Badgers quick start stuns MSU-Mankato 7-2
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MINN. — A pair of short-handed goals by Jefferson Dahl helped stake Wisconsin to a 4-0 lead and the Badgers skated past Minnesota State-Mankato 7-2 in the first of Thursday’s quarterfinals at Xcel Energy Center. The victory gives the Badgers a spot against top-seeded St. Cloud State in Friday’s 2 p.m. semifinal of the WCHA Red Baron Final Five tournament.
The Badgers (20-12-7) who finished tied with Mankato and Denver for fourth in league play, ranked 10th in league scoring, but gave little respect to all-conference goaltender Stephon Williams with an uncharacteristic opening outburst — three goals in the first 8:11. Then they withstood the Mavericks constant attempts to get back in the game, and kept adding goals even while being outshot 40-27.
Asked if the Badgers had scored seven goals in a game before, coach Mike Eaves said: “No. God, no! I don’t know how to coach when we’re ahead.”
Tyler Barnes opened the game with the first of his two goals, picking the puck off the side boards and racing in on a breakaway, and shooting into the upper right corner of the net at 1:03.
Wisconsin's Tyler Barnes sprawled after scoring his second goal and running over Mankato goaltender Stephon Williams, making it 5-2 and knocking Williams out of the game.
”Obviously, it was not the start we wanted,” said first-year Mankato coach Mike Hastings. “We wanted to get at least to the second minute. But credit Wisconsin. I don’t think we reacted too well, but our guys continued to battle. Give Wisconsin credit for taking advantage when we gave them the openings.”
Four minutes after the opening goal, Wisconsin’s Joseph LaBate drew the first penalty of the day, and Dahl scored the first short-handed goal of the day. Ryan Little chipped the puck up the right boards and Dahl gathered it in and sped up the right. When he was unable to turn the corner on the Maverick defenseman, Dahl shot from deep on the right side and beat Williams from nearly an impossible angle at 6:11.
“I didn’t really see any opening,” Dahl said. “I knew I had a step on the defenseman, so I just threw it on net.”
Exactly two minutes after that, Nic Kerdiles scored after a dizzying passing sequence. Barnes, wide on the left, passed to Rob Ramage, who relayed the puck to Mark Zengerle, and his quick feed to Kerdiles in the right circle was met with a one-timer that hit Williams but trickled through for the 3-0 start at 8:11.
“We could have done a better job not letting their guys come in wide open,” said Matt Leitner, defending the goaltender who has bailed out the Mavericks so often this season. “We left him on an island out there.”
Wisconsin's Jefferson Dahl (14) was stopped by Mankato goalie Stephon Williams, but he scored two other short-handed goals.
The Badgers were short-handed again in the second period when Dahl got loose up the right side, but Williams made the move to stop him and his shot hit the short-side post. But moments later, Dahl carried up the right side, 2-on-1 while still on the penalty kill, and he passed back to the traling Jake McCabe in the slot. McCabe one-timed a return pass and Dahl put it away from point-blank range at 8:50 — his seventh goal of the season and fourth against the Mavericks. “The puck just seems to go in for me when we play them,” he said with a shrug.
At 9:37 of the second period, Ramage saw Teddy Blueger approaching on a rush, and when Blueger passed the puck, Ramage, at a glide, and with his stick and elbows down, crashed into him. Video replays disclosed that Blueger’s helmeted head struck Ramage about in the bicep and he went down hard. It was the kind of play that might be a penalty on the running back in next year’s NFL, but this time the officials gave Ramage a penalty then, after conferring, made it a 5-minute major for charging.
The extended power play gave MSU-Mankato the opening, and Jean-Paul LaFontaine sent a no-look behind-the-back pass from deep on the right to Zach Palmquist, who one-timed a shot over goaltender Joel Rumpel to cut Mankato’s deficit to 4-1.
Wisconsin goalie Joel Rumpel stopped MSU-Mankato captain Eriah Hayes in 7-2 Badger victory.
Wisconsin padded it to 5-1, though, on a 4-on-4 situation, when Barnes knocked the puck in on a goal-crashing rush from the right side at 12:24. Williams was injured on the play, and left the game, replaced by Phil Cook. With Ramage still in the box, Eriah Hayes notched another power-play goal to make it 5-2, but that was as close as the Mavericks could get.
Rumpel was red-hot, with 15 saves in the second period and 16 more to blank the Mavericks in the third. Meanwhile, Dahl, a junior from Eau Claire, Wis., appeared to score a hat trick with a deflection at the left pipe at 16:50 of the middle period, but the goal was disallowed, leaving him with two goals and two close misses.
Not that it mattered. Frankie Simonelli and Joseph LaBate scored goals for Wisconsin in the third period and the Badgers cruised into the semifinals.
At 24-13-3, MSU-Mankato came into the day rated No. 8 in the Pairwise calculations, which mimic the NCAA selection committee’s criteria, which should mean that while Wisconsin will undoubtedly slip ahead of them, the Mavericks also should be secure for an NCAA berth on Sunday.
Final Five just one of week’s attractions
By John Gilbert
Hermantown's own Drew LeBlanc leads St. Cloud State into the Final Five, after a senior year as captain, WCHA Player of the Year, top scorer, all-WCHA first team, WCHA All-Academic, and inspiration behiind the Huskies first WCHA title.
We will wait until next week, after this weekend’s WCHA Final Five, to pay tribute to the best college hockey tournament in the land. Even if you count the NCAA Frozen Four. This will be the last Final Five — the final Final Five — for the WCHA as we know it.
There are six teams in the Final Five, but only five games, which allows the league to keep the popular name. Of the six, Minnesota and Wisconsin are hoping to head for the NCAA tournament next week but then are headed for the Big Ten’s new hockey conference next year. St. Cloud State, North Dakota, and Colorado College are also hoping to win and advance to the NCAA, but for certain, they are going to the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference next fall. Only Minnesota State-Mankato among the Final Five entries will be remaining in the WCHA, which obviously will be undergoing major surgey before next season.
Next year at this time, the new NCHA — UMD, St. Cloud, North Dakota, Miami of Ohio, Western Michigan, Nebraska-Omaha, Denver and Colorado College — will play their whatever-it’ll-be-called tournament at Target Center in Minneapolis, while the Big Ten Conference — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State — will play their tournament at Xcel Center. Both will run head-to-head on the same weekend.
And all the teams in those two leagues will not care a bit where the remaining teams that make up the WCHA will be playing their tournament. That will be a sad evolution for a league that has been the best college hockey league every year it has existed. But we can worry about that later. For now, let’s get on over to Xcel Center and enjoy the WCHA Final Five for all it’s worth, through Friday semifinals and on to Saturday night’s championship game, with Fan Fest, and all the carnival atmosphere that fans from North Dakota, Wisconsin, St. Cloud, Mankato and Minnesota can stir up.
Savor it. Remember it. Take photos with your cell phone. Because it’s going away.
What a weekend!
Pick your favorite: The WCHA Final Five at Saint Paul’s Xcel Energy Center; the state high school boys basketball tournament at Williams Arena and Target Center; the women’s NCAA Frozen Four at Ridder Arena; the surging Minnesota Wild, on the road but coming home for a Saturday matinee; and, on TV only, the University of Minnesota’s basketball team, which is off in Texas to play UCLA in the massive NCAA men’s tournament. The NCAA likes to call its over-hyped, all-consuming basketball tournament “March Madness,” but we know that the real March Madness is going on right there in River City — also known as the Twin Cities. Let’s count down the attractions, from the bottom up:
- ESPN, which will carry so many basketball games along with every other network, had an impromptu survey, nationwide, in which voters said Minnesota stood the best chance of springing an upset in the first round. Those fans undoubtedly heard of Minnesota beating Indiana, but had no idea of the totally inept shooting and ball-handling perpetrated by the Golden Gophers in virtually all games before and since that magnificent performance. If the Bruins have a couple guys who can run, jump, pass and shoot, the Gophers could be in for a quick exit. On the other hand, Minnesota is the most dangerous kind of tournament foe — a team with considerable skill that is prone to junior-high type mistakes and missed shots, but can, on occasion, get it all together for a good half. And maybe two.
- The Wild can’t play better than they did at Vancouver, in what was the final game between the two as division rivals, before sanity finally returns to the NHL and geographic realignment will put the Wild in with natural rivals like Chicago, Winnipeg, St. Louis, and other Midwestern teams. True, the infusion of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter have meant a world of difference to the Wild. But the addition of rookies like Jonas Brodin, Charlie Coyle, and Jason Zucker also has made a huge impact. Zucker and Coyle are both 21, and Brodin is only 19. Remember when the non-hockey types were claiming that Suter was playing poorly because he was getting paid a lot and didn’t score? Calmly and quietly, Suter has done his thing, playing a lot and partnering with Brodin — a key reason that Brodin appears to be remarkably error-free despite loads of ice-time as Suter’s partner. That leaves key returnees like Mikko Koivu, Dany Heatley, Devin Setoguchi, and others with room to perform without the pressure to carry the team. And Matt Cullen, former St. Cloud State and Moorhead High School star, is playing like he’s 26 instead of 36. With Niklas Backstrom hotter than a pistol in goal, and a smothering team defense that has become more than just opportunists on offense, the Wild could make a bid for season and playoff heroics.
- The Gopher women, riding a 39-0 season into the Frozen Four at their home rink Friday and Sunday, should win it. Amanda Kessel and her freshman linemates will score, but watch Megan Bozek, who is a female Paul Coffey back on defense, and Noora Raty, the record-breaking goaltender from Finland. Sure, Boston College will be a tough semifinal foe, and the winner of Mercyhurst and Boston University will provide a worthy final opponent, but when the NCAA decided to save a buck and rank North Dakota No. 8, just so UND could be seeded at Minnesota last Saturday night, it was an atrocity. Recall back on December 8-9, BU came to AMSOIL Arena and UMD played the Terriers to a 2-2 tie, outshooting BU 30-22. The next night they played a stellar 0-0 standoff, with UMD outshooting BU 39-19. Both great games, but my feeling is that North Dakota could have beaten BU, BC, or Mercyhurst, and had UND been sent off to play any of them, then UND would be in the Frozen Four. Instead, they played an amazing triple-overtime classic at Minnesota, with the Gophers winning 3-2 when Mira Jaluso got a shot and Rachel Bona scored on the rebound at 18:51. That means the teams played 118 minutes and 51 seconds, or a mere 1:09 short of playing two entire games back-to-back.
- The boys high school basketball tournament gives the Northland three hopes, although they’ve probably already played by the time you read this. We have Lakeview Christian Academy in Class A, where the more games the Lions play, the more Anders Broman will score, setting the all-time career scoring record up there far enough to perhaps never be broken. In AA, Esko got to state with a Section 7 final victory that will live within those boys all their lives. Here’s the scenario: Esko sees a 10-point lead vanish and Mora goes right past the Eskomos for a 62-60 leadm which becomes 63-60 on a free throw with 8.6 seconds left. Esko’s top gun, Casey Staniger, scored his 25th point on a free throw to cut it to 63-61, then he purposely missed the second shot, and in the melee that followed, Mora knocked the ball out of bounds with 1.1 seconds showing. Decision time. I would want Staniger in position for the last desperation shot, but he is the best passer, and he was sent to pass the ball in to Kory Deadrick inside to try to tie the game. But Deadrick’s path was blocked. With 1.1 seconds to go, Staniger passed to the open kid, ninth-grader Jaxon Turner, who had-not-taken-a-single-shot all game! Staniger, at the top of the key, turned and fired, and the ball went in at the buzzer — a 3-pointer that gave Esko a 64-63 victory. Even the script of Hoosiers couldn’t top that one. The third Northland hope is Grand Rapids, in AAA. The Thunderhawks are hitting on all cylinders, and have a shot to do some serious damage at state.
- The Final Five gives Northland fans one major player to focus on — Drew LeBlanc of Hermantown, the captain and redshirt senior leader of the St. Cloud State Huskies. They’ll be in the 2 p.m. semifinal on Friday, having won their first WCHA season title in their last season in the league. LeBlanc, who suffered a compound fracture to his leg in the 10th game last season. Coach Bob Motzko said that LeBlanc, who had trained hard for a big senior season and passed up the chance to sign a pro contract, came to practice the following Monday in a wheelchair. It took seven months to recover, and when he got the chance for a redshirt repeat of the senior year he had been deprived of, LeBlanc jumped at it. He is the fourth-leading scorer in the WCHA, but more important, his consuming team-first attitude has made him the WCHA Player of the Year, and first-team forward on the all-WCHA team. Going into the Final Five with 13-37–50, he jumped at the opportunity to play with two freshmen, and promptly helped Jonny Brodzinski of Blaine and Kalle Kossila of Finland to matching 32-point seasons. Brodzinski has 21-11–32, and Kossila 15-27–32. Brodzinski, a heavy-shooting former teammate of Minnesota’s Nick Bjugstad, scored his 21 goals so far with a WCHA-leading 20 of them NOT on the power play.
Edina’s Hornets buzz Hill-Murray for title
Edina’s players piled on top of goalie Willie Benjamin after beating Hill-Murray 4-2 for the Minnesota AA high school hockey championship.
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN.
In a Minnesota high school hockey tournament where controversies and shortcomings seemed to be prominent, the best was saved for last, as Edina defeated Hill-Murray 4-2 with an impressive show at both ends of the Xcel Energy Center rink to win the Class AA championship. It was a record eighth state hockey title for the Hornets.
The Hornets (25-6) also won in 1969, 1971,1982, 1984, 1988, 1997 and 2010, and that dismisses the titles the Hornets won as Edina East in 1974, 1978 and 1979. The No. 1 seeded Hill-Murray Pioneers finished 27-3-1, and fell short for the second year in a row in the final, seeking their second title to match the one they earned in 2008.
The title game drew 17,739 fans to Xcel Energy Center, for a tournament total of 117,748 for the annual four-day classic.
The championship game had all the appropriate drama and tension, although after the Hornets spotted Hill-Murray the first of two goals by Josh French, then rattled off four consecutive goals, the question was whether the Pioneers could break through Willie Benjamin’s goaltending again. They did, but couldn’t get the third goal for proximity through a scoreless third period.
Neither team had a weakness and if there were questions whether Hill-Murray could keep up with Edina’s quickness, or whether Edina could survive Hill-Murray’s toughness, both were answered as soon as the puck dropped. Yes, and yes.
The teams waged a high-speed, high-spirited battle for supremacy, where nobody could take a shift off. The good plays were impressive, the goals were colorful, the defensive play was stifling, and even the foul-ups were exciting. When Edina built a 4-1 lead, the Pioneers had just about as many quality scoring chances, but a lot of them bounced over a stick or went just wide of the pipes.
The Pioneers got the first jump, when Josh French caught Zach LaValle’s pass out from behind and took a shot that found its way through Willie Benjamin in the Edina goal at 4:11. The Pioneers took a penalty and Dylan Malmquist tied it 1-1 at 6:31 with a burst of speed up the right side, turning the defense and cutting across in front, where he stuffed his shot at the left edge.
The Hornets gained a burst of adrenaline from the goal and kept the attack going, taking a 2-1 lead at 11:56 when Cullen Munson kicked a rebound ahead as he stepped to the left to elude Pioneer goalie John Dugas, and tucked it in.
In the second period, Munson was the beneficiary of a strong sequence by Bo Brauer, who shot off the right post, chased his glancing blow into the right corner, then darted behind the net before feeding the slot, where Munson quickly put it away at 2:11 for a 3-1 cushion.
As the Hornets proved they could match Hill-Murray’s checking game, the Pioneers turned up their velocity to trade rushes with Edina. But the Hornets kept their rally going, scoring their fourth consecutive goal at 14:31 of the middle period and Anthony Walsh blocked a D-to-D pass and broke free up the middle. Speeding in, Walsh beat Dugas cleanly on teh breakaway and it was 4-1.
It looked like it might turn into a runaway, but only for 45 seconds, and then LaValle moved in on the right side at the other end of the rink, and slid a pass to the slot where French again connected with a shot into the left edge on Benjamin, sending the game into the third period 4-2.
In the third period, however, the Hornets tightened down defensively, turning back repeated Hill-Murray rushes and surviving with Benjamin acrobatically scrambling around and diving to cover loose pucks. The minutes ticked off, and Hill-Murray coach Bill Lechner — whose team lost in last year’s final to Benilde-St. Margaret’s — pulled Dugas with over two minutes remaining.
Still, nothing would go in to make that third goal and set up a truly frantic finish. And the Hornets skated to their fans to celebrate their record eighth state hockey championship.
Hawks fall with 0:07 left; East, Marshall recover
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN.
Coming close doesn’t ever get satisfying for coach Bruce Plante. Nor does being the “public school” hockey champion. But Saturday afternoon’s stinging 5-4 loss to St. Thomas Academy in the Class A Minnesota state tournament championship game might have been the hardest to swallow for the veteran coach.
He’s had practice, too. This was the fourth straight time Hermantown (25-5-1) reached the A title game, and the fourth straight time the Hawks have come away unfulfilled — and the third time St. Thomas Academy had been the team to beat the Hawks in the final. It gave the Cadets (27-2-2) their third straight Class A championship to send them on their way into Class AA next season.
Matt Perry, a senior who insists he’s a shut-down checking center assigned to opposing top-line centers, scored the first hat trick of his life with a goal in each period — including the first goal of the third period to ignite a three-goal rally that overturned a 4-2 Hermantown lead. Henry Hart followed with the tying goal, and Tommy Novak blasted a 30-foot power-play slapshot with seven seconds remaining, to give the Cadets their victory.
When the game ended, Plante stalked across the ice to confront referee J.B. Olson, who had called a marginal holding penalty on Scott Wasbotten with 1:57 remaining and the teams locked in an intensely exciting 4-4 battle. Technically, the play could have met the strictest requirement of holding, and there are those who say every technical violation should be called. However, the worst was yet to come.
"If you're going to call that one," Hermantown coach Bruce Plante told referee J.B. Olson...
..."then you've got to call that one, too."
The Hawks were scrambling to efficiently kill off the penalty and get to overtime, but on the game-ending power play, a St. Thomas Academy skater trying to prevent Hawk defenseman Jake Zeleznikar from clearing the puck, accosted Zeleznikar in a far more flagrant violation that was not called, allowing the Cadets to regain possession in the closing seconds, and leading directly to Novak’s winning goal.
“I went after a loose puck on the half-wall,” Zeleznikar said. “But their guy had me in a headlock, and when I tried to chip it out of the zone, I couldn’t move.”
In the post-game interview setting, Plante said: “We got a penalty on one play, then they wrapped our guy up and got the winning goal when they didn’t call it.” Asked about the “discussion” he had with the ref, Plante said, evenly: “It was one-way. It wasn’t a discussion; it was one-way. I thought it was a great game, and I loved our effort…I don’t know if we can play any better. But to have a call like that, and a non-call, at the end of a game makes this one of the most disappointing losses I’ve ever had.”
That includes last year, when Plante acknowledges his team didn’t play very well in a 5-1 loss to St. Thomas Academy. The year before more closely duplicated this one, when a couple of controversial calls contributed to Hermantown losing a lead late in the game, and St. Thomas Academy won 5-4 in overtime.
Chris Benson scored on his own rebound to ignite a 3-goal Hermantown rally.
“Last year, we didn’t play our best,” Plante recalled. “But this time we played smart, physical — everything you have to do to win the game. Of course St. Thomas Academy brings out the best in us. So does St. Cloud Cathedral, Marshall, and Breck. These guys know you have to play your best to beat them.”
It was unfortunate that a tournament with such emotionally inspiring play would be dotted by some strange officiating, but worse, that a state championship would be influenced so heavily by such a close-order exchange of curious calls. Particularly because it was such an impressive game, with both teams exchanging offensive haymakers.
St. Thomas Academy came into the game on a streak that showed why the time has come to move the Inver Grove Heights private school up to AA. The Cadets had run up an eight-game winning streak coming into the title game, and while outscoring those eight opponents 76-2, the Cadets shut out Henry Sibley, Chisago Lakes and Totino Grace in Section 4, then blanked St. Cloud Apollo (12-0) and East Grand Forks (11-0) in the state tournament.
But Saturday, the Cadets faced the first team since January that could challenge them. They ran their consecutive goal-scoring streak to 24 in the state tournament and 43 straight goals since playoffs began when Perry scored at 15:12 of the first period. But at 15:54, just six seconds before the first period ended, Hermantown snapped those streaks when Chris Benson tried a wraparound that goalie David Zevnik blocked, but Benson scored on his own rebound foir a 1-1 tie.
Hawks celebrated Scott Wasbotten's goal for a 2-1 lead in the Class A final against St. Thomas Academy.
Aroused, the Hawks rushed out in the second period and took the action to the Cadets, jumping to a 3-1 lead with a pair of goals 18 seconds apart. Scott Wasbotten scored on a rebound at 9:38, and Neal Pionk rushed in from the left point and passed across the crease where Ryan Kero had and easy goal at 10:46. Perry’s secod goal of the game came on a power play at 15:07 to cut it to 3-2, but 37 seconds later Lane LeGarde scored with a shot that popped up off Zevnik and trickled across the line just as Hermantown’s Grant Sega crashed into the goaltender.
With a 4-2 lead, the Hawks looked pretty secure, but the highly skilled Cadets were far from done. Gunnar Regan fired a shot that Adam Smith stopped, but the rebound went right to Perry, and he put it away at 2:53 to make it 4-3. “We all knew we could come back,” Perry said. “And after we got that first goal in the third period, I felt we could do it.”
The Cadets tied it 4-4 at 9:05 when Henry Hart got a blocked puck in the slot, whirled and fired a shot off the right pipe and in. That sent the game on toward what looked like overtime, but then came the intrusion of the questionable penalties, leading to the Cadets fantastic finish and obscuring what a great game it was.
“I’m just proud of our guys,” said St. Thomas Academy co-coach Greg Vannelli. “We’ve had a target on our backs all year.” Asked how Hermantown was able to score and challenge a Cadets team that many thought was invincible, Vannelli said: “They’re just a good team. They probably did what they’ve done all year.”
St. Thomas goaltender David Zevnik survived Nate Pionk's rush to the goal.
The Hawks had a much tougher bracket than St. Thomas Academy, as the tournament made it appear that the Cadets, the Hawks, and Breck were clearly the best three teams of the field of eight. Hermantown had to beat Marshall 3-0 in a neighborhood quarterfinal battle, then get past Breck 4-3 in two overtimes, while St. Thomas Academy was breezing to its 12-0 and 11-0 romps.
Marshall came back from that opening loss to beat Marshall, Minnesota, 4-1, and Saturday morning the Hilltoppers jumped to a 4-2 first-period lead and beat Rochester Lourdes 6-5. Connor Flaherty and Matthew Klassen scored twice each for Marshall, while Lourdes made it close with two goals in the last 1:12. Marshall gained a large measure of satisfaction from beating Lourdes, which had inflicted a 7-0 beating on the ‘Toppers in mid-January.
Disappointing as Hermantown’s fourth straight championship game loss was, the three Duluth schools at the state tournament went a combined 6-2, with the Hawks winning the runner-up trophy, Marshall winning the consolation trophy, and the East Greyhounds bringing home the third-place trophy in Class AA.
The Greyhounds, beaten 3-2 by Edina in the semifinals of AA to snap a 17-game winning streak, bounced back to beat Wayzata 7-3 in the AA third-place game. The ‘Hounds jumped to a 4-0 lead and cruised to victory behind a pair of goals by both Philip Beaulieu and Alex Toscano, while Jack Forbort, Alex Trapp and Nick Altmann also scored.
That victory gave East a final record of 25-5, while Wayzata finished 22-8, and it also provided extra satisfaction for the Greyhounds, who lost 1-0 to Wayzata in the third game of the season.
East falls 3-2; Hawks win in 2nd OT to gain final
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MINN.
Duluth East suffered from an overdose of the good-ol’ days Friday night at Xcel Energy Center, as Edina looked like the speedy Hornets of decades past while toppling the Greyhounds 3-2 in the Class AA semifinals of the Minnesota high school hockey tournament. By contrast, Hermantown found just enough reason to appreciate deja vu as they reached Saturday night’s Class A championship game to face St. Thomas Academy for the third straight time.
In the Class AA final, Edina (23-6) will find Hill-Murray (27-2-1), which rallied for two goals in the third period to beat Wayzata 2-1 in the second semifinal of a session that drew 19,351.
Earlier in the day, the Class A teams owned the Xcel Energy Center ice, and Hermantown (25-4-1) survived a long, high-speed classic to subdue Breck 4-3 in the second overtime — almost at coach Bruce Plante’s bidding. Zach Kramer got the winning goal, at 7:26 of the second sudden-death period to give the Hawks the third straight — and final — chance to beat the two-time defending champion Cadets (26-2-2) for the title. St. Thomas Academy beat the Hawks in the title game the last two years, after Hermantown lost to Breck three years ago, making this the Hawks fourth straight final.
This time, St. Thomas Academy is No. 1 seed, and reached the final by crushing East Grand Forks 11-0 in the semis, after blitzing St. Cloud Apollo 12-0 in Wednesday’s opener. St. Thomas Academy is moving up from Class A to Class AA next season, so this is Hermantown’s last chance for revenge.
Plante, colorful as usual, was asked about the huge play sophomore Nate Pionk made to set up Kramer’s winning goal. “It was the only thing those guys did all game,” Plante said. “I just got through chewing them out, big time, on the bench. I told them they had done nothing, and they were playing chicken hockey, afraid to carry the puck. I really jumped on them. So they go out and get the winning goal.”
Edina's Miguel Fidler hit the net behind East goalie Dylan Parker to erase East's 1-0 lead in the third period.
In the Class AA semis, Edina resembled the high-speed Hornets from back when Willard Ikola-coached teams dominated everybody with speed and depth in the 1960s and ‘70s, although the Greyhounds held a 1-0 lead through the first two periods. Edina’s relentless pressure overcame the Greyhounds for three straight goals in the third period, feasting on a sudden outcrop of turnovers to take a 3-1 lead the Hornets were able to protect until the finish.
East got an early goal from its big first line, as Jack Forbort dug the puck off the right boards and knocked it toward the slot. Alex Tescano, arriving just in time, moved in forcefully to gain possession and drill a 30-footer past Edina goaltender Willie Benjamin. That goal stood up through the rest of the first period, and the scoreless second period mainly because of East goaltender Dylan Parker and the Greyhounds four stalwart defensemen — Meirs Moore and Philip Beaulieu on one unit, and hard-hitting Andrew Kerr and Alex Trapp on the other.
Those defensemen were able to beat Edina’s speedy attackers and quickly and crisply pass the puck out of their zone. But the Hornets coaches stayed with their pressure game. “We knew East had a tough game yesterday against Moorhead (1-0) and that they are only playing four defensemen,” said Dave Langevin, the former UMD and New York Islanders defenseman who assists Curt Giles on an all-star Edina coaching staff. “Our forwards are so fast, and big, and we could see they were getting tired. We thought if we could keep going after them, we could wear them down. And by the end, they weren’t as quick making their outlet passes.”
“Even though we were down 1-0 after two periods, we could see they were getting tired, so we stayed with what we were doing,” said Giles.
When Edina broke through for the first goal yielded by Dylan Parker in two games, it came when Edina defenseman Parker Reno blocked an outlet try at the blue line and threw a shot on goal. Parker stopped it, but Miguel Fidler, on the right side, scored by drilling the rebound into the far, left edge at 4:11 of the third period to tie the game 1-1.
Tyler Nanne, a grandson of Lou Nanne, was in perfect position 40 feet out in the slot to intercept another hasty outlet try, and he rifled a slap shot past Parker at 11:19. “I actually whiffed on my first shot and it went right to their D,” said Nanne. “When he tried to get it out, fortunately it went right on my stick. We knew East would be tough. When we played them at Christmas time, and the last couple of times we played them, they ran us out of the building. So this time we went after them.”
East goalie Dylan Parker stopped Edina's Dylan Malmquist (20) in Greyhounds 3-2 semifinal setback.
Just 19 seconds after Nanne’s goal, Dylan Malmquist circled the East goal and fed Andy Jordahl, who scored from the slot for a 3-1 lead.
“That third goal killed us,” said East coach Mike Randolph. “There wasn’t much time left, and now we had to make up two. We didn’t get to the point where we could play our game and shut them down. I was really pleased with Parker’s play in goal; every goal they got was on the wrong guy’s stick at the wrong time.”
Meirs Moore gave East new life when he stepped into a slap shot from the left point and blew it by Benjamin to cut the deficit to 3-2, but only 1:46 remained in the third period. “We knew it wasn’t over when I got my goal,” said Moore. “But there wasn’t much time left. I just wish I could have scored it a few minutes earlier.
“They played a solid game,” Moore added. “It got tiring getting hit all the time. They’ve got some big forwards finishing you every time you had the puck.”
That was a departure from the teams of the 1960s and ‘70s. “I remember that because I played against those teams,” said Langevin. This Edina team has similar speed and the ability to apply relentless pressure, and adds the physical dimension.
“We smoked ‘em pretty good in midseason,” Randolph said. “But I’ve watched them, and you could see they were finding their game. They’ve found their game.”
HAWKS OVERCOME BRECK
Both Hermantown and Breck had their moments in their pulsating battle. Hermantown led 1-0 on Chris Benson’s goal at 8:22 of the first period. Bo Gronseth broke through the Breck defense and got a shot away as he was hauled down. Goaltender Henry Johnson blocked it, but Benson was quickly on the rebound, pulling it wide, and then wider, to the left before snapping a shot into the short side of the narrowing angle.
Bo Gronseth (5) and Nate Pionk (6) went hard to Breck net in 4-3 overtime victory.
Thomas Lindstrom tied it 1-1 for Breck with a point blank set up against Hawks goalie Adam Smith with 14 seconds left in the second period, and Breck gained a 2-1 lead when Matt Colford, who had set up the first goal, broke in off the opening faceoff in the second period, and dropped a pass back to Jack O’Connor who scored at 0:12.
The Hawks big line countered for a 2-2 tie when Travis Koepke chased down a rebound and shot from the left, then pulled his rebound back and scored into a narrow angle at 5:56 — quite similar to his linemate Benson’s opening goal. But Breck regained the lead at 3-2 three minutes later when Colford raced in to score with a rebound.
That set the stage for another big goal by Hermantown’s prolific first line, as Gronseth peeled the puck off the end boards and threw a backhand pass to the goal-mouth, where Koepke one-timed it for the 3-3 equalizer.
Thomas Lindgren (16) peeled off after scoring to give Breck a 1-1 tie against Hermantown.
The frantic pace increased through the rest of the third period as the teams exchanged swift rushes and good chances. The Hawks had one of the best, when flashy defenseman Jake Zeleznikar filtered through the defense with a slick play, pulling the puck between his own skates and retrieving it in time to get off a strong shot. In the first overtime, the teams traded chances through all 8 minutes, without scoring. In the second overtime, the Hawks killed a penalty and then attacked, but when Lane LeGarde broke in, Andrew Keiser hooked him and sent him sprawling into the goal. The officials surprisingly called for a penalty shot. But Johnson stymied LeGarde’s attempt, at 6:31 of the 17-minute session.
The Hawks momentum carried on, and after another good chance, Nate Pionk — the sophomore half of the brother act — came up with a key play. Carrying up the right side 2-on-2, he barged between the two defenders, pushing the puck ahead one-handed and as he was hauled down by the two, he got the puck ahead to Zach Kramer at the top of the right circle, and his quick, hard shot beat Johnson to the far pipe and in, giving the Hawks their victory 4-3.
“I was just trying to throw it on net,” said Kramer.
Bruce Plante, his coach, took over from there. “He’s never scored a big goal in his life, so he didn’t know how to act,” said Plante. “Zach was our hero. Actually, we have no award for whoever is our hero every game. We’ll probably slap him up when we get him back to the locker room to keep him humble.”
Kramer was asked if he might have scored any big goals his coach didn’t know about. “No,” he said. “That was my highlight, for sure.”
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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