Mississauga goes from worst to OHL finals

TORONTO The Mississauga Steelheads could have called it quits just two months into the Ontario Hockey League season. Instead, their persistence has them playing for the league championship.

Mississauga swept the Peterborough Petes to win the Eastern Conference final and will face the Erie Otters for the J. Ross Robertson Cup, with Game 1 set for Thursday in Pennsylvania.

The Steelheads have made major strides from their early-season struggles to earn a chance for the title, making up for a string of losses that had them sitting at the bottom of the standings over a third of the way into the schedule.

“We could have easily rolled over early in the season on a (nine-game) losing streak in November but we stuck with it and knew what our team could be,” said captain Michael McLeod.

“We showed a lot of character and gelled from there, got a few key pieces back and we’ve been heading in the right direction ever since.”

Mississauga was the seventh-ranked team in the country in the pre-season, but found itself sliding out of the Canadian Hockey League’s Top 10 within in a month. By early December the club was in the league basement at 6-14-6 and some players were questioning if they had what it took to compete.

“You see what people predict and a lot of people had us winning the East or coming close, then we get off to start like that and everyone starts doubting themselves, we could have gave up,” added McLeod. “I kind of had this expectation in my head going into the year knowing who we had, knowing the East wasn’t as strong as previous years — I was all in this year.” The team went 28-7-7 in the second half of the season en route to winning the Central Division and eventually setting up a date with Erie, the Western Conference champions and OHL’s top team in the regular season.

Mississauga (34-21-13) finished 22 points behind Erie (50-15-3) in the standings. The Otters also had the regular-season’s top two scorers in forwards Alex DeBrincat and Taylor Raddysh.

The winner will move on to the Memorial Cup, which is being hosted by the Windsor Spitfires beginning May 19.