Rugged Battalion and Generals have to walk ‘fine line’: OHL Eastern Conference final preview

(2) North Bay Battalion vs. (1) Oshawa Generals

Season series: Battalion 2-1-1-0. Odds favour: Generals 51%. Most mathematically likely outcome: Generals in 7. Prediction: Generals in 7.

The story is going to be penalties and power plays. There is a little sense dancing around the obvious with an Eastern Conference affray directly out of the old Leyden Division, with the Oshawa Generals seeking to distance itself from a string of underachieving seasons and the North Bay Battalion looking for an OHL final berth in their first season up north.

Oshawa, under OHL coach of the year D.J. Smith, has a chippy disposition and plenty of back-end bulk with the likes of captain Josh Brown (6-foot-4 and 215 pounds), Colin Suellentrop (6-1, 205) and Alex Lepkowski (6-4, 214), one of just two players involved who has been to the final. North Bay has a passel of power forwards, most notably in San Jose Sharks signing Barclay Goodrow and New Jersey Devils pick Ben Thomson, who can wear teams down into mistakes. There might not be a lot of space for creativity by times, so how the penalties are spread out will be a storyline.

"You can't change the way you play — they got a lot of big bodies, we've got a lot of big bodies," Battalion coach Stan Butler says. "We want to play a physical but clean game. Sometimes officials let you play that way and sometimes you don't. You have to adjust period by period, game by game, depending on the standard and where's the game's going."

There isn't necessarily carryover from one series to another with special teams play. North Bay's penalty killing is second-best in the second season at 91.5 per cent. The Generals' Scott Laughton and Michael Dal Colle-led power play, at 30.2%, is the best of any team which can only reach the Memorial Cup by qualifying.

"Sometimes you have to pull it back," Smith says. "It's a fine line and sometimes it's frustrating for us as coaches and for players. You want to keep it as clean as possible but you want to make sure you finish all your checks. I think both coaches would be happy with four power plays a side each game, but we know that's not what's going to happen.

"We both rely on our depth, we're both physical, we both are going to work and grind, try not to give up odd-man rushes and really, there's not going to be a whole lot of cheating going on," Smith adds.

Here's some burning questions to ponder before the series begins Friday at Oshawa.

Did the Generals face enough adversity while sweeping through the first two series? That's a contestable concept to begin with; whether there's an advantage to be more rested or tested is in the eye of the observer. Oshawa has yielded only 13 goals so far in the playoffs. North Bay should be capable of exerting more pressure, though, especially with the likes of Goodrow and Dallas Stars draftee Nick (The Stick) Paul prowling around the walls.

"It's two tough teams with two defensive backgrounds going at it," Brown says. "They have a hard forecheck and the series is going to come down to minimizing mistakes."

The way North Bay contained the Barrie Colts in a six-game conference semifinal win was illustrative for the Generals. Oshawa could get into a track meet on ice if it so desired, with the likes of Dal Colle, Laughton, versatile Vancouver Canucks prospect Cole Cassels and second-line centre Josh Sterk. But it saw how that worked out for the Colts.

"North Bay is a big physical team, they play the trap, they're really well-structured with Stan Butler there," Sterk says. "Barrie was more of a high-flying team and North Bay shut 'em down. We can't be that high-flying run-and-gun team because we know it doesn't work. We just need to play our game; it was 2-2 in the season series so it's going to be a hell of a battle."

Can the Battalion hold serve on home ice and steal one win out of Oshawa to take the series? Well, it did earn 3-of-4 possible points from two January visits to the General Motors Centre, bearing in mind that one was a New Year's Day game that Laughton missed due to the world junior. At the same time, the move north has helped North Bay get more used to being in a more raucous playoff atmosphere. It is 6-1 at home in the playoffs.

"We weren't used to that in Brampton, there's a lot of games we played in Brampton where the other team had more fans at the game than we did," Butler says. "It's a big difference for our players and I think it helps us too. When you go to rinks like Oshawa, Windsor and Kitchener, the loud rinks, you can see the fan support those teams get.

"There's great history with North Bay from when they had the Centennials, playing the Generals [who were a division rival during the early 1990s], and people are excited by that."

The teams also split their two games at the Memorial Gardens. Oshawa was facing backup goalie Brendan O'Neill during its Feb. 16 win; the March 13 meeting was a nothing game for the Generals, who were biding their time to get ready for the playoffs. The crowd could be a factor, though.

"There's been times, Game 7 against Niagara and Game 5 against Barrie, where we've been down a goal and they keep us in the game," Goodrow says. "Just walking through the streets the past couple days, people were coming up saying 'good job against Barrie' and 'good luck against Oshawa.' Stuff like that has been amazing and we're all looking forward to getting started."

How will Jake Smith match Daniel Altshuller, save for save? Altshuller is the only drafted 19-year-old goalie still active on an OHL team which — you can't reach for this low-hanging fruit too often — can only reach the Memorial Cup by qualifying. The Carolina Hurricanes pick has a 1.50/.939 statline while handling a tidy 24.6 shots per game.

Altshuller is also the only one of the four starters who actually tops six feet tall, in keeping with the NHL prototype. Between the 5-foot-10 Smith and the Western Conference counterparts, Guelph's Justin Nichols (5-10) and Erie's Devin Williams (5-foot-11¾), it's the spring of the athletic goalie.

"He was our backup goalie last season and when our No. 1 goalie (Matej Machovsky) didn't perform very well in the playoffs we put Jake in and he performed very well," Butler says. "He's a battler. He's not your prototype goalie who's 6-foot-2 or whatever. He's more like — I'm really starting to age myself — a Manny Legace type of goalie, a 5-foot-10 goalie. He's extremely athletic and competes hard. It's not so much playing angles. It's been athletic. Obviously he's got a big challenge in this series. The goalie for Oshawa is statistically the No. 1 goalie in the playoffs. For Jake, this is a big challenge."

How will chemistry be a potential tipping point for the Gens? Oshawa has gone deeper than it did in previous seasons when it featured an impressive group of forwards who have tasted NHL action — Laughton, Boone Jenner, Lucas Lessio and Nicklas Jensen. At the outset, it was in what D.J. Smith calls "a rebuild thought process" before Laughton came back and propelled it to the top of a suspect Eastern Conference.

"A lot has to be said about the team camaraderie," Smith says. "Having one team pulling for one goal is a lot different than having four or five individuals who are good players who are trying to win but are doing their own things. It speaks volumes to the team atmosphere. We have a few younger guys but there are some elite players who give confidence to the other guys. It's a good mix and it's fun to come to the rink with these guys."

What impact will Laughton make when he returns for Game 2? The Philadelphia Flyers aspirant has one game left on a butt-ending suspension, and one last chance to carve out a legacy in the 'Shwa. Laughton and potential top-5 NHL pick Dal Colle are the two biggest talents in the series by a country kilometre. Their presence makes Oshawa a slight on-paper favourite, but the frustration threshold in this round could be very, very high.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.