Ottawa 67's coach André Tourigny was asked what he needs to do to beat the Guelph Storm.
"Do you want me to explain to George what I think about his team?" said Tourigny, half-joking. "He doesn't need me. He's really good by himself."
The 67's and Storm face off Thursday night in Game 1 of the best-of-seven OHL final.
The two teams split their two regular season games, Guelph winning 8-4 at the Sleeman Centre and Ottawa winning 4-3 in overtime in Ottawa.
But that last game was Feb. 1 and both teams have come a long way since then.
"What I can tell you is that they have really good defencemen, they have elite players who were part of the World Juniors for different countries. We know they're a really good team," Tourigny said.
"You don't come back against good teams like London and Saginaw just because you're aiming there. It's because you're a really good team and we respect them a tonne."
Game 2 of the series goes Saturday afternoon in Ottawa before switching back to Guelph for games on Monday and Wednesday.
The two teams have taken two decidedly different paths to get here.
Guelph has gone to seven games in each of its last two playoff series, battling back from 3-0 and 3-1 deficits to earn a spot in the final. They've played 18 games in 40 days.
The 67's have been rolling along, having not yet lost a playoff game and outscoring the opposition by a combined 67-29 along the way.
Their power play has been clicking at an incredible 39 per cent, compared to Guelph's 24 per cent.
But OHL coach of the year André Tourigny said they didn't have it easy in their conference final against Oshawa.
"The 4-0 series is not a reflection of what happened on the ice during that series," Tourigny said. "We were down by two goals at the beginning of the third period in the first game and in the last game they had a the lead 1-0 with 40 seconds to go. They were a really tough opponenent and we'll have to play our 'A' game to prevail."
Storm coach George Burnett said as tough as the playoffs have been on his team, they've also been a learning experience.
"Every experience we've had we've learned from," said Burnett, whose team travelled to Ottawa on Wednesday.
"But I think it would be a huge mistake to spot the Ottawa 67's three games and think you could work your way back into it.
"I know André well enough and his team is elite in every way."
Burnett said getting secondary scoring is important and he started to see that in the Saginaw series.
"We want to bring that same energy we had for those last three games (against Saginaw)," said Storm captain Isaac Ratcliffe.
