Guelph Storm slight favourite over Erie Otters: OHL Western Conference final preview

(3) Erie Otters vs. (1) Guelph Storm

Season series: Storm 4-1-1-0. Odds favour: Storm 54%. Most mathematically likely outcome: Storm in 7. Prediction: Storm in 7.

The Guelph Storm revolve around a cohort of homegrown cogs, while the Erie Otters, as everyone seems to say, were built to win this spring.

Beyond that, there very little to pick between the 108-point Storm and 106-point Otters in what seems like a better matchup than many Ontario Hockey League championship series of recent vintage. Erie has next season's surefire NHL first overall pick in Connor McDavid, but Guelph has a playmaking prodigy of its own with Robby Fabbri. The Storm go six deep across the blueline but Erie had the cleanest goals-against record. Each team did some early Christmas shopping for a big-bodied NHL first-rounder who's previously missed out on the OHL final — Vancouver Canucks pick Brendan Gaunce in the Erie tricolor and Columbus Blue Jackets prospect Kerby Rychel in Guelph crimson. Each boasts a late-blooming overage who landed a NHL deal this season — Canucks pickup Dane Fox, Minnesota Wild signing Zack Mitchell.

All but five Storm regulars have never played for another OHL team. Could that be a tipping point?

"Junior hockey is so much different from the National League," Storm coach Scott Walker says. "You can't expect one person to be a leader. There's just too much going on in the junior ranks to put it all on one guy. Matt would be the first to acknowledge we have no less than nine guys who are leaders. If one guy's falling offside another pulls him back. You only win if you demand it out of your teammates. The best thing is the respect they're showing each other. It's something that you don't see all the time."

Erie is 8-1 in the playoffs, has four world junior players (although Team Sweden goalie Oscar Dansk is now the backup behind Devin Williams). It scored 310 goals in the regular season. It might still be sneaking up on people after being out of the playoffs for the previous two seasons.

"I don't think any of our players are satisfied with what they've done so far," Otters coach Kris Knoblauch says. "They're proud but to say losing in the Western Conference finals is a successful season, that would upset some players."

Guelph hosts Games 1-2 back-to-back on Thursday and Friday, before a QMJHL-style two-day break before the series shifts to Erie. Here's some questions to ponder.

Which underage will have more impact, McDavid or Fabbri? To apply a Tim Micallef-ism, special players make special plays on special days. The third round is usually where it gets more daunting to produce for all but the very few; hearken back to 2011, when the Niagara IceDogs' then-17-year-old Ryan Strome was stymied by Mississauga weeks before going No. 5 overall in the NHL draft.

McDavid is McDavid, though, boasting 14 points over nine games.

"Being a young player, there's certain things Connor needs to develop and usually what happens is that just develops over time — being stronger and faster," Knoblauch says. "He's playing the same game. Now that he's just a little more mature and stronger, he's able to hold pucks longer and make those plays that he couldn't in this league a year ago.

"You just expect those plays," Knoblauch adds. "You forget he's 16."

Fabbri missed the end of Guelph's opening round after being drilled by a headshot. The projected NHL first-rounder found his form and had seven points over the Storm's three wins that put London in suspended animation until May 16.

"He's been a huge key to our success," Storm captain Matt Finn says of Fabbri. "He had almost 50 goals as a second-year guy. His speed and his playmaking brings people, even his teammates, to their feet. He's improved immensely. Having one guy score nearly 50 goals, [Winnipeg Jets signing] Scott Kosmachuk, is great. Having a 17-year-old do it is even better."

Gaunce or Rychel, who can do more to turn the tide? That is one of those questions that's best answered by the guys who actually play — novel concept, I know. Each has smoothly slid into the grand scheme. Gaunce, whose Belleville Bulls couldn't build off a 3-1 lead in the 2013 Eastern final, has had a point in 8-of-9 playoff games.

Rychel was the central figure in Guelph's Game 3 comeback win at London, when it took ownership of the series. The former Windsor captain, whose team fell three wins shy of qualifying for the 2011 Memorial Cup, has also thrived at funneling pucks to Fabbri and Mitchell.

Will the Storm depth win the day, well, at least four times? With back-to-backs thrice scheduled, Guelph's luxury of relying on all of its defence corps, including Finn and the Los Angeles Kings-selected Nick Ebert and Zac Leslie, might come to the fore. Please bear in mind it finished off London without the use of its OHL most outstanding player nominee, Carolina Hurricanes Brock McGinn, who still has a game to go on a suspension.

That depth buttressed the Storm over a season where it hasn't lost consecutive games since October.

"They've proved that they are the most dangerous team in the league," Otters captain Connor Brown says. "They've got six solid defencemen and a goalie [Justin Nichols] who has been playing really well. We've got to execute. It's going to be a challenge for all the guys right through the whole organization. They had 52 wins for a reason, 108 points for a reason — they're a really good hockey club."

Erie tends to lean more heavily on New York Islanders prospect Adam Pelech. At the same time, since the first round against Saginaw it has focused on not getting drawn into 6-5 games. It can also enjoy the best defence, staying on offence with the likes of Brown, Fox, McDavid and André Burakovsky.

"I think we play very similar — a lot of guys who can score goals and who play well defensively," Knoblauch says. "All the teams are left are the best defensive teams. There's a lot of attention on the star players, but I think it'll come down to mostly defensive play. Both teams have proven they're very capable in those areas."

How will Erie's goaltending hold up? It has been the trouble spot, with no slight intended to the nimble 18-year-old Williams, who has supplanted the No. 1 role from Dansk, a high second-rounder of Columbus. Erie is riding with the hotter goalie, and while Williams was only ranked No. 15 among North American goalies by NHL Central Scouting last week, there's a strong chance he will be selected by a team that focuses more on performance than whether a goalie is 6-foot-4 or Williams' 5-foot-11¾.

The rub is Williams was well-protected during the second-round sweep of Sault Ste. Marie.

"Oscar didn't play well in his one game [in the first round against Saginaw], but Devin has played so well, so it hasn't been a difficult situation," Knoblauch says. "Ultimately we're going to go with the goalie who's going to give us the best opportunity to win on each night. We've kind of gone with that philosophy all season. We feel very confident with Devin right now. If something was to happen, we have confidence in Oscar too. He knows he might have an opportunity."

Who is hungrier and has less of a mental out? The chesterfield coaches corps can only theorize; please do not bash the lifeblood of all sports media. The byword for the Otters is hungry — "I think in all these years of losing, everyone's been wanting to turn the page," is how Knoblauch sums up the state of a franchise that had gone nine seasons without winning a round before achieving the magic of a Connor McDavid makeover.

"We've been hungry, game in, game out, we've played the same way," says Brown, the Leafs signing who had never savoured the playoffs prior to this spring. "It's a gritty group of character guys in the room. We've really leaned on each other all years."

Finn, Leslie, Kosmachuk, McGinn, Mitchell and wings Justin Auger and Ryan Horvat are all a series loss away from doing the sweet-sorrow thing. It can take another step toward erasing the memory of early exits in '12 and '13.

"We've fallen short of our goals in the past," Finn says. "This year, we want to win the ultimate championship and that's what we're working toward."

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