It's very frustrating & disappointing how this season is gonna end. Whether they hold on to 7th or 8th or if they miss they underperformed pretty badly for at least half the season. The 2-18 stretch at least they had some excuses with the long road trip because of U17s, losing Fischer Di Iorio, Edwards, Young, Kostuch etc. There is 0 excuses for these last 2.5-3 weeks.
They set themselves up at the end of JAN to have a real chance at getting 5th. They even put it on Erie to start FEB which got us all buzzing (no pun intended lol) about how they were playing. I never once this yr thought this team would win a playoff series, but getting to 5th gave us a real shot of having a tight, competitive series.
Even if they came 6th playing the way they were playing over that stretch I thought hey maybe they push a series with KIT to 6 or a somewhat tight 5 which will be great experience for all our U17s. Skip ahead to the end of the month & this is the worst team in the OHL right now.
I honestly never even entertained the idea of this team not being a playoff team with how far back OS&GUE were most of the year until recently. Sarnia has been a joke of a franchise, but usually they make the playoffs the years they should. They usually don't outright underperform an entire season & miss.
I frankly don't even want them to make it anymore. London will embarrass them. Windsor will score 30 goals in 4 games. Both will be sweeps or a gentleman's sweep in 5. The young guys wont learn anything from complete drubbings. Rather roll the dice in the lottery & hope for another top 2 pick & start building a stacked U17 group led by Di Iorio, Edwards & whoever they'd pick.