Troops ready for the Storm

BRAMPTON, Ont. – After one of their longest layoffs of the season, the Troops are ready to start their playoff run with the first game of their series against the Guelph Storm Sunday night at the Guelph Sports and Entertainment Centre.
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The Battalion concluded their regular season with a 2-1 victory over the Kitchener Rangers on March 18 and had to wait almost a week until they found out that the Storm would be their first round playoff opponent. Guelph clinched home ice advantage in the first round with a 5-2 win over Kitchener on Friday night.
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We’ve had a long layoff,” acknowledged Head Coach Stan Butler after running the team through their paces on Saturday afternoon. This may be the longest we’ve gone all season without having a game and hopefully we won’t be rusty. It’s the luck of the draw. Some years you get the layoff some years you don’t. We did get to practice a lot but one of the disadvantages was that we didn’t know who we were going to play so it wasn’t like we could use that time to prepare for another team.”
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Captain Jason Maleyko said that not knowing who their opponent would be gave the team time to work on their own game.
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We worried about ourselves in the first couple of practices,” said Maleyko. We worked on our systems, worked on our conditioning and when we finally found out who we were playing we started looking towards Guelph and their systems and how they would play us.
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We know that whoever we would play would give us a tough series,” continued Maleyko, and Guelph has a good team. They have the home ice advantage but we are going to go out in the first game and try to get that advantage back right away. It’s not going to be easy.”
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We have tried to stay as sharp as we can,” noted Coach Butler, but practices aren’t the same as games and we just have to see how we go. We are definitely in a series where the other team knows us very well and we know them. There won’t be any surprises. It will just be a matter of which team comes out and executes.”
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There’s a good vibe here,” said defenceman Jay Harrison. We’re ready to go and we know what to expect from ourselves. It’s the second trip to the playoffs for a lot of guys and we have a lot of guys who can lead by example so I don’t think the rookies will be far behind. I think we had a good period to rest and I think guys are anxious to get going and that will be good especially since we are starting on the road.”
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The Battalion had a great deal of success against the Storm this season, winning five of their six meetings. The only loss came in Guelph on December 15, when the Storm won a 4-3 decision over a Brampton team missing many of their top players due to commitments at the World Junior Hockey Championships but Butler and his players are well aware that past performance counts for little once the post season starts.
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I think all that goes out the window because both teams start at zero and the first team to four (victories) wins,” stated Butler.
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We’ve had a lot of success against Guelph,” said forward Scott Thompson, and with them being so close to us, we have developed a bit of a rivalry. We always get up for these games and while the playoffs are a whole new season, we have some confidence knowing that we can play with these guys.”
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I like playing against them,” said second year winger Chris Rowan, who scored three of his 18 goals against Guelph. I think we match up pretty well against them. We’ve done pretty well against them but I know that doesn’t mean much in the playoffs.”
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They are going to be a tough team to beat,” declared Coach Butler. They have a good, experienced coach (Jeff Jackson), they have some good older players and outstanding goaltending. Kevin Dallman is one of the top offensive defencemen in the league and he’s the key guy on their power play. They have three good lines and they can get scoring from each of those lines and that kind of balance is what you are looking for at this level.”
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Jason Maleyko agreed with his coach’s assessment of the Storm. Craig Andersson is one of the best goalies in the league and they have some really skilled forwards. Dallman is one of the keys to their team. He had 77 points and he’s pretty good on the power play.”
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Last year the Battalion bowed out in the opening round of the playoffs after playing a tough six game series with the Erie Otters. That squad had only two players, Maleyko and forward Nathan Herrington, with previous OHL playoff experience. This year’s model has 14 players who have played in the post-season, including two players who came to Brampton during the season, goaltender Brian Finley and forward Jonah Leroux, with a considerable amount of playoff experience.
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Leroux played 14 post-season games over two years as a member of the Oshawa Generals and Finley collected the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award as last year’s playoff MVP as he led the Barrie Colts to the Memorial Cup final.
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We’re all looking forward to this,” said Finley, who compiled a 20-12 record in three playoff stints with Barrie. We are two good, evenly matched teams and it should be a good challenge for us.”
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Finley came to Brampton in a trade on January 10 but an injury kept him out of the lineup until February 18 when he led the Troops to a win over Windsor. Finley, a two time member of Canada’s World Junior team said the layoff has helped him as he gets ready for a long playoff run with the Battalion.
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I think I am a little fresher. The last couple of years in Barrie I played a lot and I didn’t have much rest and here I have only played a third of the season and I think being fresh heading into the playoffs is a big advantage.”
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Finley said he has also been talking to his Brampton teammates about his playoff experiences. I have started talking to a few guys about that and I think there is going to have to be a tremendous amount of commitment from every guy on our team. I think making it to the Memorial Cup is one of the toughest things to do in all of sports.”
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The Memorial Cup is the hardest trophy to win in hockey,” agreed Stan Butler, and it’s a tough grind but the motivation is the idea of being able to win and having pride in yourself and realizing the work you have to pour into something in order to accomplish what you set out to do.”
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I was fortunate to go a long way three or four times in the playoffs, and I’m hoping I can help the guys out,” said Assistant Coach Derrick Smith who played in 82 NHL playoff games and made two trips to the Stanley Cup finals as a member of the Philadelphia Flyers. The playoffs are like a second season, everyone starts at zero again and it’s an exciting time of year for everybody.”
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Last year we had a lot of guys who had never been in the OHL playoffs,” conceded Jason Maleyko, but this year we have a better idea of what to expect and I think our goals are higher than they were last year.”
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We’re not the underdogs any more,” said defenceman Rostislav Klesla, who played eight games in the NHL with the Columbus Blue Jackets and is the subject of a feature in the current issue of The Hockey News. I think we would have to be one of the top teams, so losing in the first round would be a huge disappointment. A lot of the guys are older and know what the OHL playoffs are like, so I hope that will pay off for us. I’m very excited about this.”
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Scott Thompson was one Battalion player who was unable to make much of an impact in last year’s battle with the Otters. An injury restricted Thompson to only two games in the series and the overage forward is anxious for a chance to get more involved in this post-season.
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Last year I wasn’t able to play much in the playoffs and it was disappointing to watch it and know that you couldn’t do anything to help,” admitted Thompson. This year I’m really looking forward to getting into it and playing as well as I can. It’s my last year in the league and I want to give it my all and lead this team to a championship.”
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Stan Butler has coached in two World Junior tournaments and took the Prince George Cougars to the Western Hockey League final and when he was asked if he learned anything from Brampton’s playoff appearance last year, he was succinct.
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We were very close to winning game six last year,” he said, recalling the tumultuous final game at the Bunker that saw two Brampton goals disallowed, and I think we learned about the intensity and what it takes to win in the playoffs. It’s the little things that make the difference. You have to be disciplined, you have to be focused and you have to work hard.”
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