Quick shifts combined with no-nonsense offense and a tight defensive structure is helping the Cinderwood Midget A Mustangs to the best start in its history.

"Our motto is 30 seconds; 30, 40 seconds on and then off,” Mustangs head coach Jay Glass said. "We always want to keep fresh guys out there. The thing is to just get the puck, get it out over the blue line, get into the neutral zone with speed, and if there's nothing wide, lets just get the puck deep and change. That's the key to any team, I think, is just keeping your play, keeping your fresh legs on the ice and keeping your level up.”

The Mustangs put that theory to practice in Whitehorse Recreational Hockey League (WRHL) action against the NorthAir Jets at the Canada Games Centre last night.

And it paid: the Mustangs took that affair 7-3.

The Mustangs now have a 10-0 record to start the 2011-12 season. Five of those wins came in the WRHL and the other five came in the Abbotsford Midget Memorial Tournament held in B.C. earlier this month when the Mustangs repeated as tournament champions.

WRHL statistician Bud Arnold said with the five wins in the league alone this year's Mustangs are off to their best start ever.

Add the five-straight wins in Abbotsford and there's no question, he added.

"No Mustangs team has ever come that close.”

Tyrell Hope leads team scoring with 22 points (11 goals, 11 assists) in 10 games, while Wyatt Gale and Riley Pettitt are tied for second with 21 points apiece.

Last night, all three had a multiple-point game.

Pettitt led the charge with two goals and two assists, Gale contributed two goals and an assist and Hope added three helpers.

"Our whole team skated hard and we just buried pucks when we needed to,” Pettitt said after the game.

"I feel pretty confident. We all click…makes you fit in more.”

Glass added that Pettitt is becoming a leader in his first year playing midget hockey.

"Riley's a 15-year-old player loaded with talent. He had a great game tonight,” Glass said.

The Mustangs started their WRHL season with an 11-0 win over the Rednex, followed by a 10-0 win over the Kluane Drillers, a 5-0 win against Muckers and a 4-1 game against ORC.

In Abbotsford, Whitehorse beat Kent Valley 4-2, Abbotsford 3 4-0, Victoria 8-4 and North Shore WC Tier 2 6-1 en route to a 9-1 final over Abbotsford 3.

Those results combine for a staggering 68 goals for, 12 against.

Both the Mustangs and AirNorth headed into last night's game with 4-0 records.

For that reason, Glass considered it the Mustangs' first true test of the WRHL

season.

"It was a real challenge to keep their better players in check. They've got some really good skaters and guys that are really good on the puck. Whenever we made a mistake, they made us pay for it with a scoring chance,” Glass said.

"Don't underestimate these teams,” he added of the clubs in the rec league. "That was hard-fought. It's not going to be 7-3 all year. That could have went either way at times.”

Goaltenders Patrick Soprovich and Nigel Sinclair-Eckert split the game, as they have most games this season.

It's a relationship both goaltenders, who returned to the Midget Mustangs from last season, have gotten used to, Soprovich said.

"Last year and in bantam we were in the same situation. I feel more like we're sharing the spot than trying to get first spot. We support each other; it's not super competitive.

"Sometimes when you're competing for a top spot, of course it can push you a lot, but I feel when you know the other guy is backing you, you feel that much more confident.”

Having a sharp team in front of him helps, he added.

Most remarkable about this year's Mustangs is their ability to compete every shift regardless of the level of competition.

"It's definitely the best team I've played on,” Soprovich said. "We're so much deeper than any other team, and our defense is super cautious, hardly ever makes mistakes.”

To boost the competition level, the Mustangs will head Outside for tournaments and are looking to host a Tier 2 club, either the Kelowna-based Pursuit of Excellence, which visited Whitehorse last year for a series, or a Tier 2 side from The Edge out of Calgary.

This is all in the lead up to the 2012 Arctic Winter Games set for Whitehorse in March and the Tier 3 B.C. Provincial Championships.

"What we miss in these (WRHL) games is the contact we get in midget,” Glass said of the no-hitting league.

"But we're happy with where we are in this league. We're really pleased to be able to be in it, because if we weren't in this league we would have nowhere to play.”

The Mustangs will face off against the Roadhouse at Takhini Arena starting 8 p.m. on Monday.