After rolling through their respective first-round playoff series, the Ottawa 67\u2019s and Barrie Colts figure to be in a much more gruelling battle when the OHL post-season resumes later this week.<\/p>\n
The 67\u2019s and Colts square off in what has the potential to be a very compelling Eastern Conference semifinal, with Barrie having home-ice advantage by virtue of winning the Central Division.<\/p>\n
The Colts will host Games 1 and 2 on Thursday and Saturday, before the series shifts to Ottawa\u2019s TD Place for Game 3 (Tuesday, April 14) and Game 4 (Thursday, April 16).<\/p>\n
If necessary, Game 5 is scheduled for April 18 in Barrie, Game 6 on April 19 in Ottawa and Game 7 on April 21 in Barrie.<\/p>\n
The 67\u2019s actually finished with one more point than the Colts, but settled for second in their division behind the OHL-best Brantford Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
The Colts polished off the Niagara IceDogs in five games in the first round, while the 67\u2019s swept the overmatched Kingston Frontenacs in a 613-rivalry series.<\/p>\n
On paper, Barrie probably has the edge against Ottawa. The Colts feature three first-round NHL picks \u2014 dangerous defenceman Kashawn Aitcheson (New York Islanders), and forwards Cole Beaudoin (Utah Mammoth) and Emil Hemming (Dallas Stars).<\/p>\n
Beaudoin, a Kanata native, and Aitcheson both played for Canada at this year\u2019s World Junior Championship.<\/p>\n
The Colts also are getting good production from former 67 Brad Gardiner (a Dallas Stars third-round pick), who had 10 points in the first round.<\/p>\n
But the 67\u2019s have been winning all season without as many high-profile players as other contenders. They\u2019re backed by rookie netminder Ryder Fetterolf, who had a 2.50 goals-against average in the first round against the Frontenacs.<\/p>\n
Cooper Foster led a balanced attack with six points in the first round.<\/p>\n
This marks the first playoff series between the teams since the 67\u2019s won a seven-game conference semifinal in 2012. The 67\u2019s went on to lose to Niagara in the conference final that year.<\/p>\n
The Colts are trying to reach the Eastern Conference final for the second year in a row. The Oshawa Generals swept them in last year\u2019s bid to reach the league championship.<\/p>\n
Former assistant Dylan Smoskowitz took over as Barrie\u2019s coach this season after Marty Williamson relinquished his coaching role to focus on leading hockey operations as vice-president and general manager.<\/p>\n
Coach Dave Cameron\u2019s 67\u2019s, meanwhile, have made a huge jump this year after missing the playoffs last season.<\/p>\n
Brantford battles the North Bay Battalion in the other East semifinal. The Battalion beat the Peterborough Petes in double overtime in Game 6 on Saturday to complete the lone first-round upset in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After rolling through their respective first-round playoff series, the Ottawa 67\u2019s and Barrie Colts figure to be in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[56815,49,48,757,23934,750,20739,12550,765],"class_list":{"0":"post-584674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa","8":"tag-barrie-colts","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-dallas-stars","12":"tag-eastern-conference","13":"tag-new-york-islanders","14":"tag-ottawa","15":"tag-the-colts","16":"tag-utah-mammoth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}