Mid-week match: Flint v. Soo
It will be no ordinary eighth-place team that the top-seeded Soo Greyhounds will be facing when they play host to the Flint Firebirds tonight in a 7:07 match at the Essar Centre.
Above the .500 mark with a record of 20-18-4, the 44 points that Flint has would be good for fifth place — and just a point out of third spot — if the Firebirds were in the Eastern Conference as opposed to the Western Conference.
Still, it has been a tidy turnaround from last season to this for Flint, which won only 20 games in 2015-2016 and missed the Ontario Hockey League playoffs by finishing ninth in the Western Conference.
A vastly-improved team pieced together by highly-regarded, veteran OHL coach-general manager George Burnett — who is in his first season as the GM in Flint — the notion inside and outside the perimeters of the league is that the Firebirds are very-well coached by 31-year old rookie bench boss Ryan Oulahen and assistants Eric Wellwood and Scott MacDonald.
Oulahen prepped for his first head-coaching gig after serving a five-year apprenticeship under master coach Stan Butler with the Brampton/North Bay Battalion.
While the Firebirds have a below-watershed road record of 7-12-3 this 2016-2017 season they did pick up 3 points in 3 games away from home last week.
Flint has also played Western Conference-leading Soo relatively tough this season. After the Firebirds beat the Greyhounds 4-3 on the road to begin the season series, the Soo has rebounded with 5-3 and 5-0 triumphs in Flint.
With an overall record of 31-10-2 for 64 points, the league-leading Greyhounds are 20 points better than Flint in the standings.
The Soo is fresh from a Sunday matinee game at home in which it edged the loaded-up London Knights 3-2 in overtime.
Over the last 10 games, the Greyhounds have a record of 8-2-0 while the Firebirds have climbed over the .500 mark with a 5-3-2 showing.