OHL Oshawa Generals

Eastern Conference Final Preview

April 17, 2014 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
Oshawa Generals News Release


D.J. Smith probably won't spend a lot of time celebrating his OHL coach of the year award. Not just yet, anyway.

Smith, the second year head coach of the Oshawa Generals, was named the Matt Leyden Trophy winner as the OHL's coach of the year after guiding the Generals to the Eastern Conference regular season title. He is getting ready for their Rogers Eastern Conference Championship Series against the North Bay Battalion, which starts on Friday in Oshawa.

Smith has already guided the Generals to playoffseries sweeps over the Mississauga Steelheads and Peterborough Petes and heknows that his team will have their work cut out for them against the Battalion, who are enjoying an extended playoff run after moving to North Bay in the off-season.

"We've got to grind and work for our chances and when we get them we're going to have to bear down on them because they don't give up that much," Smith told Oshawa This Week. "We're the one and two defensive teams in the conference separated only by a couple of goals, so I think you're going to expect some tight-checking, physical hockey."

The Generals gave up an Eastern Conference low 187 goals against during the regular season but the Battalion were nearly up to the task, allowing just 189. The Generals also had a slight edge in goals for this season (232 to North Bay's 220) and Battalion GM/coach Stan Butler said that might be the difference in this series as well.

"We're both pretty responsible teams," said Butler, the only GM and coach in franchise history. "They've got a little bit more skill than we do, so we can't get into a run-and-gun game with them. We don't have Michael Dal Colle or Scott Laughton on our team, so we've got to play a tight-checking game and try to win that way."

Dal Colle, a top prospect for the NHL Draft this summer, leads the Generals with 16 points (on five goals and 11 assists) in eight playoff games while Laughton, the Generals captain and Philadelphia Flyers prospect, has three goals and seven points in six playoff games.

The Battalion needed seven games to knock off the Niagara IceDogs in the opening round and then six games to take out the Barrie Colts in the second round. They are led offensively by captain Barclay Goodrow, who has six goals and 12 points in 13 games.

Smith said that even if the Battalion don't have many players among the league scoring leaders, they are still a difficult team to play against. They split the season series with two wins each.

"They grind, they work for their chances, they jam," said Smith, who was an assistant coach with the Windsor Spitfires when they won back-to-back OHL and MasterCard Memorial Cup championships in 2009 and 2010.

"We didn't play them till the second half of the year and they were spread out, and the last game of the year was kind of a nothing game for both teams, so we didn't play them enough to get a real good feel for each other.

"I'm sure we'll get acquainted before long here."

The Generals host the first two games of the series on Friday and Sunday before it moves to North Bay on Tuesday and Wednesday.

All games of both the Rogers Western and Eastern Conference Championship Series are also available on OHL Livestream and the OHL Action Pak.

Complete broadcast information is available at www.rogerstv.com/OHLPlayoffs

Check out the Oshawa Generals Statistics



Ontario Hockey League Stories from April 17, 2014


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central