Jonathon Brodie - Recorder & Times

Brockville Braves head coach Colin Birkas joked about what section his team was going to be put in for their next article.

"I assume you're here from the sports and not the obits," he quipped in complete deadpan. "We're not dead."

The latter statement was no joke with his team preparing to go up against the No. 3 Ottawa Jr. Senators in the opening round of the CCHL playoffs. Game 1 will be held on the road Wednesday.

Birkas knows the category his team is being put in going into the quarter-final - underdogs.

With Brockville losing all six of their meetings against Ottawa this season it's a role the Braves are choosing to embrace.

Birkas has been the type of coach all season to look at the glass being half full.

Ottawa might be the only team Brockville didn't beat this season, but they're also a team the Braves held a lead over in most of their contests, pointed out the coach.

In fact, the Braves were ahead of the Senators at least once in five of the six games they played.

In total Brockville had led Ottawa for 1 hour, 56 minutes and 6 seconds in their games this season, while the Senators have been on top of the Braves on the scoreboard for 59 minutes and 58 seconds.

"We identified some stuff they were doing to us late in games differently that stressed us out," Birkas said. "The goal is to eliminate those situations, but we're a better more resilient team now then the last time we saw them (on Feb. 17 in a 5-4 shootout loss)."

Despite going 0-6 against Ottawa, Birkas thinks his team could have finished with a 4-1 record had a few things gone their way. He excludes the first game they played against each other from his own unofficial record, claiming the Sens had plainly, "kicked our ass," in the that matchup back on Oct. 5 in a 5-4 loss - a game Brockville held the lead three different times in.

The Braves had a relatively mediocre season, finishing sixth overall and were just one point shy from squeezing into fifth place. Birkas, though, points to the way his team played in the final 15 games on the schedule with a 9-4-1-1 record and, maybe more importantly, the way they did it with key players dealing with injuries throughout the stretch that forced them to rest proven point getters.

A similar scenario happened earlier in the year with Brockville banged up and the team was lucky to come out with a .500 record.

Out of necessity, the Braves recent stretch with the injury bug forced a plethora of players to step up. Colin Tonge replaced the scoring hole left by Corey Caruso and Devin Moore, who are both expected to play Wednesday. Jack Gill and Derek Bureau added a physical edge. Matt Halle, 17, filled out the ranks and created a deeper roster.

"I don't think anyone dealt with injuries to the magnitude that we did down the stretch and somehow with our supporting cast we had a .650 to .700 (.667 to be exact) winning percentage down the stretch, so that's a positive," Birkas said.

The Braves will host Game 2 on Friday. Puck drop will be 7:30 p.m.

Original Article at Recorder.ca