim while losing eight of their final 10 games and making a coaching change. Led by Yanni Gourde, the Tigres scored 308 goals to top the Quebec league despite playing in its deepest division. They will need more reliable goaltending from either David Honzik or Brandon Whitney to make a post-season run, but they would be an intriguing semifinal matchup for Shawinigan in about a month's time.

(3) Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (40-22-4-2, 86 pts) vs. (14) Gatineau Olympiques (26-32-5-5, 62 pts)

Season series: Blainville-Boisbriand 6-1-1-0 (one win in shootout). Odds favour: Blainville-Boisbriand 84%. Prediction: Blainville-Boisbriand in 5.

Why Blainville-Boisbriand should win: This had spoiler potential before the 'Piques coach-GM Benoît Groulx decided to unload in January. They were relatively close to the Armada in the Telus West division before Groulx saw that the President's Cup route was headed through either Saint John or Shawinigan and knew when to fold 'em. Now the 'Piques are even further depleted by injuries, with leading scorer Tomas Hyka sidelined after a questionable leg-to-leg collision with the Armada's Vincent Richer.

Given the bad blood between the teams, one can expect a fierce but short series. Groulx is as good a coach as there is, but no amount of Robert Guertin Centre juju can overcome the gap in ability. The Armada have the best defender in this series in Nikita Kolesnikovs and a better goalie in Etienne Marcoux (2.71 average, .912 save percentage). That ought to be enough to get by.

(2) Shawinigan Cataractes (45-16-3-4, 97 pts) vs. (15) Rouyn-Noranda Huskies (24-36-4-4, 49 pts)

Season series: Shawinigan 5-1-0-0. Odds favour: Shawinigan 94%. Prediction: Shawinigan in 5.

Why Shawinigan should win: You mean apart from the fact they had 48 more points than the Huskies? Coach Éric Veilleux's Cataractes led the league in scoring defence, so they're not going to serve up many fresh pizzas to Huskies snipers such as Sven Andrighetto, the poor man's Sven Bärtschi who had 36 goals and 74 points in his first season since coming to the CHL from Switzerland. The Huskies can probably do well enough to avoid a sweep, but not much more.

The Cataractes expect star defenceman Brandon Gormley to return from his foot injury fairly soon. That will ease the burden on their other star blueliner from P.E.I., Montreal Canadiens prospect Morgan Ellis.

(1) Saint John Sea Dogs (50-15-0-3, 103 pts) vs. (16) Cape Breton Screaming Eagles (23-42-1-2, 49 pts)

Season series: Saint John 7-1-0-0. Odds favour: Saint John 98%. Prediction: Saint John in 4.

Why Saint John should win: Five reasons — Huberdeau, Tomas Jurco, Zack Phillips, Charlie Coyle, Nathan Beaulieu.

This should be a no-contest, although perhaps not on the order of last season's series where the aggregate tally was a bad CFL score, 26-2. Coach Ron Choules' Screaming Eagles' win over Saint John came six months ago when many 'Dogs cogs were attending NHL camps.

(With files from Mike Beasley. Odds by Rob Pettapiece.)

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