MENZIES: AJHL playoff preview, series primers, predictions

While the Bonnyville Pontiacs season comes to a close, the AJHL playoffs begins Friday across the province, with the four quarterfinal series about to start. 

The road to the Inter-Pipeline Cup has nearly arrived. Three rounds of best-of-seven hockey to be champs and earn your spot to the Centennial Cup, the Junior A national championship.

The Calgary Canucks will look to repeat as champs, but they do know regardless they’ll get another crack at the Centennial Cup as hosts. With a thunderous last period against Olds on Saturday, the Canucks clinched home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

But this year, each round looks competitive. Here are my predictions, beginning in the AJHL North.

Plus, if you want perspectives across the AJHL, you can watch our latest broadcaster roundtable here with Tim Ellis, Wyatt Zieger, and Matthew Dekker, as well as myself.

1st place Whitecourt Wolverines (36-12-6) vs 4th place Fort McMurray Oil Barons (24-26-4)

Prediction: Wolverines in six.

In one sense, you could view this as a goaltending battle for this series. The Wolverines boast the odds-on favourite to win Top Goaltender in Zac Onyskiw, 20-year-old, whose goals against average was under 2.00, and save percentage this season in 37 appearances was a remarkable .939.

For perspective, that is 15 points better than the 2nd highest in the AJHL this year in Canucks netminder Lucas Renaud. Onyskiw has been the man this year, garnering him serious MVP consideration.

But also an MVP finalist is MOB goalie Vincent Filion. No goalie played as many minutes this year as he did, and he received some much needed rest the last two weeks, once the Pontiacs were eliminated from contention.

The health of the Oil Barons will be crucial for them to stay in the series. Charles-Olivier Villenueve has not played since mid-January, and Ryan Arnold has been cold as ice lately, snakebit for no goals in his last 11 games.

Meanwhile, Whitecourt’s Jalen Bianchet finished 9th in league scoring with 55 points, and has been the centerpiece of the Wolverines offence. But names like Joey Vetrano, Braden Keeble, Dylan Ruptash, and Travis Verbeek, are a formidable top-6, and gives Whitecourt the advantage in the series.

The MOB have one of the largest defensive corps in the league. Alexis Beaulac, Tristan Taylor, Cody Nordstrom, and Willem Terwoord, all stand six-foot tall plus, and have the bulk and snarl that should lend itself to playoff hockey.

Headmanned by first-year head coach Sam Klassen, how will the former Briercrest boss be able to handle two-time reigning Coach of the Year Shawn Martin and weather the first two games on the road?

At JDA Place this season, the Wolverines went 19-4-4, while the MOB had their fair share of road struggles. In fact, Fort Mac hasn’t played a home game since Feb. 28, concluding the year with five straight away, the last three of which were wins.

The Wolverines won four of six head-to-head this season. And they’ll do the same in this series. I like their odds. They’re a team that I’m sure is looking to avenge their sweep to the Canucks in the Final last year. The MOB have to win one of the first two games on the road to have a shot, coming back to a historically tough place to play.

Gimme the Wolverines.

2nd place Grande Prairie Storm (30-17-7) vs 3rd place Lloydminster Bobcats (31-19-4)

Prediction: Bobcats in 7. 

How much should one read into the fact that the Bobcats just went to GP in the last games of the regular season and won both games? Maybe not a lot — the Storm sat goalie Nicholas Jones, leading scorer Tomas Marinkovic — but it also ain’t nothin’.

In fact, the Bobcats won five of six this season against the Storm.

This series features a battle of two Coach of the Year candidates. First year boss Chris Schmidt had the Storm absolutely firing out of the gates, and has harnessed a mix of critical 20-year-old veterans with exciting young talent like Chayse Laurie and Alec Hall to an impressive season.

The return of Colin Doherty, who left to Spruce Grove early, but came back, has buoyed their offence that much more. Doherty has 16 points in 12 games, and is another layer of attack to a deep offensive team.

The Storm were the only North Division team to surpass the 200 goal plateau, second overall behind Calgary. That, plus Logan Cunningham as a number one defenceman, makes the Storm a tough out.

But this Bobcats team just finds a way.

After starting winless in their first eight games, the Bobcats who returned much of their core from the season, have went on vicious tears, particularly at the Centennial Civic Centre.

In the last year of that old barn, the ‘Cats were 18-7-2, and enter the playoffs on a 9-game win streak.

Despite their captain Teague McAllister leaving, Gus El-Tahhan and Cooper Moore are both 50 point players this season, the latter a finalist for Rookie of the Year.

Add in the perfect addition of Ben Costantino, 25 points in 25 games thank-you-very-much, and the Bobcats have found depth.

Jeff Woywitka has made the most of his second head coaching job, and this series reeks of six or seven games.

It’s a coin flip. I’ll side with my fellow Vermilion-native in Woywitka, but I’d believe any result. Each team feels like if they got hot, they could win the North.

1st place Calgary Canucks (37-13-4) vs 4th place Camrose Kodiaks

Prediction: Canucks in 5. 

The most firepower, the most depth, the most everything…that’s the way I’d describe the Calgary Canucks heading into the playoffs.

Jack Plandowski scored 79 points in 50 games to lead the league, a favourite for MVP to boot, but captain Bowden Singleton may just be the league’s best player with the puck. He had 61 points in 38 games, and is a menace running the powerplay that is also first at 23.1 per cent, and at 28.9 per cent at home.

Wow.

But the options go on.

Nolan DuPont as a rookie was 7th in league scoring, and tied for the rookie lead in goals and points as well. The speedy Hayden Fechner, Rhett Melnyk, and Gavin Schmidt, all scored over 50 points as well, and seasoned Jr. A vet Jayden Joly’s addition rounds out a dynamic attack.

Combine that with arguably the league’s best d-man in Nathan Maloney, and oh well, the best regular season penalty kill at over 89 per cent, and is a sweep afoot?

Maybe.

The Camrose Kodiaks have suffered some tough losses of late, including blown leads to Whitecourt and Fort McMurray the past week.

The Canucks seemingly wanted to play CAM with some interesting lineup decisions down the stretch, but the Kodiaks couldn’t get a point to finish third to face Canmore.

Sam Lozinski is much needed in Camrose’s lineup, having played one since Jan. 25. His speed and goal scoring ability will be required.

But the Kodiaks have the type of goaltenders who can steal games in Carter Capton and Wilson Maxfield.

Capton at times this season flirted with consideration as one of the league’s best, even earning a call up to the Vancouver Giants in November.

Interim head coach Shawn Germain has stepped in and done a marvelous job. I think he was snubbed for Coach of the Year finalist. The Kodiaks have weapons, but need that powerplay to step up.

Garrett Thom, AJ Schaaf, and Spencer Masters are no slouches. They could hang with the Canucks provided the goaltending is there and their special teams create opportunities for themselves.

The Kodiaks will win Game 3, but that’s all in my view. Canucks in five.

2nd place Canmore Eagles (35-12-7) vs Drumheller Dragons (32-18-4)

This might be the series with the biggest clash of visions in a sense. The older, experienced Eagles, against the youthful exuberance of the Dragons.

Both head coaches, Andrew Milne and Kevin Hasselberg, have been at the helm of their programs for years, and are Coach of the Year finalists.

Each team has a smaller, tough building to play in for opponents.

I admire the season Canmore has put together, because they’ve faced adversity with the likes of Zach Coutu leaving, Hudson Sedo receiving major junior call-ups, and on.

But Owen Jones and Rhett Dekowny, combined with former Pontiac Ethan Look, have been fantastic up front. Add Kawden Rawji to that mix, and that’s four 20-year-old forwards who have many games played in their careers, including a playoff run last year, that began in the play-in, and went all the way to Game 7 in Whitecourt.

Is this a team looking at their chance and wondering, is it our year?

Alex Schweiller, MVP finalist, took helm of the crease and only lost six times in regulation in 35 appearances, adding a .920 save percentage. Then Casey Black’s return on the backend, and Will Lutic’s addition from the Brooks Bandits, rounds out a team that will be a tough out.

Contrast that with the Dragons, who have elite 2008-born talent in Easton Daneault and Will McLaughlin, an 18-year-old in Bradley Gallo who potted 33 goals this year, and rookie Ellis Mieyette, who was tied for 2nd in the league in assists.

The Dragons were one of the hottest teams from Jan. 24 on, going 13-2-2 down the stretch, and coming into their own at the right time. They finished the season with a meaningful victory over the Calgary Canucks at home, and the Rink Rats are preparing their buckets and pans to bang on behind the visitor’s bench.

Allen Sherpa and Lauchlan Kozicky are bound to have gotten good experience from the World Junior A Challenge this season as well, and Tate Yule has 23 playoff games under his belt.

Between the pipes though, starter Sean Cootes has been on the IR for a couple of weeks.

Was this rest and precaution? Or was it more serious? Time will only tell, but I think Cootes is going to be required here for the Dragons to be serious.

This smells like a home-team series, but I can’t pick against the Eagles in this spot. It’ll go the distance, though.