Eric Young, Saginaw Spirit OHL
It's becoming difficult finding adjectives to describe Oakville's OHL hockey star Michael Misa.
Amazing, incredible, stupendous. Whatever word you choose to use there is no question that he is exceptional.
After a banner year last season with the Mississauga Senators, Michael opened everyone’s eyes at the 2022 OHL Cup. Misa scored 20 points in seven games, breaking Connor McDavid's record that was set back in 2012.
Due to this great achievement, Michael was granted exceptional status by the Ontario Hockey Federation, one of only six players to be given this status. (Oakville News first reported this back in the spring.)
With this status, Michael was eligible for the 2022 OHL priority selection and was picked first overall by the Saginaw Spirit.
After being selected, the off-season started. You could hear the whispers: "Is Misa going to live up to the hype?", "Can he play in a league where he will be the youngest player?", "Will he be up to par with other exceptional status players like Tavares and McDavid?"
Michael put all of those questions to rest in his very first OHL game. Misa scored two goals in Saginaw’s first game of the season against the Guelph Storm and helped the Spirit to a 10-6 victory.
Since that game, Michael has been on fire.
Michael is tied for first in the OHL in goals with eight and is tied for fourth place in points with 14 in just 10 games. The most impressive thing about these stats remains that Misa is doing this as the youngest player in the OHL.
What is also great for Michael is the current success of the Saginaw Spirit. Saginaw is currently 5-4-0-1 in their first 10 games and are looking to make a deep run in the OHL playoffs.
The team has a great mix of young talent like Misa, Oakville Product Bode Stewart, and young defenseman Zayne Parekh, and the team also has a good mix of older veterans like Anaheim Ducks first-round pick Pavel Mintyukov, Vegas Golden Knights second-round pick Matyas Sapovaliv and Oakville product and Buffalo Sabres prospect Josh Bloom.
This weekend will be huge for Misa as he will be facing his brother Luke on Saturday when the Mississauga Steelheads play the Spirit in Saginaw. This will be the first time that the brothers play against each other in their OHL careers.
The brothers will also play each other in February on Family Day in Mississauga - how poetic for the boys and the Misa family.
