The stars — Erie’s Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome, Oshawa’s Josh Brown — might be helping to sell out Oshawa’s GM Centre, but it is the role players that have staked the Generals to a two-game lead in the Ontario Hockey League final.

The Generals used their strong checking game to bottle up the Erie Otters for a second straight night, beating the visitors 5-1 on Saturday. Players like Dakota Mermis, Chris Carlisle and Bradley Latour took command of the ice and the momentum from McDavid and company.

It wasn’t that easy for the Generals though; they took four straight penalties over the final two periods, and the outcome would almost certainly have been different had it not been for goalie Ken Appleby, who made at least three game-saving stops while short-handed — and several more that left the Otters frustrated — before being named the game’s first star.

“Kenny made five or six spectacular saves that kept us in it,” Generals coach D.J. Smith said.

“Devyn Williams (Otters’ goalie) did that too. Kenny is definitely taking it to another level … he deserves all the credit he’s getting.”

After those penalty kills, the Generals were rewarded in the final seven minutes of play, getting goals from Anthony Cirrelli, Tobias Lindberg, Cole Cassels, and Matt Mistele, with his second of the game.

That gave plenty to cheer about for the second straight sellout crowd, which included Islanders captain and former General John Tavares, and former Leaf Brian Marchment, whose son, Mason, and nephew, Jason, both play for Erie.

“They did everything they could to get a lead in the third period but we held on,” Mistele said. “Our goalie made some big stops and we fed off the crowd after that.”

Smith stressed that it will be difficult to reproduce the results of the first two games when the series moves to Erie for the next two games, beginning Monday night.

As for McDavid, he was held without a point. The consensus No. 1 pick in June’s NHL draft, McDavid has shown flashes of his brilliance, but in the face of dogged checking from the Generals, he has just an assist to show from the first two games.

That wasn’t supposed to be the script for this final. McDavid had been averaging what is believed to be a record 2.8 points per game (42 points in 15 games). He remains nine points away from setting a new OHL record for playoff points.

“We played a good game for 50 minutes, and we probably should have won,” said McDavid, who was held without a point for the first time in the playoffs, and only for the third time this.

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“But we blew it in the end. We’ve got to be better overall … we did some good things but we didn’t get it done.”

With both McDavid and Dylan Strome held goal less in the first two games, the Otters have now lost consecutive games for the first time in these OHL playoffs.

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