Decade in Review: 2013-14
The Guelph Storm were built to win in 2013-14 and they didn’t disappoint, scoring a whopping 340 goals during the regular season to earn the Hamilton Spectator Trophy with 108 points before marching to the OHL Championship Series where they defeated the North Bay Battalion in five games.
It seemed the Storm were a team of destiny but they came up a little short at the 2014 Memorial Cup in London, going 3-0 through the round robin to earn a bye to the Championship Final before falling 6-3 to the Edmonton Oil Kings who had needed a triple overtime win over the Val-d’Or Foreurs to reach the Final.
The 2014 Storm spread the scoring around with seven different players finishing with over 60 points on the campaign. A group of intense and energetic forwards in Scott Kosmachuk, Robby Fabbri, Brock McGinn and Tyler Bertuzzi made the Storm a tough team to play against while Matt Finn, Nick Ebert, Zac Leslie and Ben Harpur logged big minutes on the blue line.
The Storm’s third OHL Championship was the biggest story of the season, but another Midwest Division team was showing signs of emerging from a long stretch of sub-par hockey as the Erie Otters pumped in 312 goals on the season while earning their first of a CHL record four consecutive 50-win seasons. Erie’s big three of OHL leading scorer and Red Tilson Trophy recipient Connor Brown (45-83–128), Dane Fox (64-43–107) and Connor McDavid (28-71–99) drew big crowds across the OHL throughout the season.
Former exceptional status rearguard Aaron Ekblad (Barrie Colts) earned OHL Defenceman of the Year honours before being chosen by the Florida Panthers with the first overall pick of the 2014 NHL Draft.
Plymouth Whalers netminder Alex Nedeljkovic became just the third 18-year-old in OHL history to earn Goaltender of the Year honours.
Saginaw Spirit forward Kristoff Kontos wrapped up his OHL career with a record-tying 337 career regular season games played.
Notable members of the League’s 2013-14 graduating class included Brown (Erie Otters/Ottawa Senators), Bo Horvat (London Knights/Vancouver Canucks) who skated in his third straight Memorial Cup, Matt Murray (Soo Greyhounds/Pittsburgh Penguins), Andreas Athanasiou (Barrie Colts/Detroit Red Wings), Chris Tierney (London Knights/Ottawa Senators), Andre Burakovsky (Erie Otters/Colorado Avalanche), Scott Laughton (Oshawa Generals/Philadelphia Flyers), Brock McGinn (Guelph Storm/Carolina Hurricanes) and Barclay Goodrow (North Bay Battalion/San Jose Sharks).
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