The second round of the ODBHL playoffs has left many fans exhausted from sitting on the edge of their seats holding onto hope that their favourite team will prevail. With so much on the line in this playoff season, both best of seven series extended right until game 7 keeping folks in suspense until the very end of the round.
In the Lemieux conference we saw defending conference champion South Esk Scotsmen get ousted by the up and coming Oromocto Senators. This 7 game series featured two of the league's young elite goaltenders in Askarov and Knight and neither one seemed to want to give an inch. Every game was a 2 goal differential where we saw the offence in Oromocto driven by Oliver Wahlstrom and veteran Auston Matthews who now sit first and second respectively in playoff scoring. The Sou saw Kirby Dach and Elias Pettersson pepper Spencer Knight with rubber keeping the Scotsman in this series through 7. These teams fought it out but there is a little more heartbreak today in the metropolis of South Esk this morning though after seeing a 3 game advantage in the series slip away a game at a time.
In The Gretzky Conference things went a little different. There it was seeing the Barbarian Trophy Saint John Kings finding themselves down 3-1 fighting to dig their way out of a hole. Early in this series Liam Foudy found himself victim to a Mitch Marner boarding call sidelining him 2 games and giving a real advantage to the Dorchester Devils. After 6 games the Kings found that they pulled themselves even with the Devils until in game 7, Liam Foudy once again fell to injury. This time the brick wall known as Ilya Samsonov managed to stand tall and shut out the wavering Kings, leading his team to a 3 goal victory and clinching the best of 7 series 4 games to 3.
This leaves the ODBHL with 2 teams roaring to go, both working through the mid/late stages of rebuild backstopped by incredible goaltenders. This finals should be very entertaining to fans around the league with GM Trent Gallant striving to win a first title in this rendition of the ODBHL while GM Alex Shumannis coming off a David versus Goliath series where his Devils humbled Saint John
Irwin P Freeley
Telegraph Journal
5/13/2025 - 386 words
