Undefeated Bulldogs to battle Spitfires for OHL title
When the OHL Championship Series opens tonight, neither the Hamilton Bulldogs or Windsor Spitfires will know much about one another.
Despite a 68-game regular season, the two teams never met. Until now. With everything on the line.
“It’s a unique situation,” Bulldogs head coach Jay McKee said. “[The] teams have to get out there and feel each other [out]. These kids are young pros and they’ll all be ready and prepared and it will be an exceptional series.”
Now, admittedly, they played in the preseason with Hamilton producing a dominant 8-1 win on Sept. 24. But frankly, it means nothing as the two teams get set for a Best of Seven series with the J. Ross Robertson Cup on the line.
“It’s a little different but we do what we can,” Bulldogs forward Mason McTavish said.
There is currently no hotter team in hockey than the Bulldogs. After they ended the regular season on a 10-game winning streak, they have cruised through the OHL Playoffs with three straight sweeps against Peterborough, Mississauga and North Bay.
“It’s been a treat to play this long into the year,” McTavish said. “Every team tries to do it and only two end up in the finals and we’re pretty fortunate to be on one of those two teams. We’ve put in a lot of work to get here so we’re not done yet.”
McTavish, who was acquired from Peterborough Jan. 9 and played nine NHL games earlier in the season with Anaheim where he also scored his first career goal, has 10 goals and 19 points in the OHL playoffs. The team has been paced by 100-point regular season man Logan Morrison who has continued to dazzle in the postseason with an exceptional 2.17 point-per-game average in 12 contests while his 13 goals leads the league.
“We’ve got a great team here in Hamilton,” McTavish said. “It took me a couple of games to get comfortable and use to playing with new guys but once that happened it was pretty smooth sailing.”
While Hamilton view rest as a weapon, for the Spitfires, they’re glad they haven’t been sat idle for too long.
“We struggled after the rest,” Spits head coach Marc Savard said. “We played every other day to close out the season, [but] two series in a row we had a week off before we played our next matchup and we came out a little slow so I’m excited because we’re going to get right back at it.”
After a 4-2 series win over Sarnia that was followed by a five-game victory over Kitchener, Windsor was taken all the way to Game 7 by Flint. The Spitfires trailed the series 3-2 but a 3-2 overtime win in Game 6 forced a decider Wednesday where Daniel D’Amico scored a hat-trick and Xavier Medina stopped 38 shots in a 4-0 home win.
“With our backs against the wall, we really stepped up,” Spitfires captain and New York Rangers prospect Will Cuylle said. “We didn’t want our season to end.”
Dallas Stars first-rounder Wyatt Johnston continues to tally points as he pleases as his 31 leads the CHL in the postseason. Cuylle has 10 playoff goals to his name while D’Amico has five goals in his last two games.
“They’re the favourite,” Savard said of Hamilton. “They want to keep this thing rolling and we’re going to do our best to slow it down but it will be a tough task.”
Windsor will be seeking its fourth OHL Championship, and first since 2010, while Hamilton are looking for the second J. Ross Robertson Cup in franchise history having also claimed the title in 2018.
And while they rightfully boast some confidence, the Bulldogs are in no way, shape or form taking the Spitfires lightly, despite their 22-game winning streak.
“You can’t get too high or too low,” Hamilton captain Colton Kammerer said. “We’re a confident group but you can never be over confident. We’ve got a lot of respect for Windsor, we know they’re a great team and we’re going to have to come out even harder than we have in the past series.
“We’ll be ready for them and we know they’ll be ready for us.”
The 2022 OHL Championship can be seen in its entirety on CHLTV. Furthermore, Games 3-7 will be shown LIVE exclusively on TSN.