Guelph Storm say ‘game on’ to London Knights, Sudbury Wolves turn in fitting final fizzle: OHL post-game questions

The second round — London-Guelph and Erie-Sault Ste. Marie is set. The Sudbury Wolves finished a nearly three-month-long faceplant by going out with a whimper, and visions of epic comebacks abound in North Bay and Peterborough. On with the post-game (and post-sleep) questions:

Western Conference

Guelph 8 Plymouth 3 (Storm win 4-1) — How much is Guelph gearing up for the London Knights? Oftentimes, a team lets players go home for the weekend after it wraps up a series quickly. The Knights-Storm affray will not begin until Friday, but as Tony Saxon reported, the top-seeded Storm are only taking a day off before getting into what they hope is beat-London mode.

"It's game on. It's time to go to war," Columbus Blue Jackets first-rounder Kerby Rychel told the Guelph Mercury after getting four points in the clincher. "It's going to be a great series and we're definitely looking forward to it.

"They're a great team and they have some world-class players over there, but we're a great team too. It's going to be a great series."

By the time the puck drops, it will have been 14 days since Storm 45-goal scorer Robby Fabbri was injured by a headshot against the Whalers. One can't predict much with head trauma, but he is getting a lot of chance to rest.

Plymouth and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic did well to take a game off the Storm. Zach Lorentz was its only overage to complete the series with Carolina Hurricanes signing Carter Sandlak (suspension) and defenceman Nick Malysa (surgery) dropping out of the fray.

Sault Ste. Marie 6 Owen Sound 1 ('Hounds win 4-1) — What chance does the Soo have of repeating its scoring proficiency against the Otters? If there was a ever a toss-out-the-regular-season question, that is it. The Greyhounds' well never ran dry as it scored 24 goals over the course of a five-game victory, with Phoenix Coyotes signing Tyler Gaudet notching eight points, Edmonton Oilers-drafted D-man Darnell Nurse getting seven and four other 'Hounds notching at least five.

Awaiting Sault Ste. Marie, of course, is the Otters which led the league with only 170 goals against. Erie does count on getting a disproportionate piece of the offensive zone time while leaning on No. 1 defenceman Adam Pelech to a large extent. The hopes of the 'Hounds might hinge on whether it can get into Erie's depth defencemen. The Sault Star reports the series will begin either Wednesday or Friday. The OHL is not having games on April 5 to avoid conflict with its priority selection draft.

Predictions Owen Sound would force the series deeper were based on counting on the Attack not to get swept at home. Minnesota Wild signing Kurtis Gabriel, forward Kyle Hope and defenceman Brayden Rose were denied a chance to close out their OA years on home ice. Gabriel and Rose were the last holdovers from Owen Sound's 2011 OHL championship team.

Eastern Conference

Peterborough 6 Kingston 5, OT (Frontenacs lead 3-2, Petes host Game 6 on Sunday) — Why, if indeed they are, are the Fronts foundering? It could be that the speedy Frontenacs' tempo, in a series where it's gone with three lines and five D — four during the third period and 16-plus minutes of bonus hockey on Friday — has slowed to the physical Petes' preferred pace. Friday's happenings were tense, but the Petes surmounted being "sluggish" — coach Jody Hull's word — to fight off match point for the second game in a row. Overtime hero Josh MacDonald's winner came when a gassed Mikko Vainonen couldn't cut off a long rinkwide pass by Greg Betzold, allowing MacDonald to take the pass off the boards and go in for his second breakaway goal of the night.

Kingston's fifth defenceman Warren Steele was welded to the bench after committing a turnover on the Stephen Nosad late second-period goal that pulled the Petes level at 4-4 after 40. Vainonen, fellow 19-year-old Evan McEneny, overage captain Michael Moffat and NHL draft prospect Roland McKeown are a perfectly cromulent first four by the standard of the Eastern Conference, but they might be tired. The Petes are taking advantage.

What have the Petes done to counter Kingston's speed? The standard stuff, buying in to blocking shots and relying on overage goalie Andrew D'Agostini, who's helped them live on the margins. Hull also got more defence and bulk on to the Hunter Garlent-Nick Ritchie top line by occasionally using checker Matt McCartney as their right wing. McCartney was able to match up well with Kingston's first-line left wing, Tampa Bay Lightning pick Henri Ikonen.

Kingston is eminently capable of jumping out to a fast lead on Sunday. The question comes back to it holding the lead.

North Bay 4 Niagara 3 (IceDogs lead 3-2 and host Game 6 on Sunday) — If Carter Verhaeghe is done, then will the 'Dogs soon be out too? Without the Toronto Maple Leafs third-rounder who is their No. 1 centre, Niagara was outshot 36-13 in a game that should not have been as close.

Verhaeghe, usually the one responsible for feeding 34-goal scorer Brendan Perlini, "could be done for the series" with a lower-body injury. The IceDogs were often a one-line team in the regular season, where the Verhaeghe-Perlini-Anthony DiFruscia troika scored 87 of their 163 goals and only one non-overage even cracked double digits for the St. Kitts sextet. Marty Williamson has wrung some great contributions out of his depth players, but it didn't happen on a consistent basis.

The Battalion ought to be win out and complete a comeback from 3-1 down and advance to the second round against either Kingston or Barrie. It's made life difficult on itself. The wild cards going in Sunday's matinee include Verhaeghe's status, whether IceDogs sophomore goalie Brent Moran conjures another superlative performance and well, the Battalion franchise's propensity for playoff struggles.

The Verhaeghe "could be done" quote comes from the St. Catharines Standard. The North Bay Nugget relayed that "IceDogs staff said the injury to Verhaeghe ... isn't serious and sitting him Friday was more of a precautionary move." Ah, the playoffs.

Barrie 7 Sudbury 0 (Colts win 4-1) — How bad is that Sudbury, with its season on the line, lost by a touchdown against the Aaron Ekblad-less Colts? That ties a pretty bow on the bid for a playoff run that did not pan out in the Nickel City. The Wolves, as it doesn't take a very long memory to recall, traded five second-round picks, promising 17-year-old defenceman Stefan LeBlanc and handy import Dominik Kubalik to land 19-year-olds Trevor Carrick and Radek Faksa in January. Sudbury, inexplicably, was below .500 after the load-up deals and that all came home to roost Friday.

Remember how odd it was last July 4 when Trent Cull left the Wolves for an AHL gig? Sudbury's first-time staff under coach Paul Fixter, whatever the reasons, whatever their strengths and shortcomings to work on, couldn't coax the appropriate effort. Wolves fans might have a field day with the "what can we do, bench our top players?" quote.

“We took far too many penalties,” Fixter told the Sudbury Star. “You can't do that. We showed guys video, we told them. What can we do, bench our top players? We need those guys. But I'll give Barrie credit. They got under our skin. They did a good job of taking us out of our comfort zone and making us do dumb things. It's a learning experience, though, and hopefully our younger guys will grasp that."

One can feel for Wolves overage goalie Franky Palazzese, who was allowed to go the route in the final game for he and defencemen Craig Duininck and Kevin Raine.

Ekblad is expected to be in fine fettle by the start of Round 2, although Barrie overage Zach Hall came out of the contest (not the first time that sentence fragment has appeared here).

Niagara is the only team still active in a series that Barrie cannot face in Round 2.

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