Mississauga Steelheads look forward after major rebrand: OHL Burning Questions

With the OHL season beginning next week, BTN taking an early look at each team in reverse order of last season's standings.

Mississauga Steelheads (née St. Michaels Majors)

In 2011-12 — 33-28-1-6, 73 pts, sixth in Eastern Conference. Lost 4-2 to Barrie in first round of playoffs.

Final Dynamic Dozen ranking — 9th OHL, 25th CHL.

Drafted — D Trevor Carrick (Carolina, 4th round)

Draft watch* — G Spencer Martin is likely the only name of consequence, but he played just 15 games last year for the Steelheads. F Sam Babintsev was selected 30th overall in the CHL Import Draft.

1. New logo, new name, new jerseys, what's different?

After being the best defensive team in the OHL in 2011, allowing just 170 goals, the Mississauga-St. Michael's Majors were drawn closer to the pack last season after losing numerous veterans from their OHL-and-Memorial Cup runners up squad. They've lost some overage scoring in Jamie Wise, a veteran net-minder in Brandon Maxwell, and both import forwards Mika Partanen and Sergey Kupstov.

Probably as good a time as any for a rebranding, which was the biggest deal of the Majors' offseason. Without too much established OHL talent up front carrying the reins, this team will struggle to score goals. Riley Brace is coming in as the team's strongest overage player, but he was the only Steelhead to score 50 points last season. They'll need some guys to surprise. One of those guys could be the import replacement for Kupstov in Sam Babintsev, a lanky 1994-born Russian who is one of the "old 17s" in the league as he was born in early October.

2. Okay, but can they play defence?

Yeah, they just might be able to do that. Trevor Carrick was the lone draft pick for the Steelheads in Pittsburgh, and there he is in a Carolina Hurricanes sweater. Stuart Percy is back, one of Toronto's two first round selections in 2011, and Sharks select from that season Dylan DeMelo returns. The group isn't backed by too much youth, however. There's a lot of stale veteran talent on the blue line, with Jacob Graves, a big '95-born who played 34 games last year.

3. Can Tyson Teichmann or Spencer Martin carry a full-season load?

The easy answer here is "probably not" and due to Spencer Martin's age, the Steelheads enter the season with goaltending likely as a position of weakness. Tyson Teichmann, acquired from London this summer, is a vet who has yet to crack the .900 save percentage mark, and I'll assume that will be required out of one of the two goaltenders to help this team move up with any consequence in the Eastern Conference standings.

The Steelheads traded for Teichmann, of course, after they gave up on getting Tampa Bay first rounder Alexei Vasilevski over to North America after selecting him in the import draft. If the Steelheads are wanting to look ahead to the future, there are worse plans than splitting games between Teichmann and Martin. Last season, the goalies played a combined 36 games, so revolving duty won't be a foreign concept for either.

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(* First-time eligible players)