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Storm take 2-0 lead into Erie, Battalion nab opener ahead of Scott Laughton’s return: OHL post-game questions

Erie took the first seven shots, then Guelph commenced to score seven goals to maintain its eerie mastery of the Otters on home ice. Meantime, Oshawa allowed an opponent to hit half-a-hundred on the shot counter — say shot clock, and it's fine — for the first time all year as North Bay was full value for the effort in its Game 1 road win in the Eastern final. On with the post-game questions:

Western final

Guelph 7 Erie 2 (Storm lead 2-0, Otters host Game 3 on Monday) — What is the case that the Otters can respond when the series goes south? The simplest answer is that Erie just needs someone to make a save; Oscar Dansk was beaten seven times on 30 shots after Devin Williams gave up five on 27 in the opener. Meantime, the Storm's defensive group has kept a good seal around 18-year-old goalie Justin Nichols ("I saw the most of the pucks and gave them a chance to win, and they took it and ran with it"), who kicked out 34-of-36 Otters shots.

Guelph, which dressed a full lineup on Friday for the first time since finalizing its roster at the trade deadline with the Stephen Pierog-Hunter Garlent trade, is rolling. The Otters are awfully potent at home, however, so there's a thread to hang by if you forecast a long series.

"They came in here both games and outplayed us the first 10 minutes," Storm forward Zack Mitchell, who had two goals Friday, said of the Otters. "That's something we're going to try to do when we go there. They have a good atmosphere down there, some good fans when they're here. We'll try to play a simple road game and we'll be alright."

At one point Erie was up 13-2 in shots and down 1-0 on the scoreboard. Then it was 15-4 and 2-0. Then 16-6 and 3-0 after one when Adam Pelech's stumble gifted Mitchell with a 120-foot breakaway for a shorty.

"I learned early on if you don't lose on home ice, you're not in trouble yet," said Otters left wing Brendan Gaunce, a Vancouver Canucks prospect. "We're going to go back home and hopefully take games 3 and 4 and come back here and hopefully take Game 5 back here.

"It's tough when you have the first seven shots and can't score the goal and they score on their first chance," Gaunce added.

Now who starts in goal for Erie on Monday, Dansk or Williams? Otters coach Kris Knoblauch essentially signalled he was switching by steering a post-Game 1 question about goaltending to his team's overall play. Your guess is as good as any on who should be in net for Erie on Easter Monday.

"Devin needed rest and we've gone with two-goalie system all season long," Knoblauch said. "We're going to go back home and evaluate our situation."

Dansk's line might have belied how he actually played; as Mitchell said, "They were all good shots ... we got some good shooters on our team." There's not much any goalie can do when a 48-goal scorer such as Kosmachuk gets to wind up from the high slot, as he did on the first goal.

"I felt good coming into the game," Dansk told the Erie Times-News. "A good first good couple of minutes. I tried to stay sharp. But they're a good team. They can score on good opportunities."

Now what might be the case that Erie is taking on water? After the Otters failed to get the quick eight-count in either game, Guelph quickly dusted itself off and went to work. The Storm, with Brock McGinn now back in the fold after sitting out eight games due to a suspension, now boasts the four-line depth essential to winning in the third round, league finals and, dare one say it, Memorial Cup. And that's without McGinn, who was understandably "rusty" in his return in Scott Walker's estimation, being at full gallop.

"We have a real mature group with good leadership," Walker said. "We did a good job of settling down. I think they had only eight shots in the second. It's still a long ways from our best game, that's for sure."

André Burakovsky has registered a goal in each game, while Connor McDavid has had two sublime primary assists on 5-on-5 goals. The Otters' two 100-point scorers, Connor Brown and Dane Fox, have been shut down across the past 110 or so minutes. Erie hasn't been able to get into the Storm's depth the way it did all season against teams who are now watching the playoffs.

"We have good depth on our team, I think we have four lines that can play," Mitchell said. "It's not just one line or one guy shutting them down."

Guelph is making its own breaks, for the most part. The rub is it's had all of them. Erie will not officially be in trouble until it loses at home. Incidentally, the Storm won 1-0 in their only post-trade deadline trip to northern Pennsylvania.

"I certainly think we had the start we wanted," Knoblauch said. "They capitalized on their opportunities; we didn't. The first 40 minutes we played how we needed to play. Last 20 we were just cheating on offence, trying to force things. We're finding out why we're playing the regular-season champions."

"The guys believe that they can win," Knoblauch added. "There was a lot of emotion and they were prepared. They know they have to execute to beat this team. Almost have to play their best. They came out, everyone working, everyone on the same page, but it was a tough break with being down 3-0 early. We started well but we didn't play well enough for 60 minutes."

Eastern final

North Bay 1 Oshawa 0 (Battalion lead 1-0, Generals host Game 2 on Sunday) — Only 24 shots and no goals; how much do the Gens need Scott Laughton back? A lot? Oshawa, just as some might have feared after it had the easiest ride through the first two rounds of any semifinalist, couldn't sustain much pressure. Seventeen-year-old star Michael Dal Colle could not carry the whole show. Mind you, it might have been a different story for Dal Colle if there had been a few degrees' difference on the ricochet off a late Jake Smith save. Dal Colle had prime rebounding position, but the puck hit oncoming teammate Dylan Smoskowitz and bounced away. That's the kind of night it was.

"When we've got both guys going [Dal Colle and Laughton], that's kind of our thing," Generals coach D.J. Smith said. "You can only put a top guy against one of them, so I'm going to rely a little bit on that. And Laughton should be fresh. He's only played six games in the last five or six weeks, so we're going to give him plenty of ice.

"We didn't have great legs tonight," Smith added. "Credit to them; they came in with a strong game. They were just a step ahead of us all night. I don't know if it was from [the Generals'] layoff [after sweeping Peterborough] or whether North Bay was just sharp coming out of their series [against Barrie, which ended just most recently]. They kept us in check."

For what it is worth, by the way, Laughton has only one goal in his last six outings over the Battalion dating back to the start of 2012-13. So either North Bay has his number or he's due.

"He's a world-class player, it's going to make a big difference to their team obviously," Battalion coach Stan Butler said. "We've got some key guys out too (wings Zach Bratina and Alex Henriksson) but we'll just play our style and obviously we'll be aware of him when he's on the ice. You can't stop great players. You can just try to control them and we'll try to do that."

Could the loss be positive for Oshawa? The Generals, with the rust-vs.-rest conundrum seemingly in full effect, gave up those season-high 51 shots. North Bay set the pace for much of the night, pushing through even after it rolled snake-eyes on three power plays in the second period.

"I think the focus is there," D.J. Smith said. "One game in a series isn't the end of the world. That's a better team than the teams we've played, for sure. They're bigger, stronger, faster and we're going to have to catch up to their speed. Sometimes that happens. You play one team — Peterborough was a little bit injured, didn't have a lot of depth; they have a lot of depth and we're going to need a lot from our depth guys."

Generals captain and first-pair defender Josh Brown noted, "We like to play a nice tight defensive game and we gave up way too many shots and left our goaltender out to dry." At the same time, though, Oshawa likely had a decent Corsi on the nights when Laughton, Dal Colle, Cole Cassels, et al., were counter-attacking and working defenders in the offensive zone. Their top blueline trio of Brown, Colin Suellentrop and Alex Lepkowski is often asked only to break up a sequence. North Bay was able to bog Oshawa down behind its own blueline.

"He's a big guy, he's tough in the corners," Battalion wing Nick Paul said of Brown. "You just start cycling against him and get him in space and you'll do well against him.

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