It took until the final day of the regular season to see who the Nipissing Lakers women's hockey team was going to face in Round 1 of the 2015-16 OUA playoffs.

And it ended up being the Queen's Gaels.

The teams will kick the series off Wednesday in North Bay, playing a matinee, at 1 p.m. before heading to Queens for Game 2 and possibly Game 3 on the weekend.

The Lakers enter the playoffs with a 4-0-2 record, including a win over the Gaels on Feb. 5.

Overall in 2016, the Lakers went 6-2-3 to close out their third season, which led them to their highest finish in their short history.

Technically, Nipissing enters the playoffs as the underdog, coming in as the fifth seed, facing the fourth seeded Gaels, but they are far from intimidated.

In their two meetings, the Lakers went 1-0-1 versus Queens, losing in overtime in Kingston in their first meeting in Oct. 24, before bouncing back with a 3-2 victory on home ice in early February.

Lakers forward Jade Gauthier had three points in two meetings with the Gaels, scoring twice and adding an assist.

Both her goals came in the victory at home.

Brooklyn Irwin had two goals as well, while Sam Strassburger had a goal and an assist in the pair of games.

Alexane Papineau, Zosia Davis and Stacey Henshaw also found the scoresheet against Queens.

Jackie Rochefort played both games for Nipissing, making a total of 51 saves on 56 shots, good for a .910 save percentage against the Lakers' first round opponent.

Throughout the season, the Lakers relied on balance to find their success, both in goal, on the blueline and up front.

Second-year forward Kaley Tienhaara led the team with 14 points, while four players had 10 points or more.

In terms of scoring, 17 players had goals – two had six tallies, four had five one had four and three had three – proving the team can find offence from every line.

The offence wasn't just from the forwards, either.

Kayla Carter led the Lakers defenders with five goals, Henshaw had four and Davis led the Nipissing blueliners with eight points.

All of that is impressive, but maybe the team's biggest strength comes in goal, where Rochefort had a MVP-type season.

She finished with a 1.67 goals against average and a .940 save percentage, along with five shutouts.

While Rochefort was the busiest of the three goalies, Sabrina Picard and Micaela Stutzki proved to be very capable when called upon, both recording victories this season.

Nipissing finished the season with a plus-8 ranking in terms of goals for and against, ranking seventh in the league in goals and fifth in goals against.

The countdown is now on and Game 1 less than 72 hours away.

 

FEBRUARY
Wed. 24	Queen's	OUA Game 1 - Memorial Gardens		1 PM
Fri. 26	at Queen's	OUA Game 2 - Kingston Memorial Centre		7:30 PM
Sat. 27	at Queen's	OUA Game 3 - Kingston Memorial Centre *if necessary		7:30 PM