Silvertips unable to avoid “Curse of the
Drop”
The Kitchener Rangers star centre, who turned 20 in late March, had arguably one of the most memorable nights of his major junior career on Sunday in the championship game of the Memorial Cup tournament. In that contest, O’Reilly had one goal and three assists to power the OHL champion Rangers past the WHL champion Everett Silvertips 6-2 before a sellout crowd of 6,007 spectators at Prospera Place in Kelowna, B.C. He also won 19-of-36 draws in the faceoff circle.
With the win, the Rangers captured the Memorial Cup to become CHL champions for the third time in team history. The Rangers previously won major junior hockey’s biggest prize in 1982 and 2003.
O’Reilly was awarded the Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy as the MVP of the Memorial Cup tournament. He recorded three goals, five assists and a plus-five rating in the plus-minus department as the Rangers posted a perfect 4-0 record at the tournament.
The Toronto product is very familiar with the Memorial Cup tournament. In the previous two years, O’Reilly played in the Memorial Cup as a member of the London Knights, when they won OHL titles in 2024 and 2025. The Knights fell in the Memorial Cup championship game in 2024 and won the event’s title game in 2025.
O’Reilly, who has a signed NHL entry-level contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning, was acquired by the Rangers along with defenceman Jared Woolley, who turned 20 in late February, in a blockbuster trade back on January 7. The Rangers sent defenceman Jacob Xu, who turned 18 in March, and 10 picks scattered across four different OHL Priority Selection Drafts.
Woolley would net the Memorial Cup winning goal for the Rangers on Sunday. He was also with the Knights when they fell in the Memorial Cup title game in 2024 before winning the Memorial Cup championship contest in 2025.
The Silvertips were playing in their first Memorial Cup tournament since first hitting the ice in the 2003-04 campaign. They finished this year’s event with a 3-2 mark.
Everett was also the latest WHL champion that was trying to end that circuit’s drought when it came to winning the Memorial Cup. The last WHL club to win the Memorial Cup was the Edmonton Oil Kings in 2014. Current Silvertips head coach Steve Hamilton was an associate coach with the Oil Kings in 2014.
In 2014, Edmonton captured the WHL and CHL titles that year playing to honour the memory of former player Kristians Pelss, who was with the Oil Kings 2012 WHL championship team and passed away in June of 2013 due to a recreational diving accident. In the championship game of the 2014 Memorial Cup tournament played in London, Ont., on May 25 of that year, the WHL champion Oil Kings downed the OHL champion Guelph Storm 6-3.
The WHL is currently in its longest drought as a league when it comes to winning the Memorial Cup.
Before the Oil Kings triumph in 2014, the previous Memorial Cup championship win by a WHL club came in 2008 by the Spokane Chiefs. For the superstitious types, the “Curse of the Drop” started for WHL squads at that Memorial Cup.
That event took place on May 25, 2008 after the WHL champion Chiefs downed the host Rangers in Kitchener 4-1 in the Memorial Cup tournament’s championship game. After receiving the trophy, Chiefs captain Chris Bruton had the Memorial Cup fall apart in his hands as he attempted to give it to veteran defenceman Trevor Glass.
Since that moment, only the Oil Kings were able to get past the “Curse of the Drop” in playing to win WHL and CHL titles in honour of the memory of a recent teammate in Pelss.
In Sunday’s Memorial Cup title clash, the Silvertips were in it for the first two periods. They were controlling play during the first five minutes of the first period only for the Rangers to break on to the scoreboard first.
At the 5:47 mark of the first, Rangers sophomore defenceman Alexander Bilecki put a point shot on goal that deflected off Rangers veteran right-winger Luke Ellinas into the Everett net to give the OHL champs a 1-0 lead.
Everett responded just 28 seconds later. Silvertips star defenceman Landon DuPont, who turned 17 on Thursday, fired a shot from the right of the Kitchener net that rebounded off the pads of Rangers import rookie netminder Christian Kirsch to Silvertips star import left-winger Matias Vanhanen in front of the Kitchener goal. Vanhanen buried the rebound to even the score at 1-1.
With 6:45 remaining in the first period, O’Reilly had the puck at the right point in the Everett zone and made a slick backhand pass that sprung star 20-year-old left-winger Dylan Edwards on a breakaway to the Everett net. Edwards went forehand to backhand and put home a backhand shot to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead on their fourth shot on goal of the contest. The Silvertips were outshooting the Rangers 14-4 at that point in the game.
Just 88 seconds into the second, Silvertips standout centre Zackary Shantz appeared to have netted another equalizer scoring off a net scramble around the Kitchener zone. The officials went to a video review and would disallow the tally ruling Shantz batted the puck with his arm into the net.
The Rangers started to slowly assert control of the contest through the second period. With 4:34 remaining in the second, Rangers right-winger Haeden Ellis made a backhanded pass from the right faceoff dot in the Everett zone across the front of the Everett net to Woolley. Woolley fired home a shot to the top right corner of the Everett net to push the Rangers lead out to 3-1.
At the tail end of the second period, the Silvertips ran into penalty troubles. First, Ruedig took a holding minor with about 55 seconds remaining in the frame. In the dying seconds of the stanza while working on a power play, O’Reilly tried to score on an individual effort and ended up face down on the ice in the left corner of the Everett zone. Shantz cross checked O’Reilly in the back and was given a cross checking minor with about two seconds remaining in the frame.
Kitchener would use those power play chances to deliver the knockout blow early in the third. First while working on a two-man advantage, O’Reilly made a fake pass at the top of the left faceoff circle before dishing the puck low to the left side of the Everett net to Rangers star 20-year-old right-winger Jack Pridham. Pridham tucked home a power-play goal just 26 seconds into the frame to make the Rangers advantage stand at 4-1.
Just 37 seconds later working on a one-man advantage, Pridham one-time a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle in the Everett zone that rebounded to O’Reilly in close at the left side of the Everett net. O’Reilly potted home the rebound to push the Rangers lead to 5-1.
Silvertips star right-winger Carter Bear scored at the 2:59 mark of the third to trim Kitchener’s lead to 5-2. The Rangers really clamped things down defensively from that point.
Rangers star left-winger Christian Humphreys scored a short-handed goal into an empty net with 1:37 remaining in the third to round out the 6-2 final score in favour of the Rangers.
Kirsch stopped 30 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Rangers. He went the distance in goal for Kitchener at the Memorial Cup stopping 120-of-126 shots for a .952 save percentage, while picking up one shutout. Anders Miller turned away 26-of-31 shots to take the setback in net for the Silvertips.
Pridham had a pair of assists to go with his goal, while Ellis finished with two helpers for Kitchener. DuPont had assists on both Everett tallies.
The Rangers were 2-for-3 on the power play, while the Silvertips failed to score on three opportunities with the man advantage.
The Silvertips topped the WHL regular season standings, the Western Conference and the U.S. Division with a 57-8-2-1 record and were rated first in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings. Everett’s 57 wins and 117 standings points are team records. The Silvertips motored through the WHL Playoffs posting an impressive 16-2 mark to capture their first league title in team history.
Everett entered the Memorial Cup without star defenceman and captain Tarin Smith due to an upper body injury that has kept him out of the lineup for a lengthy stretch. Smith was injured in Game 4 of a 6-3 victory over the Winterhawks in Portland as Everett closed out the first round series in the WHL Playoffs between the two clubs at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. He hasn’t played since that contest.
The Rangers topped the OHL’s Western Conference and finished second in the OHL’s regular season standings with a 47-14-5-2 mark. Kitchener motored through the OHL Playoffs posting an impressive 16-2 record to win their first league title since the 2007-08 campaign. The Rangers were rated seventh in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings.
The Silvertips and Rangers met in a preliminary round contest on Monday, where the Rangers posted a solid 6-2 victory. The Silvertips held a 42-28 edge in shots on goal in that encounter.
Ultimately, the Rangers were the class of the 2026 Memorial Cup tournament outscoring their foes 20-6 in posting a 4-0 mark. Their push for winning a CHL title was greatly assisted by O’Reilly and Woolley, who both helped the Knights win OHL and Memorial Cup titles a year ago.
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