The Oshawa Generals moved into the next round of the 2015 Memorial Cup by sweeping the round robin portion. The Ontario Hockey League champions defeated the Western Hockey League champion, Kelowna Rockets 2 to 1 on May 26 to run the table in the round robin round.
In a game where the Colisee Pepsi paid tribute to native son Patrick Roy, the game was fittingly low-scoring. All of the game’s goals came in the second period. The game was scoreless until 4:15 of the second frame when Cole Cassels notched his first goal of the tournament when he sniped one from the top of the right faceoff circle. Dakota Mermis and team scoring leader, Michael Dal Colle got the assists. Oshawa then went up by two towards the end of the period at 17:16 when Tobias Lindberg connected from deep in the slot from Sam Harding and Anthony Cirelli.
The Generals remained up by two for less than a minute. At 18:11 of the second, Kelowna closed the gap when Gage Quinney slammed one home from the side of Oshawa goaltender Ken Appleby’s crease. The assists went to Tyson Baillie and Madison Bowey. A tense third period passed and the Oshawa Generals would advance directly into the Memorial Cup Final on May 31 against the winner of the semifinal between the Quebec Remparts and the Kelowna Rockets (the Remparts had defeated Rimouski Oceanic in the tiebreaker on May 28 to advance to the semifinal). The semifinal will be played on May 29.
Congratulations to the Oshawa Generals for their fantastic accomplishment. They have been winning the close games that they needed to in order to get to the championship round. Should the Generals win the Memorial Cup, it will be well earned and will be a great moment in the history of a club that has won the trophy on four previous occasions (1939, 1940, 1944 and, most recently, in 1990).
Meanwhile, on the home front, the Devils signed another prospect, one who has experience in a major professional league. Sergey Kalinin was signed to an entry level contract by the Devils, General Manager Ray Shero announced on May 29. As per club policy, no terms of the deal were announced.
Kalinin is a 6 foot 3 inch, 190 pound 24 year-old native of Omsk, Russia and played five seasons with Avangard Omsk of the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia. The forward played 58 games for Omsk this past season, scoring 12 goals, 13 assists for 25 points and had 49 penalty minutes. He served as Omsk’s captain in 2014-15. He made his KHL debut in 2009-10 after parts of two years with Omskie Yastreby of the Minor Hockey League (a league that is roughly equivalent to the CHL in North America). Over 213 games played in the KHL, he had 31 goals, 38 assists and 69 points to go along with 113 penalty minutes. In the playoffs, he played 39 games and had three goals and two assists for five points and twelve penalty minutes.
In international play, he has played for Team Russia at the 2011 World Junior Championships, winning a gold medal and the 2014 World Championships, also winning gold.