Riddle, power-play carry Benilde to A puck title
Try as they might to convince the world that their success is not wholly dependent on Troy Riddle, the Benilde-St. Margaret’s Red Knights needed Riddle to score two goals and set up another Saturday afternoon at Target Center to beat East Grand Forks 4-2 and capture the Class A state hockey championship.
Riddle, an elusive senior with a deadly shot, scored all three goals in the 3-2 opening game against Hermantown, then added two goals and two assists in Friday’s 6-0 semifinal blowout over Fergus Falls. His three points against East Grand Forks gave Riddle seven goals and three assists for 10 points out of the 13 goals scored by the Red Knights.
“We knew that if we kept our focus, as soon as we got some bounces to go our way we’d be OK,” said Riddle, who ends the season with 54 goals. At the end, Riddle had a chance for another goal turned away. “I wasn’t thinking hat trick, I was just thinking hurry up and end it.”
Benilde coach Ken Pauly, whose team ended 26-2, was soaked by a bucket of ice water his players dumped over his red blazer. “It’s colder than heck, but if I ruined the sport coat, that’ll be OK because my wife hates it,” he said.
The Red Knights stressed that they expected to win the game, but confident or not, it was the goal that Riddle had nothing to do with, early in the third period, that rescued a game that had been controlled for two periods by East Grand Forks — the Class A darkhorse, which had never won a championship bracket tournament game before this year, but was on the brink of the championship before ending 16-11-1.
At the start of the game, Andrew Alberts, a giant 6-4, 205-pound defenseman, was penalized for blasting a Green Wave skater into the corner boards. The call was checking from behind, which, in high school, is a 2-minute minor but carries a mandatory 10-minute misconduct.
The Red Knights killed the penalty, and took a 1-0 lead when Troy Riddle scored an opportunistic goal at 14:04. Riddle was skating up the left slot when his brother, Jake Riddle, threw a hard pass from the left boards across the slot. East Grand backchecker Neil Purcell slid to block the pass, and when the puck hit his shinpad it bounced straight back — right on Troy Riddle’s stick, and he put it away in an instant.
But East Grand outshot Benilde 7-4 in the first period, and vaulted to a 2-1 lead in the second, when Shawn Bartlette scored with Jon Stordahl’s breakaway pass at 9:41 and Jonathan Hussey scored with Kyle Cash’s rebound at 10:04. The two goals in a 23-second span didn’t dampen Benilde’s confidence, as they came back for several good scoring chances, particularly on a late power play, when East Grand goalie Tommy White had to be solid.
On the first shift of the third period, Troy Riddle tried to break around the defense and Green Wave defender Hussey tried to stop him. As he cut in, Riddle appeared to step on Hussey’s stick blade and stumble. Hussey was called for tripping. Back after sitting out his 12 minutes in the first period, Alberts, the big defenseman, was sent up front to set up in front the East Grand net.
“I was really excited to get back out there after sitting so long,” said Alberts. “Sometimes I play up front on the power play to get a big player in front of the net. This time, the shot came from the point and I ‘yo-yo’d’ it around, then shot it in.”
With Troy Riddle stationed right at the crease, Alberts teed up the backhand, and snapped it off, high and hard. White, who had an outstanding tournament, was going down, but kicked his leg high. The puck glanced off his leg pad and in, for a power-play goal at 1:18. That tied the game 2-2, and injected the Red Knights with a new supply of energy.
Troy Riddle broke away from the last defender at center ice and scored on a breakaway to put Benilde up 3-2 at 4:08. And Adam Ahern scored Benilde’s second power-play goal at 5:54. Although the bigger Red Knights were the physical aggressor, East Grand Forks drew the only four penalties of the last two periods, and two of them produced power-play goals.
“No question the two power-play goals were the difference in the game,” said Jim Scanlan, East Grand’s intense but always gracious coach. “We did what we wanted to do for two periods, to make it a 15-minute game. Troy Riddle stepped up his game; he’s a smart player who has a high panic-level.
“But the biggest difference was their defense. They’re solid back there, and when they get a power play they have three of those defensemen on the ice.”
With the Alberts goal, that proved one too many.
Elk River takes 3rd on penalty shot
Amid all the excitement and drama that makes the state high school hockey tournament a cinch to be Minnesota’s premier sports attraction every year is that no matter how many unprecedented things that have occured over 54 years, there is always the chance for something new. Any game, any time.
On Saturday, after three days of amazing happenings, something new occured to decide Elk River’s 3-2 victory over Holy Angels in the Class AA third-place game at Target Center.
The Elks, spent from their double-overtime loss to Hastings in Friday night’s midnight special semifinal, had spotted Holy Angels a 1-0 lead on Adam Kaiser’s goal at 7:28 of the first period. That was a wake-up call that caused immediate response, and John Brumer tied it for the Elks at 8:52.
After the incomparable Paul Martin stickhandled in from defense to break the tie with an Elk River goal at 8:32 of the second period, Holy Angels came up with the equalizer, on Ryan LaMere’s goal at 3:25 of the third period. That set the stage, with Holy Angels coming back from being flattened 6-0 by Roseau to be headed for overtime with Elk River.
With 22 seconds remaining, Brumer, the same junior winger who had scored the first Elk River goal, took a drop pass and blasted a shot from the left slot. Goaltender Justin Eddy threw his glove up, the puck hit it at rocket force, and blew the glove off Eddy’s hand. The glove and the puck both popped up high and almost lazily flew just over the net, landing separately at the end boards.
Because there have been dozens of occasions when nets have been dislodged in the heat of battle in this tournament, many of them presumably intentional, and it never has been called as a penalty, Holy Angels’ Casey Garven made a calculated move to protect his gloveless goalie from facing another shot, and skated directly into the crease to jolt the goal off its moorings.
Referee brothers Pat and Jim Carroll made the call immediately. Penalty shot! The rulebook states that any player purposely dislodging the net in the heat of battle in the final two minutes of a game shall require a penalty shot be awarded to the other team.
On the Elk River bench, coach Tony Sarsland had some snipers to choose from. Paul Martin, Joey Bailey, Spanky Leonard.
“A good coach listens to his players, and I let the players decide,” said Sarsland. “I asked Martin who should take it, and he said ‘Let Johnny do it.’ I asked Joey Bailey, and he said, ‘Let Johnny take it.’ I asked Spanky Leonard, and he said, ‘Let Johnny do it.’ Those kids know, because we play showdown all the time in practice, and they know who has the best moves. The kids picked him, and they were right.”
So Sarsland let Johnny do it, picking Brumer — whose cannon shot had started the whole incident. Brumer skated in, not too fast, and Holy Angels goalie Eddy came out quickly, then backed in slowly. But Brumer made a quick move to his forehand and scored.
The penalty-shot goal, with 22 seconds left, gave the Elks their third-place trophy, and their highest finish ever.
BLAINE WINS CONSOLATION
Blaine, a stunning, last-second loser to Hastings in a 7-6 opening-round classic, won the Class AA consolation trophy with a 2-1 victory over Eden Prairie.
Fergus Falls won the third-place game in Class A, beating Blake 5-3 with three third-period goals. St. Thomas Academy captured the consolation trophy in Class A with a 3-2 victory, scoring the last three goals, two of them in the third period, with the winner, at 12:59, on a shorthanded goal by Bill Flikeid.
Roseau stifles Hastings offense for title
Everyone anticipated a tight, tense state Class AA boys hockey championship game Saturday night. But nobody anticipated a shutout.
Roseau, however, weathered early offensive pressure by Hastings’ explosive offense, then skated to a convincing 4-0 victory over the Raiders in the tournament’s championship game.
With a crowd of 15,888 at Target Center and a statewide television audience watching, the Rams and goaltender Jake Brandt stifled the Hastings gunners, who fired the game’s first seven shots, but couldn’t keep it up against the smooth, relentless and poised Rams, who finished the season ranked No. 1 in the Up North Network rating, and take home a 26-1 season record. It was Roseau’s sixth state championship.
The Hastings 1-2 punch of Jeff Taffe and Dan Welch — who figure to place 1-2 in today’s naming of Mr. Hockey — had all the headlines coming into the tournament, but Roseau’s Rams proved the advantage of a total team effort.
Hastings (23-4) showed no indications of being tired from Friday night’s gruelling double-overtime victory over Elk River, at least not in the first period, when the Raiders stormed out and took a 7-0 edge in shots on goal. But Jake Brandt was sparkling in goal to prevent the heavy artillery of Jeff Taffe, Dan Welch and others from puncturing his domain.
Roseau, however, seemed almost content to spend the time in the defensive zone, weathering the anticipated early assault, and waiting for their chance.
The Rams came back for a few good chances, but settled for a scoreless first period. It became evident that the first goal could be significant, and it was.
Josh Olson drilled a shot off what started as a missed pass in the slot, scoring at 6:40 of the second period to give Roseau a 1-0 lead.
At 8:03, Hastings goaltender Matt Klein went down to block a shot, and as he groped to try to cover it, David Klema came by, poked the puck clear to the left, then slid it in for a 2-0 lead.
Hastings needed a break to get back into it, and Adam Gerlach almost provided it, picking off a loose puck and breaking in at top speed. His hard shot from the left circle, however, clanked the right post and the ricochet went harmlessly into the far corner.
Jake Majeski, Hastings rugged defenseman, took the game’s only penalty at 14:29 of the second period, and the game’s only power play overlapped into the third period.
The Rams made the Raiders pay, when Mike Klema scored with a 1-timer from the right side off Josh Olson’s pass across the goal-mouth at 1:27.
Mike Klema skated in alone but was saved. But the Raiders were back on their collective heels by then, as if the toll of Friday’s long game seemed to weigh heavily.
Matt Erickson scored the Rams final goal, at 5:24, when he glanced one in off Klein from the right circle.
Klema’s 4 goals lead Roseau into finals
It was a great run for Holy Angels, making it to its first Class AA boys state hockey tournament, and beating Eden Prairie in an impressive debut. But Friday night, the Stars ran — Thud! — into Roseau, and the Rams, fueled by four goals from Mike Klema, romped to a 6-2 victory in the first semifinal.
“We played our best game today,” said Klema, the older of two brothers who play forward slots on the Roseau team. “I don’t know why; we just came together. We’re kind of on a mission. All the way up, in Peewees and Bantams, we’ve always been good, but we’d lose and never make it to the championship game. Now we have.”
The Rams (26-1) will face the winner of Friday’s late second semifinal between Elk River and Hastings in tonight’s 8 p.m. championship game.
“Our kids learned last year that they had to keep playing with intensity if they want to go to the next level,” said Roseau coach Bruce Olson. “We wanted to go in and forecheck ’em, but we weren’t getting there, so we changed to a more patient, one-man forecheck.
“It worked well. And we were able to play our fourth line a few shifts tonight. That should help us in the final game. Usually we get tired the third game in three days, but this should help. In fact, those TV timeouts hurt, because we wanted to keep it rolling.”
Holy Angels and Roseau had brought identical 25-1 records into the semifinals, but there were some differences. Roseau beat such AA powers as Moorhead, Hibbing, St. Paul Johnson, Grand Rapids, St. Cloud Apollo and Class A rival Warroad twice, while losing only to Greenway of Coleraine, 6-3. Holy Angels had beaten St. Paul Johnson and Apple Valley, but also Prior Lake, New Prague, Shakopee and Hutchinson, and Rochester Century.
The question was whether the Stars could play with the big, swift Rams, who clearly were the best team Holy Angels has faced this season.
On the opening shift of the game, Mike Klema was cruising up the left side in the neutral zone when Holy Angels defenseman Conner Phippen stumbled, lost the puck, and fell down. It was a complete accident, but Klema pounced on the puck and ripped a shot past goaltender Justin Eddy after just 33 seconds had elapsed.
If that put the Stars in shock, it would be understandable. If it didn’t, at 1:15, the puck took a crazy bounce off the Target Center boards and Phillip Larson reacted to pick it off, curl to the left circle, and snap a shot past the startled Eddy, short-side. Barely a minute in, and Roseau led 2-0.
“If they didn’t get those first two, it might have been different,” said Adam Kaiser, who set up Billy Hengen for the Stars second goal. “We scrimmaged a lot of good teams, but no question, they’re the best team we’ve played in an actual game.”
Kaiser deked through the defense for a great chance that was snuffed by Roseau goalie Jake Brandt, then Mike Klema came up with his second goal, at 11:30 of the opening period. That one, also, found Klema playing opportunist. A shot by Jesse Modahl was blocked, and as the rebound slid out from the goal, goaltender Eddy raced Klema for it. Klema let him win, pulling up, and when Eddy poked the puck, it went right to Klema, who stepped to his left and plinked it into the open goal.
“I was skating up for the puck and he tried to poke it past me,” said Klema.
Holy Angels came out much more forcefully in the second period, but Matt Erickson made it 4-0 at 1:00 of the second period, when he tried to pass across the slot then retrieved his blocked pass and scored with a backhand.
The Stars countered, finally, when Ryan LaMere scored with a blast from a wide angle to the left at 1:18, but Roseau wouldn’t let them get closer. Mike Klema completed his hat trick when he drilled a shot off Jesse Modahl’s 2-on-1 pass across the slot at 10:56 of the middle period.
Billy Hengen, Holy Angels’ offensive catalyst all season, scored with Kaiser’s feed to the crease later in the second period. But the only goal in the third period came when Modahl fed Mike Klema for his fourth goal.
“I got four against Cloquet last year,” said Klema, who now has 27 goals for the season.
But he wouldn’t say who has the harder shot, his brother or him. Coach Olson answered the question. “Both brothers shoot hard,” Olson said, “but I think David likes to hear his hit the glass. It makes a heckuva noise off the glass in the cold rink in Roseau.”
With only one game to go for their sixth championship in their 27th trip to the tournament, the Rams got one simple bit of advice from Olson: “Muck it up, dump it in, go get it…and put it in.”
East Grand Forks White-washes Blake 2-0
Junior Tommy White followed the goaltenders code — which says you’ve got to be lucky to be good — to perfection Friday afternoon and guided East Grand Forks to a 2-0 shutout over Blake in the first Class A boys hockey tournament semifinal at Target Center.
Several of Blake’s best chances sailed over the net, but White made stops on the 21 that were on. The game turned, however, on three different shots that he partially saved, only to have the puck squirt through his pads and glance off a pipe.
“This was the best game of my life, and the biggest game, the most important,” said White, who had yielded four goals in the third period of the opening 5-4 victory over Silver Bay. “You can’t expect the goalie to have a great game every game, but after the last game, my coach told me he knew I could come back.”
Jonathan Hussey scored just 14 seconds into the first period, redirecting Sam Brown’s flip from the right point. White’s hot hand made that lone goal stand up for more than 44 minutes, then Patrick Knutson finally scored on a third try at an empty net goal with four seconds left.
For East Grand Forks, an unglamorous 16-10-1 record is meaningless now, because the Green Wave has washed onto uncharted shores, by reaching today’s 2 p.m. championship game.
“This is the first time an East Grand Forks team has ever won its first game at the tournament,” said coach Jim Scanlan. “Last year, I thought we had a good enough team to have a chance to win it all.”
But they didn’t. In fact, after losing its first game in 1971, ’80, ’82 and last year, the Green Wave has never come back to win so much as the consolation trophy. Today, however, they are guaranteed either a championship or runner-up trophy, thanks to White’s work against Blake.
While he made only 21 saves, most of them were big-time stops on breakaways or 2-on-1 rushes. “They had more shots [27-21], but we had better chances,” said Blake coach Jeff Lindquist.
White was philosophical, and studious, about his performance.
“I remember the when I ‘butterflied’ and the puck went through my legs and off the post,” White said. “When that happens, it means you aren’t concentrating on watching the puck hard enough. Every time I make that mistake, you’ve got to correct it instantly. I told myself to make sure I focused to correct it.”
He told himself, but he wasn’t listening. “That’s right, it happened three times didn’t it? Every time it happened, I looked back in the net for the puck and was glad to see it wasn’t there.”
Jon Reigstad, Jordan Wilhelm and Steve Nelson had the breakaway opportunities that wound up getting past White but hitting posts. White’s best saves included a second-period rush by Blake’s Matt Frauenshuh, whose clean shot at the upper right was blocked when White threw up his gloved hand to get a piece of the puck, causing it to pop up and over the net.
Reigstad had another solo that hit the right pipe, and the Bears charged in for two tries with the rebound. If it sounds like Blake had a continuing stream of break-ins, it was true. And White noticed.
“It was unreal,” the lanky junior goaltender said. “I’d make a save and finally get some stress off me, then I’d see all our guys moving up the ice, and we’d make a turnover, then they’d have a breakaway. They never stopped coming.
“But I like breakaways. We have shootouts, and I like ’em.”
At the end, when Lindquist pulled Eric Dayton from the nets for a sixth skater, East Grand Forks narrowly missed a long shot at the empty net. Knutson followed up and stole the puck behind the goal on the left, and in his haste, he lunged out front and backhanded. It hit the left pipe. He backhanded it again, and AGAIN it hit the left pipe. Finally, his third try went in at 14:56.
“It’s not funny,” said Knutson, smiling. “I’ve got to take open-net practice. I missed one yesterday, too.”
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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