One Week Before the Real Season Begins!

Playing four games in six nights will give the last week of the OHL regular season a real playoff feel for the Oshawa Generals. The first of four begins tomorrow night when they travel to Kingston to play the make up game from the February 1, 2008 postponement and will end at home on Sunday against the Mississauga Majors. Sandwiched between these two seemingly easier contests is a two game home and home with the East Division and Eastern Conference leading Belleville Bulls.

Although Kingston has been eliminated from the playoffs, they have not been playing like a team getting ready for golf. They are on a two game winning streak and have won six of their last eight. Kingston has only won three of the seven meetings with Oshawa this year but those wins have come in the last four games played between the two teams. A similar trend can be seen with the Belleville Bulls as Oshawa's record against them this year is 3-3 but all three wins came early in the season. Belleville has won the past two matches against Oshawa. As for Mississauga, Oshawa is 2-1 against the Majors so far this season but Mississauga did get their lone win against the Generals last week.

Oshawa still has only 12 wins since the trade deadline and is on a four game losing streak, all coming in either overtime or the shootout. In fact, Oshawa has not won a game in overtime or later since they beat Peterborough 5-4 in a shootout on January 19. To take these stats too far, the Generals only won 4 of 10 games played in February and 1 of their 5 so far in March giving them only 5 wins in a five week period. They have struggled defensively in recent games as they had a 6-1 lead over Mississauga early in the second period of their game last Thursday and ended up losing that match 10-9 in a shootout.

This is a huge week for the Generals if they plan on making the trip to Kitchener this May. Kingston will play Oshawa tough, Mississauga will be trying to send a message as they could meet in the first round of the playoffs and Belleville thinks the OHL title goes through them this year and will also want to make a point. Conversely, if Oshawa can be successful this week, they will get the momentum they desperately need and could possibly ride that wave to the OHL title and a spot at the Memorial Cup. They do have one of, if not the most, potent offence in the OHL and if they can figure out how to stop giving up just as many goals as they score, they will be a real force.