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Colts ready to tangle with Frontenacs

Barrie and Kingston open second-round series on Wednesday night at BMC

With the Mississauga Steelheads now in the rear-view mirror, the Barrie Colts shift their focus to the Kingston Frontenacs.

“They’re an excellent hockey team with lots of experience,” Colts general manager Jason Ford told BarrieToday on Monday. “They’re a pretty big team, too, so we can expect a fast-skating, high-pace and very entertaining series.”

Kingston is led by Los Angeles Kings prospect Gabriel Vilardi, who sits second in Ontario Hockey League playoff scoring with 12 points (5G, 7A) in five games against the North Bay Battalion.

On New Year’s Day, the Frontenacs made waves with the acquisition of Vilardi and Sean Day from the reigning Memorial Cup champion Windsor Spitfires.

In 32 games with Kingston to close out the regular season, Vilardi scored 22 goals and had 36 assists for 58 points.

In Day, a New York Rangers prospect, the Frontenacs landed a quarterback on the back end. The defenceman had a goal and 25 assists in 23 games to finish the season before adding two goals and six assists against North Bay.

Kingston also has Carolina Hurricanes goaltending prospect Jeremy Helvig, who posted a 2.73 goals-against average and .914 save percentage in the opening round.

The schedule for the second round of the OHL playoffs was released on Monday.

The Colts-Frontenacs series begins Wednesday night at the Barrie Molson Centre, followed by Game 2 at the BMC on Friday. The series heads to Kingston for Games 3 and 4 on Sunday and Tuesday, April 10.

If necessary, Game 5 will be played Thursday, April 12 at the BMC, with Game 6 in Kingston on Friday, April 13 and Game 7 on Monday, April 16 in Barrie.

The Colts lost three of four regular-season meetings against the Frontenacs this year, but Ford doesn’t put much stock in those results.

“At this point, I think the regular season is kind of thrown out the window,” he said. “We’re on a pretty good run right now (dating back to the end of the regular season) and the vibe that I’m getting is they're willing to do whatever they can to go as far as possible.

"They don’t want this to end next week.”

Offensively, Barrie’s Aaron Luchuk led the way in the first round with 12 points (3G, 9A), followed by Dmitry Sokolov with 10 (5G, 5A), not to mention dynamic Russian rookie Andrei Svechnikov, who scored twice and added three assists despite playing in only two games.

By acquiring Luchuk from Windsor in December and Sokolov from Sudbury at the deadline -- both of whom finished the season with 50 goals -- the Colts added plenty of firepower for their post-season push.

While Ford called Sokolov “one of the most dangerous players in our division,” Luchuk’s game revolves more around play-making but with a finishing touch.

“You’re bringing in a player who’s won a Memorial Cup, he’s 20 years old and has played four years in the league and he’s very well respected,” Ford said of Luchuk. “We’re getting a lot of character there and a player who wants to win and will help this team succeed.”

And whether Svechnikov (selected first overall by Barrie in the CHL Import Draft after an abysmal 2016-17 season) has been in the lineup or not, the Colts can throw a variety of line combinations at the opposition.

“The players know what they have to do regardless of who’s in the lineup,” Ford said. “I don’t think there’s a different approach in the players’ mindset.”

Svechnikov finished the regular season with 40 goals and 32 assists in 44 games, but when he got back into the lineup, it showed.

“The team was feeling better about themselves when they got arguably one of the best players in the league back in Svechnikov, who’d already missed the first four games (of the Mississauga series),” Ford said.

The Colts have plenty of other weapons in their arsenal, including local product Lucas Chiodo, who had 30 goals and 49 assists in a full 68-game schedule. Rounding out the forward lines are the likes of Zach Magwood and Jason Willms, both of whom flirted with 30 goals and 60 points this year.

Such depth has allowed head coach Dale Hawerchuk to come at teams in waves with his line combinations.

That was evident in the first round, as the Colts dispatched Mississauga, with a lineup that included Michael McLeod and Owen Tippett, in a tough six-game battle.

The Colts GM said that first-round series helped to get his team battle-ready.

“That series was a real good test for us,” Ford said. “Mississauga was one of the better teams on our side (Eastern Conference), a bit of a sleeping giant-type team, so we knew they were going to be difficult to battle against.

"Getting that first round, hopefully we can gain some momentum into this next series and go from there.”

After splitting the first two home games of the Steelheads series at the BMC, the Colts went into the Hershey Centre and fell 2-1 in Game 3.

Then Barrie defenceman Tyler Tucker scored in overtime to win Game 4, which Ford called the “key” moment in the series.

With the Game 4 victory, the Colts headed back home with the series knotted at 2-2 instead of being down 3-1 and the possibility of facing elimination.

“We had a best-of-three series with home ice and with the best player in the league back, it just gave the players a ton of confidence,” he said.

Following a 5-2 win in Game 5 at home Saturday, the Colts put a bow on the series with a decisive 8-2 road victory Sunday afternoon.

In Game 6, the Steelheads jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the three-minute mark of the second period.

But it was all Colts from there.

Svechnikov had two goals and three assists, while Sokolov and Magwood each had a pair of goals. Luchuk had a goal and three helpers, while Barrie goalie Leo Lazarev turned aside 40 of 42 shots he faced as the Colts won their first playoff series since sweeping North Bay in the 2015-16 conference semifinals.

Game time on Wednesday at the BMC is 7:30 p.m.


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Raymond Bowe

About the Author: Raymond Bowe

Raymond is an award-winning journalist who has been reporting from Simcoe County since 2000
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