What you need to know about OHL, QMJHL, WHL finals

The six teams remaining in the race for the Memorial Cup feature a little bit of everything.

Storied franchises, top NHL Draft prospects, older star players, marquee coaches — this six-pack has it all.

All the while, the landscape could shift dramatically next season when CHL players become eligible to play in the NCAA.

That’s a situation for another day, though.

Until then, the Rimouski Oceanic will host the 2025 Memorial Cup, which starts May 22. Because the Oceanic are in the QMJHL final, the team they will face — the Moncton Wildcats — also are assured of a berth in the Memorial Cup.

The winners of the OHL and WHL finals will round out the field.

Here’s a look at some of the big storylines in the three best-of-seven league finals:

ONTARIO HOCKEY LEAGUE

London Knights (No. 1 seed in Western Conference) vs. Oshawa Generals (No. 4 seed in Eastern Conference)

They meet again

This is a rematch of last year’s final, won in four convincing games by London.

You have to go all the way back to 1954 and ’55 when the Ontario league had the same two teams in consecutive finals — Toronto and St. Catharines.

The Knights — winners of five league titles since 2005 under brothers Dale and Mark Hunter, coach and GM, respectively — are a perfect 12-0 in this year’s playoffs and are on a 17-game OHL post-season win streak. London finished 12 points ahead of the next-best team this regular season.

The Knights did fall short in last year’s Memorial Cup final, losing to the host Saginaw Spirit.

The Generals, who lost last year’s coach Derek Laxdal to the Seattle Kraken’s AHL team in the off-season, finished fourth in a very tight Eastern Conference after firing coach Steve O’Rourke just 30 games into his first year on the job. Brad Malone, a former Edmonton Oilers player, took over and led the Gens to a pair of six-game series wins over the Mississauga Steelheads and top-seeded Brantford Bulldogs, and a four-game conference final sweep over the Barrie Colts.

The Knights will be considered clear favourites in this series, which starts Thursday in London, Ont. A win would make them the first team to defend its title since the Knights went back-to-back in 2012 and ’13.

Battle of Leafs prospects

After the Toronto Maple Leafs traded promising youngsters Nikita Grebenkin and Fraser Minten at the deadline to bolster this year’s roster, it left a pair of OHLers as their top prospects.

Knights forward Easton Cowan and Generals captain/defenceman Ben Danford are Toronto’s first-round picks the last two years.

Cowan was OHL MVP last season and is his team’s top scorer in this year’s playoffs.

Danford is a minute-eating blue-liner and figures to see plenty of time against the Knights’ top forwards.

Star power

Danford and Cowan are two of a whopping eight first-round picks in the series — each team has four.

Oshawa has forwards Calum Ritchie (traded to the New York Islanders after being a Colorado Avalanche first-rounder), Colby Barlow (Winnipeg Jets) and Beckett Sennecke (Anaheim Ducks).

The Knights counter with defencemen Sam Dickinson (San Jose Sharks) and Oliver Bonk (Philadelphia Flyers), and forward Sam O’Reilly (Oilers).

Offence on defence

The series features the top two defencemen in playoff scoring — Oshawa’s Luca Marrelli (31 points in 16 games, Columbus Blue Jackets prospect) and Dickinson (22 points in 12 games).

Dickinson was second among defencemen in the regular season behind Calgary Flames prospect and Saginaw star Zayne Parekh, while Marrelli was fourth.

WESTERN HOCKEY LEAGUE

Medicine Hat Tigers (No. 1 seed in Eastern Conference) vs. Spokane Chiefs (No. 3 seed in Western Conference)

Long road back

Both teams have waited quite some time to return to this stage.

The Chiefs are making their first WHL final appearance since 2008, when they went on to win the Memorial Cup. Spokane’s 12 playoff wins this season mark their first post-season victories since 2019.

The Tigers haven’t been in the WHL final since 2007, when they lost the Memorial Cup final to the host Vancouver Giants.

Medicine Hat has lost just three games in regulation since Jan. 4 and enter the final as the favourite.

The Tigers led the league in goals, while Spokane was second.

The series starts Friday in Medicine Hat, Alta.

The McKenna show

Tigers star Gavin McKenna is living up to very high expectations.

The projected top pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, McKenna, 17, is on a CHL single-season, modern-era record 53-game point streak.

The Whitehorse native has had two or more points in 11 of 13 playoff games.

All eyes will continue to be on McKenna, who was named WHL player of the year on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Tigers could get two stars back at some point in the series. Centre Cayden Lindstrom, picked fourth overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets last year, was a full participant at Tigers practice earlier this week, James Tubb of the Medicine Hat News reported. He hasn’t played a game this season while recovering from back surgery.

Forward Andrew Basha, a Calgary Flames second-round pick, was also on the ice at practice. He’s been out since November with an ankle injury.

Cristall shining

While McKenna is the biggest name in the junior ranks, the Chiefs have the top scorer in the playoffs and the regular season — Andrew Cristall.

The Washington Capitals’ second-round pick in 2023, Cristall had 132 points in 54 regular-season games and has another 37 points in 14 post-season games.

Cristall forms a dynamic duo with Seattle Kraken first-rounder and Canadian junior team player Berkly Catton.

Overager Oasiz Wiesblatt is the No. 2 scorer on the Tigers.

Coaching clash

The coaches will be familiar to NHL fans in a few Canadian cities.

Tigers coach Willie Desjardins is in his second stint with Medicine Hat after three years as head coach of the Vancouver Canucks and part of one season with the Los Angeles Kings. He also coached Canada’s 2018 Olympic team.

Chiefs coach Brad Lauer is in his first year in Spokane after a couple years as an assistant in the NHL with Winnipeg. He also has worked as an assistant for the Ottawa Senators, Anaheim Ducks and Tampa Bay Lightning, and won a WHL title as head coach of the Edmonton Oil Kings in 2022.

QUEBEC MARITIMES JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE

Moncton Wildcats (No. 1 overall seed) vs. Rimouski Oceanic (No. 2 overall seed)

Heavyweight bout

These teams have been on a collision course all season, easily the top two squads in the 18-team league.

The Wildcats won their final 15 games of the regular season to pull away from the pack, finishing 12 points ahead of Rimouski.

The teams split the two-game season series with each winning on the road.

The Wildcats finished No. 1 in goals for and goals against. They rotate Rudy Guimond and former Canadian junior goalie Matthis Rouseau in net. Guimond, a Detroit Red Wings prospect, is a perfect 23-0 in regular-season and playoff action this season.

The Wildcats have breezed through the playoffs, losing just one of 12 games.

The Oceanic barely survived Round 3, winning Game 7 Tuesday against the Shawinigan Cataractes in double overtime on a goal by Latvian star Eriks Mateiko.

The final starts Saturday in Moncton, N.B.

MacDougall keeps winning

The Wildcats made a huge hire this off-season, convincing wildly successful University of New Brunswick coach Gardiner MacDougall to leave the U Sports ranks.

With Gardiner’s son Taylor as GM, the MacDougall men have quickly transformed Moncton into the top team in the Q.

Don’t forget, Gardiner won a Memorial Cup in 2022 as interim coach with the Saint John Sea Dogs, taking over the host team for the national-championship tournament after the Sea Dogs bowed out in the first round of the QMJHL playoffs.

With national titles won in Fredericton (University of New Brunswick) and Saint John, MacDougall could complete a provincial hat trick with a Memorial Cup win this year.

Draft stock rising

Moncton’s Caleb Desnoyers is listed as a top-five pick in many 2025 NHL mock drafts.

He’s only helped himself in the playoffs.

The six-foot-two Wildcats centre leads the QMJHL in playoff scoring with 24 points in 13 games.

Host challenge

Because the Memorial Cup host team is guaranteed a berth in the tournament, it can sometimes be a challenge to be super motivated in league playoffs.

The Oceanic have done well to make it this far.

The 2005 London Knights are the last Memorial Cup host team to have won league and national titles in the same year.

The 2008 Kitchener Rangers are the last Memorial Cup host team to have won their league title.

Oceanic star forward Mathieu Cataford, the QMJHL MVP last season with Halifax, returned from a nearly one-month injury absence in Game 7 versus Shawinigan.

However, star defenceman Spencer Gill, a Philadelphia Flyers second-round pick, has been out the entire playoffs.

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