The CHL Top 10 for Week 4 came out Wednesday with four OHL teams making the nod and another earning an honourable mention.
One team a number of OHL pundits have pegged to contend for a league title this season that was deservedly missing is the Mississauga Steelheads. When the rankings came out they were scuffling along at 2-4-0-0 with a miserable goal differential of minus-9.
But then a few hours later, Mississauga pasted Guelph 11-3, the most lopsided game of the young OHL season.
Of course, even with Nic Hague potting a hat trick from the blueline, Nathan Bastian registering five assists and six Steelheads finishing at plus-3 or better, this jackass stole the show.
But the game served notice to the rest of the Eastern Conference that Mississauga can be scary good. Now, Guelph is no great team—the Steelheads should be shellacking the Storm—and, actually, allowing them to put up 41 shots on goal is not a good sign. But potting nine even-strength goals sure is, and with four players who went in the top 81 picks of the NHL Draft in June and two more expected to go really high in 2017, this team should be able to score. They just haven’t much yet.
| TEAM | GP | Est.FC% | GD | GF% | SD | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | HD GD | MD GD | LD GD | PP% | PK% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mississauga Steelheads | 7 | 55.52 | 3 | 53.85 | 50 | 9.13 | 0.905 | 99.63 | 0 | -2 | 5 | 16.7 | 69 |
| Kitchener Rangers | 6 | 50.81 | 5 | 56.41 | 1 | 13.75 | 0.904 | 104.2 | -3 | 0 | 8 | 29 | 80.6 |
| Hamilton Bulldogs | 6 | 50 | 15 | 67.44 | 14 | 14.43 | 0.923 | 106.7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 14.8 | 85.7 |
| Windsor Spitfires | 8 | 48.66 | -3 | 44.83 | -13 | 6.29 | 0.921 | 98.35 | 2 | -4 | -1 | 34.2 | 91.4 |
| London Knights | 6 | 45.83 | 4 | 58.33 | -7 | 10.14 | 0.931 | 103.25 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 13.2 | 80 |
| Sarnia Sting | 8 | 43.92 | -4 | 45.65 | -27 | 9.86 | 0.896 | 99.44 | 5 | -1 | -8 | 21.6 | 79.4 |
Thanks to Prospect-Stats.com, what we know the Steelheads have done is control more 5-on-5 possession than any of the OHL teams in the CHL Top 10. They’ve also shot a lower percentage than all but Windsor, failing to bury when given good chances (their HD Sh% ranks 14th). Finally, middling defensive results and poor special teams (10th on the power play, 19th killing penalties) have compounded a slow start offensively.
Like all top teams, many of Mississauga’s best players are drafted, and were away at NHL camps. Working them back into the mix full-time should get the team on the straight and narrow. So would beating some other top teams—the Steelheads have lost to the Spitfires twice and got smoked 7-0 by the Bulldogs to begin their season.
But maybe, just maybe, the dam has opened and the rest of the OHL got a glimpse of what could be waiting for them the next time they head to Mississauga—and I don’t mean some idiot jumping the glass.
Although this is pretty good…
