USA Hockey nationals

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j4241
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USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:56 am

Teams from Minnesota playing:

U19 - SSM (no Minnesota high school players - former ones include McKenzie Rich and Molly Grundhoffer)
U16 - Vegas (18 MInnesota '22 skaters and 2 '23 goalies)
U14 - Green Giants, Lakers and Walleye ('06 age players from their district teams - Green Giants is district 10, Lakers district 6, and Walleye district 3)

Schedules here: https://nationals.usahockey.com/2021
Video coverage here: https://www.hockeytv.com/events/elite (full event list)

Top 5 rankings from myhockeyrankings.com (https://myhockeyrankings.com/rankings.p ... evel=girls) for those age groups:

U19:
MN Elite White (not at nationals)
SSM
MN Elite Black (not at nationals)
Chicago Mission
NAHA White (not at nationals)

U16:
Vegas
MN MSP Grey (not at nationals)
Little Caesars
SSM
East Coast Wizards
(MSP Black is 7 - not at nationals - Grey and Black are the only teams in the top 10 in those rankings not at nationals)

U14:
Mission
MN Green Giants
MN Lakers
East Coast Wizards
MN Walleye
(MN Moose are 9, and are the only top 10 team not at natioanls)

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:35 am

Vegas with a convincing 7-1 win against Team Colorado. Interesting that Colorado has an 8-1 loss on their record to MSP Red, which is a group that is supposed to be several notches below the Vegas crew. I expected a somewhat more lopsided score, to be honest. Roberts looked very good.

jg2112
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by jg2112 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:51 am

j4241 wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:35 am
Vegas with a convincing 7-1 win against Team Colorado. Interesting that Colorado has an 8-1 loss on their record to MSP Red, which is a group that is supposed to be several notches below the Vegas crew. I expected a somewhat more lopsided score, to be honest. Roberts looked very good.
Team Colorado is 10-22. Team Wisconsin is 11-24-2. Washington Pride is 1-14-1.

What are these teams doing at Nationals?

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:18 am

They "qualified."

jg2112
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by jg2112 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:23 am

j4241 wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:18 am
They "qualified."
Ah, a process based on regional qualification. Got it.

Next issue - Blair and Hansen in nets? Is Courneia okay?

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:28 am

Not sure - but she is not there, and did not participate in HP. Neither did M. Kaiser, who is also not there. Nor did Enright, who is not on the Vegas team. Will be interesting to see what USA Hockey does with those three.

bodyup88
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by bodyup88 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:05 pm

Uma is a laxer for Edina along with Kuehl and Maxwell.

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:50 pm

I would guess the majority of the kids doing HP and/or on Vegas are multi sport athletes, with a spring commitment. What was your point?

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Fri Apr 30, 2021 7:08 pm

Vegas with a less convincing 5-3 win over Gilmour, setting up a showdown with the other 2-0 team in their bracket, selects academy. That should be a good one, with selects backstopped by Wisco commit McNaughton in goal, and Wisco commit Bella Vasseur leading the offense.

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Sun May 02, 2021 5:48 am

At 14s, both Lakers and Green Giants move on to elimination round, both finishing second in their pool (but entering with national rankings of #3 and #2, respectively). Green Giants face Jr. Flyers (ranked #7) at 6am our time (shortly), and Lakers face East Coast Wizards (ranked #4) at 6:15am. If they win, Green Giants play at 2pm against the winner of Mission (ranked #1) and CYA (ranked #10). Lakers play at 2:15pm against the winner of Hartford (ranked #18) and Little Caesars (ranked #6). The #1, 2, 3 and 4 ranked teams are all still playing, and there remains a possibility of an all MN championship.

At 16s, it looks like McNaughton did not play against Vegas yesterday, and they trailed 2-1 entering the third before an onslaught of goals for Vegas to close out with a 6-3 win. They play the Florida Alliance (ranked #14) at 8:15am our time, and if they win will face the winner of Little Caesars (ranked #3) and Selects Academy (ranked #10) at 4:15pm today. The #1, 3, 4 and 5 ranked teams are all still playing (MSP Grey is ranked #2, and was not invited to the tournament).

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Sun May 02, 2021 6:06 am

Oops - 14s games start at 7am, not 6, and 16s at 9:15.

Iceburg
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by Iceburg » Sun May 02, 2021 10:22 am


j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Sun May 02, 2021 11:43 am

Looks like they re-seeded the semifinals at 16s - Vegas plays Mission after they upset East Coast Wizards 1-0 at 415, and Caesars plays SSM at 430.

Eagles93
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by Eagles93 » Sun May 02, 2021 12:05 pm

j4241 wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:28 am
Nor did Enright, who is not on the Vegas team. Will be interesting to see what USA Hockey does with those three.
I heard Enright has a broken foot from lacrosse.

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Mon May 03, 2021 11:15 am

At the 16 level, Vegas more or less got smoked 5-2 - outshot about 40-20 and were stuck in their zone for long stretches of the game. Fatigue may have been an issue - bunch of kids not playing as much hockey as Caesars in the last month, and not playing together as much as Caesars. Not to mention it was a very flawed roster with a bunch of defense having to play forward. Vegas finished 23-3 - Caesars finished 62-1-2, with their other game against a top MInnesota team a 3-3 tie against MSP Grey, ranked #2 in the nation going into this tournament but not invited.

At 14s, Green Giants lost a heartbreaker in OT 2-1 to Mission (who was ranked #1 in the nation going into the tourney). Another Gorbatenko (following her '23 sister who is playing 19s) with the OT winner.

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Mon May 03, 2021 12:00 pm

And just to complete the coverage, Mission defeats RYA Selects at the U19 level 4-1 (with an ENG). Hat trick for Kelly Gorbatenko, uncommitted '23. Phone may ring for her this summer.

jg2112
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by jg2112 » Mon May 03, 2021 5:26 pm

j4241 wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 11:15 am
At the 16 level, Vegas more or less got smoked 5-2 - outshot about 40-20 and were stuck in their zone for long stretches of the game. Fatigue may have been an issue - bunch of kids not playing as much hockey as Caesars in the last month, and not playing together as much as Caesars. Not to mention it was a very flawed roster with a bunch of defense having to play forward. Vegas finished 23-3 - Caesars finished 62-1-2, with their other game against a top MInnesota team a 3-3 tie against MSP Grey, ranked #2 in the nation going into this tournament but not invited.

At 14s, Green Giants lost a heartbreaker in OT 2-1 to Mission (who was ranked #1 in the nation going into the tourney). Another Gorbatenko (following her '23 sister who is playing 19s) with the OT winner.
Interesting rationales embedded in that paragraph. Before I converse about them, kudos to the girls for a great showing at Nationals. And yes, Gorbatenko (and Dunne, for that matter) should be commended for dominating the U19 level as underage players. They might both be headed for Dinkytown, perhaps?

As for fatigue, I can't see any proof online that Little Caesar's played a game in the month prior to Nationals, whereas Vegas played 5-6 Spring League games in April. Many also tried out for and played in the HP Spring Fest. So that's probably a wash.

As for "D playing F," if today's pics online are proof of proceedings, only one skater falls into that category (Kaiser didn't go, Winters is in street clothes). Further, that skater's spent three of her four varsity seasons mostly playing forward (All-State this year). I don't understand the roster construction issues that concern you, it looks like a great roster to me with all skaters going D1.

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Mon May 03, 2021 7:16 pm

You may be on target about the ice time not being a disadvantage - maybe I was grasping at straws - I’m just surprised Caesars handled this team so easily. Vegas fielded 18 division 1 committed skaters and two future D1 goalies against a Caesars team with 6 current and maybe another 2 or 3 future D1 commits. On paper, it should have been lopsided the other way.

And I wasn’t trying to throw shade at any kids or start a fight with my comment about roster composition, just pointing out Vegas lists 8 D and 10 forwards on the elite league website, and one of those forwards is Winters, who has played mostly D. I wasn’t watching closely enough to see if they shortened the bench for this game, but in earlier games in the tourney they had multiple D playing shifts at forward. Regardless, I don’t think Minnesota (not counting SSM) has ever had a tier 1 runner up at 16s - great run by a very strong Vegas group!

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Mon May 03, 2021 9:17 pm

One point of clarification - you mentioned Kaiser as absent, but she was one of the 10 listed forwards. If you put her and Winters at D, as I believe they both more naturally belong, you have a roster of 8 F and 10 D. With her absent, it was 8 F and 9 D. With Winters in street clothes (I didn't realize that), it's 8F and 8D. Can we agree that's an odd roster? Even with Franco as the designated forward in that game (and good at that position, but not where she's at her best, MGHCA awards notwithstanding), it's 9 F and 7 D - still a bit odd.

Making my point about roster construction another way, Vegas wasn't put together as a roster designed to make sense - there was a different objective. It was put together to keep all of the '22 committed players that are '04s on one top team (with the two best available goalies), and all the '23s on two separate teams so college coaches could assess them against eachother more easily. Elite league rosters are driven by Winny's view of what college coaches want, and feedback from them over the years. That's why there's a strange F/D mix on Vegas (there happened to be proportionately a few more D than F in that group), and why some top u16s that happen to be '23s aren't on the Vegas roster. All of which elevates the success of Vegas (a main part of my point), and also elevates the implied standing of Minnesota hockey generally against the rest of the country (the other main part of my point). Our "top" team is made up of terrific players (every one is very, very good), but was not designed to be the top team, and still was ranked #1 and finished #2 in the national tourney.

goaliedad31
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by goaliedad31 » Tue May 04, 2021 1:42 pm

Not sure Vegas is much different than the other Elite League teams. Many have 8-10 D on them. For some reason or other MN seems to have a strong group of D at the 16 and 19 level.

j4241
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by j4241 » Wed May 05, 2021 9:19 am

This is comfortably in the category of "belabored" by me as an argument at this point, but none of the top elite league teams have 8 to 10 D, at least this year (other than Vegas, listed at 8 ). Here are the position #s for the various top elite league teams by age group, as listed:

19s
Tradition Black 11F and 6D
Tradition White 11F and 7D

16s
Vegas 10F and 8D (as listed - that's with Kaiser and Winters listed as F, and Franco as D)
MSP Black 12F and 6D
MSP Grey 11F and 7D

Vegas obviously isn't a huge outlier (though it is an outlier).

Anyway, again, congrats to Vegas on a great run!

And congrats to Minnesota for fielding at the U16 level 2 of the top 3 teams and 5 of the top 12 in the final U16 rankings this year, and 2 of the top 4 at u19s (all according to myhockeyrankings.com)! There are some fantastic players being developed elsewhere, but Minnesota remains the seismic epicenter of girls hockey in the US, if not the world.

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad
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Re: USA Hockey nationals

Post by PhunnsieMcHockeyDad » Wed May 05, 2021 9:44 am

And for what it's worth - at the Girls' High School, Tier II 19U and Tier II 16U levels the Premier Prep-based teams won their respective divisions. A step down from the Tier I but further reinforcement of the depth in Girls' Hockey in MN.

And at the 14U NIT last Fall, the top MN Tier I teams were more than competitive against the field.

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