Sam O’Reilly is making history with the Kitchener Rangers this season.
The Tampa Bay Lightning prospect is the first player in Ontario Hockey League history to appear in four straight championship series. He can become the second player since 1980 to win three consecutive titles and the first since Scott Timmins won with the Rangers in 2008 and then back-to-back with the Windsor Spitfires in 2009 and 2010.
“That’s been the goal all year,” O’Reilly told TSN prior to the start of the OHL Championship Series. “It’s my goal every season. So as fortunate as we are to be here now, we got to dig deep and play how we’ve been playing all year. Stick to the system and let our hard players take over.”
O’Reilly was drafted 37th overall by the London Knights in 2022 and played his first three seasons with one of the most dominant OHL teams in recent history in London. The Knights went to three straight finals from 2023 to 2025, winning back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025.
London topped off their run at last year’s Memorial Cup, defeating the Medicine Hat Tigers to win the third national title in franchise history.
Coming into the 2025-26 campaign, O’Reilly returned to a Knights team that had a very different look. Most of the core players from the championship runs had graduated to play at the professional level, leaving 12 returning players from last year’s championship squad.
O’Reilly was named the 54th captain in team history to start the year, and he hoped to help instill a winning pedigree into the new blood joining London.
“It was a privilege to wear the ‘C’ for the time that I did,” said O’Reilly. “I learned from some amazing captains in my time in London like Denver Barkey, George Diaco, Sean McGurn, and all those older guys. They kind of helped me embrace the role and I keep trying to help my younger guys out as I get older.”
The 6-foot-1 centre continued to dominate the OHL this year, recording 12 goals and 28 points in 28 games with the Knights before he left to join Team Canada at the World Juniors.
With the Knights’ championship window closed and the team looking to recoup assets they’ve traded over the past three seasons in order to contend, the Knights traded O’Reilly and defenceman Jared Woolley to the Rangers in exchange for 10 draft picks prior to the CHL trade deadline in January.
The move to Kitchener was awkward at first, joining one of London’s primary rivals in the Western Conference midway through the year. However, O’Reilly found his footing and stepped up his play for the stretch run.
“It was obviously kind of weird coming here,” said O’Reilly. “It’s not something a lot of guys do, but I got to come with my best buddy in Woolley. All the great things we heard about Kitchener made it a lot easier.
“I think it was pretty easy [to adjust to the new system]. I’d like to say with all the older teams I was on in London helped me learn what it took [to adjust]. The guys did a great job bringing us in, and I’ve just been trying to be a guy that others can come up to and talk to and be a good teammate.”
O’Reilly registered 17 goals and 43 points in the final 28 games of the regular season, helping the Rangers to the second-best record in the OHL at 47-14-7 and the No. 1 seed in the West.
His play with both London and Kitchener was recognized by winning this season’s Red Tilson Trophy as the league’s most outstanding player.
After four seasons in the OHL, O’Reilly said that winning the MVP signifies all the hard work and improvement that he’s made in his junior career.
“It’s really special and that’s something I’ll take pride in for the rest of my life,” said O’Reilly. “London holds such a special place in my heart, and there’s nothing I can do to give back to those guys and the amount that they’ve helped me over the years by helping me mature and become the player I want to be.
“So, they played a big role, and coming to Kitchener was obviously hard at first, but they made the change really, really easy. I’m really fortunate to have played for two such storied franchises.”
To get to the OHL final, the Rangers cruised past the Saginaw Spirit, Soo Greyhounds, and Spitfires in the first three rounds, only needing 14 games.
Now they’re up against a battle-tested Barrie Colts team that had to rally from a 3-1 series deficit to the OHL regular season champion Brantford Bulldogs in the Eastern Conference Final in order to reach this point.
The Colts feature one of the league’s premier defencemen in Kashawn Aitcheson, who is known for his physical presence as well as a scoring touch. The New York Islanders prospect led all OHL defencemen with 28 goals and 70 points in the regular season to go along with 97 penalty minutes.
He added eight goals and 27 points in the playoffs to lead his team to the final.
Barrie also features Utah Mammoth prospect Cole Beaudoin, who leads the OHL playoffs in scoring with 10 goals and 29 points in 15 games. However, the 6-foot-2 centre missed the teams’ past five playoff games with an undisclosed injury.
“This is kind of two bigger, older teams going up against each other, so it’s a good battle,” said O’Reilly. They got a lot of good players over there, so we got to be ready for it. They come hard, so it’s all about preparation.”
The Rangers picked up a 5-2 victory to open the final on Wednesday and then took a stranglehold of the series with two overtime victories in Games 2 and 3. O’Reilly has two goals and five points in the first three games of the matchup.
As one of the main scoring threats on Kitchener, O’Reilly is a focus of Barrie’s physical defence. Entering Game 4, O’Reilly is tied for second in playoff scoring with Aitcheson and Colts forward Emil Hemming, recording 16 goals and 27 points in 17 games.
“All playoffs long I think that’s what it has been, and we should be ready for it,” said O’Reilly of the physicality. “That’s how the playoffs go. Everybody goes as hard as they can so, especially now being in the finals, you know that they’re going to come with a big push.
“I just got to be ready for it and keep playing my game.”
The 2025-26 campaign has been a season of change for O’Reilly. Prior to his trade from London to Kitchner at the major junior level, his NHL rights were on the move last off-season.
Originally drafted 32nd overall by the Edmonton Oilers in 2024, his rights were traded to the Lightning in exchange for 2025 Hobey Baker Award winner Isaac Howard.
While O’Reilly wanted to stay with the Oilers, he found that the Lightning organization is a good spot for him to be.
In his second NHL training camp, he took the time to absorb some knowledge from a veteran team that has made the playoffs 12 of the last 13 seasons, winning two Stanley Cups in the process.
Despite the being part of a new organization, O’Reilly says the message given to him hasn’t changed.
“It was kind of the same thing,” said O’Reilly. “Trying to stick to my game and just work at getting more powerful, stronger, and work on my skating.”
The Toronto native is currently focused on trying to claim a J. Ross Robertson Cup and take the Rangers to the Memorial Cup in Kelowna at the end of May. However, the fact remains that he’ll likely be graduating from junior hockey this season and moving onto the pros.
While he’d obviously want to play with the Lightning next season, he trusts the management will do what’s best for him and the organization – which could mean taking time to develop with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch.
“Obviously, the NHL is where you want to play, but I think whatever they think is best for me is where I’ll be playing,” said O’Reilly. “It’s not my decision. I think all I can do is go in there, work hard and learn from those guys over there. Wherever I am will be the best thing for me.”
