Road to Shawinigan – Playoff Edition
By Aaron Bell
When the 2012 MasterCard Memorial Cup opens in Shawinigan, Quebec on May 17, the host Shawinigan Cataractes already know that they will be there. As the host team, they have an automatic berth into the national championship tournament. But it will take the next seven weeks of playoff action across the country to determine who will join them.
The champions from the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League also earn spots in the tournament.
The London Knights, Edmonton Oil Kings and Saint John Sea Dogs all won their respective league regular season championships and head into the post-season as possible favourites to win their league titles as well.
But does winning the regular season title give a team a leg up heading into the playoffs? The team guarantees themselves home ice advantage throughout the playoffs but in the past decade only 12 teams across the three leagues have won the regular season title and then went on to win their league championship.
The Sea Dogs could be the most confident team heading into the playoffs. They won their third straight Jean Rougeau Trophy as the QMJHL regular season champions after posting a 50-15-0-3 record that put them six points ahead of Shawinigan for the season championship. It’s the first time in QMJHL history that a team has won three regular season championships in a row. They are also the first team in league history to win 50 games in three straight seasons.
More importantly, they have 14 players back that helped them win the Memorial Cup last year in Mississauga, including tournament MVP Jonathan Huberdeau and top scorers like Zack Phillips, Tomas Jurco and Danick Gauthier.
“Everybody’s going to be coming gunning for us and we’re hopefully going to be ready to bounce back and our goal is to win another championship,” Sea Dogs’ coach Gerard Gallant told Sportsnet.ca. “We think we have the team to do it. It will be tough and it’s a long road, but you play it one game at a time.”
In the OHL, the London Knights are no strangers to winning the Hamilton Spectator Trophy as the OHL’s top regular season team. They won it four straight years from 2004-2007 and finished at the top of the league standings again this year with a 49-18-0-1 record that gave them a two-point lead over the Plymouth Whalers and Niagara IceDogs.
After winning the regular season title during a record-setting 2004-05 season, the Knights went on to win the Robertson Cup as OHL champions and then won the Memorial Cup on home ice in a dramatic championship game against the Sidney Crosby-led Rimouski Oceanic.
The OHL has seen three other regular season champions go on to win the Robertson Cup in the past decade. Two of them (the Kitchener Rangers in 2003 and the Windsor Spitfires in 2009) went on to win the Memorial Cup just like the Knights did in 2005.
“I really like the way the room is right now,” Knights’ captain Jarred Tinordi told The London Free Press. “We have four strong lines who can all play. We’re looking for a long playoff run.”
Meanwhile in the WHL, the Edmonton Oil Kings are looking to become just the third team in the past decade to follow up their regular season title with a league championship after posting a 50-15-3-4 record this season. They finished three points ahead of the Tri-City Americans to win the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy.
But the Oil Kings have a long road ahead of them if they also want to win the Ed Chynoweth Trophy as league champions. Only two teams (the Kelowna Rockets in 2003 and the Calgary Hitmen in 2010) in the past decade have followed up a regular season title with the WHL championship.
The Oil Kings started their playoff drive against the Kootenay Ice, who won the league championship last year.
“(It was a) pretty exciting year we had,” Oil Kings’ captain Mark Pysyk told The Edmonton Sun. “But everyone’s back to square one – zero wins and zero losses. They are the defending champions. And we haven’t won one playoff game.”