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Who will make a run next year?

Eden Prairie, Stillwater and Grand Rapids have tons of young players coming back. If Middlested stays then these three could be contenders along with who?

Holy Family? BSM? Hill Murray? Edina? Mtka? Wayzata?

Who are the way too early favorites next year?

Mavs wrote:Who will make a run next year?

Eden Prairie, Stillwater and Grand Rapids have tons of young players coming back. If Middlested stays then these three could be contenders along with who?

Holy Family? BSM? Hill Murray? Edina? Mtka? Wayzata?

Who are the way too early favorites next year?

Hermantown easily has to be the class AA favorites

Stillwater should be an early favorite for a championship. They return something like 4 of their top 5 scorers and have several good d-men returning. Benson leaving hurts, and breaking up brother tandems can really hurt the remaining one. But I've heard plenty of good things about Bensons backup; he's a big kid with skill in net.

Hill should be a top 10 team. Begley returns in goal, and they return most of their scorers. They need to improve on offense in a major way, this was the least potent Hill offense I've seen in 10 years. D will be fine even without Staum. I expect Hill to be very good, and potentially great next year.

Section Finals predictions for 2017

1AA - Farmington vs. Lakeville South
2AA - Ep vs. Tonka
3AA - STA vs. Rosemount
4AA - Stillwater vs. Hill
5AA - Anoka vs. Blaine
6AA - Wayzata vs. Edina
7AA - Grand Rapids vs. East
8AA - Bemidji vs. Brainerd

Mavs wrote:Who will make a run next year?

Eden Prairie, Stillwater and Grand Rapids have tons of young players coming back. If Middlested stays then these three could be contenders along with who?

Holy Family? BSM? Hill Murray? Edina? Mtka? Wayzata?

Who are the way too early favorites next year?

It's always interesting to see who the forums users like for next year.

kniven wrote:

Mavs wrote:Who will make a run next year?

Eden Prairie, Stillwater and Grand Rapids have tons of young players coming back. If Middlested stays then these three could be contenders along with who?

Holy Family? BSM? Hill Murray? Edina? Mtka? Wayzata?

Who are the way too early favorites next year?

It's always interesting to see who the forums users like for next year.

Then this will especially interest you, kniven. I think Cloquet will be a real threat in 7AA next year. They didn't lose much to graduation, most of their stars from this year will be juniors and seniors, and they have an excellent bantam team that will feed them some solid depth.

Of course GR, ER, and East are heavyweights, but I think the Jacks will close the gap and be more of a threat. Not that they'll be favorites, but I wouldn't be shocked to see them win 7AA.

Initial thoughts:

Always worth looking at some of the top team returning 2016-17 starting goalies over 90% save percent.. Begley, Bischell, Capezza/Kelly, Enright, Fitzgerald, Holum, Meyers, Moe ., apologies to anyone I missed

Edina returning the most D1 talent, at least so far.

Elk , HM, LVN, Rapids, Stillwater returning a lot of top scorers in class

HF, BSM and Wayz , among others, returning some great Dmen.

Moorhead and Bemidji will again be neck and neck in Section 8

Centennial will probably face MG in section 5. Blaine rebuilding, but Bantams are great.

Tonka has huge amount of talent in pipeline, maybe a year away still, then watch out for about 3 years straight.

Assuming CM will be gone one way or other, last nite will be the last we see of him in MSHSL?

Early departures are always a part of this conversation, but I think Edina is going to be very, very good next year.

Walker, Phillips, Scheerer, Copeland, and Brinkman...

Their only key loss is Dornbach to graduation, otherwise, nobody of real significance was lost to graduation.

Lakeville North could be strong depending on departures.

Poehling, Eneback, and Pehrson are the big guns and the key returns needed. If those 3 are back then they're dangerous. They'll also return some nice players in Reed Smith, Klans, Brandt, McGlade and Draeger. Spencer Schneider had lots of hype as a freshman this year and will hopefully make more of an impact as a sophomore. Might need a goalie.

Assuming Mittelstadt is gone, EP still has some nice players. Leivermann, Sullivan and Johannes are a solid core. Blackowiak seemed to impress in his 3rd line role and could be in line for more. I don't know anything about the bantam class but saw Jack Jensen is on the NTDP tryout list, so if he doesn't make that I'd assume he'd be a high end player.

Agree on the Edina comments. If they can keep that core, they should be very good with another year under their belts.

blueblood wrote:Section Finals predictions for 2017

1AA - Farmington vs. Lakeville South
2AA - Ep vs. Tonka
3AA - STA vs. Rosemount
4AA - Stillwater vs. Hill
5AA - Anoka vs. Blaine
6AA - Wayzata vs. Edina
7AA - Grand Rapids vs. East
8AA - Bemidji vs. Brainerd

- MHD will be the team to beat in 8AA

It always depends on who returns, but I see a lot of people excited about Edina. I'm not so optimistic, i expect them to lose a player or two and even if they keep everyone, wayzata will be tough too.
We all saw how strong wayzata was on D, and if they keep everyone, they would return all 5 d that they played regularly. Wazcensko (however you spell it) should be able to step right in, and they only lost two forwards that were dynamic. Senden and Duma are good, but the rest of the seniors were role players and I would imagine they could find replacements for those players in that association.
Tonka should be pretty good in 2AA

Good stuff!

Cloquet will be the team to beat in 7AA next year. You heard it here first.

Hermantown should be good in the JV Bracket. They return a lot of firepower with Sandelin and the two Proctor kids.

In the Northern part of the state on the AA side I think Cloquet and Moorhead are both set up well for a nice 5 or 6 year stretch with some success in their respective sections.......whether they can be top 5 or higher teams at the state level is TBD.

That said.......I think they are both a year away from the meat of that run starting to come together at the high school level.

I'm curious to hear what Elliot sees in Section 8 next year.

Bemidji has some fantastic high end back at all positions but seems to lose a good chunk of depth. Seems like they will be a solid threat to threepeat at the X but will drop off a bit from this year. Moorhead loses most of an experienced D Corp, but should be strong up front and good in net and have some high end D coming off of the current Bantams to fill in, along with some depth from JV. Spuds should be on an uptick with last years 3rd at state Bantam team becoming juniors.....but they are probably a year away from hitting their full stride. Brainerd loses a lot of scoring so I don't see them making a major move and I don't see Roseau being a major factor......along with Buffalo or Rogers.

The seniors to be at STMA had a strong outing as 2nd year Bantams so I could see them contending for a section title as well.......but I don't know much about their roster and if they've lost any parts since then.

Put all that together and I'd see a pretty open race between Bemidji, STMA and Moorhead without a clear front runner in the group. If anyone knows more about next years STMA group it'd be great to hear more.

I've heard rumblings that Phillips is considering leaving Edina for juniors.

Incoming Sophomore class is apparently pretty good.

Will someone step up and fill the void left by Malmquist/Hurley in the top-end talent department? My money's on Brinkman.

Can't wait to see how the cake do next year. The tourney wasn't the same without 'em (hats off to Wayzata though).

GoldenBear69 wrote:

blueblood wrote:Section Finals predictions for 2017

1AA - Farmington vs. Lakeville South
2AA - Ep vs. Tonka
3AA - STA vs. Rosemount
4AA - Stillwater vs. Hill
5AA - Anoka vs. Blaine
6AA - Wayzata vs. Edina
7AA - Grand Rapids vs. East
8AA - Bemidji vs. Brainerd

- MHD will be the team to beat in 8AA

Moorhead, I agree.

Bemidji, Brainerd and StMA slightly behind.

HornetsFan wrote: Incoming Sophomore class is apparently pretty good.

The Bantam AA didn't get out of Region this year.

Section 8 guy wrote:I'm curious to hear what Elliot sees in Section 8 next year.

Bemidji has some fantastic high end back at all positions but seems to lose a good chunk of depth. Seems like they will be a solid threat to threepeat at the X but will drop off a bit from this year. Moorhead loses most of an experienced D Corp, but should be strong up front and good in net and have some high end D coming off of the current Bantams to fill in, along with some depth from JV. Spuds should be on an uptick with last years 3rd at state Bantam team becoming juniors.....but they are probably a year away from hitting their full stride. Brainerd loses a lot of scoring so I don't see them making a major move and I don't see Roseau being a major factor......along with Buffalo or Rogers.

The seniors to be at STMA had a strong outing as 2nd year Bantams so I could see them contending for a section title as well.......but I don't know much about their roster and if they've lost any parts since then.

Put all that together and I'd see a pretty open race between Bemidji, STMA and Moorhead without a clear front runner in the group. If anyone knows more about next years STMA group it'd be great to hear more.

Bemidji loses 6 forwards from their top 3 lines and their 2 senior captions on D. They will return Pollock and Tatro from their top line, along with the freshman Olson from the third line. Hartje and Lalli both return on D, as well as Fitzgerald in goal. All should be top players at their positions in 8AA. Most of the players stepping in will come from the JV. the team should be solid, but losing so much talent will be tough to overcome.

Assuming that the Apollo/Tech co-op goes through they are headed back to 8AA where Tech had previously resided. They have a loaded junior class, as well as a couple of solid players transferring to the area. What're you're guys' thoughts on them being potential conteders?

The Hub just posted their rankings, not sure I agree with the Edina love and it is not factoring in early departures. Still fun to get thinking about next year though. http://www.mnhockeyhub.com/news_article ... r_id=32770

TheNightman wrote:The Hub just posted their rankings, not sure I agree with the Edina love and it is not factoring in early departures. Still fun to get thinking about next year though. http://www.mnhockeyhub.com/news_article ... r_id=32770

Wow! That's awesome!!! Nice to see 7AA with east, rapids, and the elks ranked

eazy98 wrote:Lakeville North could be strong depending on departures.

Poehling, Eneback, and Pehrson are the big guns and the key returns needed. If those 3 are back then they're dangerous. They'll also return some nice players in Reed Smith, Klans, Brandt, McGlade and Draeger. Spencer Schneider had lots of hype as a freshman this year and will hopefully make more of an impact as a sophomore. Might need a goalie.

Assuming Mittelstadt is gone, EP still has some nice players. Leivermann, Sullivan and Johannes are a solid core. Blackowiak seemed to impress in his 3rd line role and could be in line for more. I don't know anything about the bantam class but saw Jack Jensen is on the NTDP tryout list, so if he doesn't make that I'd assume he'd be a high end player.

Agree on the Edina comments. If they can keep that core, they should be very good with another year under their belts.

My understanding Poehling will not be back. He just earned a few points this past weekend in Lincoln. My guess, a year in juniors and then SCSU. As for Eneback and/or Pehrson, they will not be far behind if they are given the right opportunity.

Agree that Cloquet will be a very interesting team next year and definitely in the 17-18 campaign.

Section Finals predictions for 2017

1AA - Farmington vs. Lakeville South
agree, not much else. Farmington's last chance in a while.

2AA - Ep vs. Tonka
I'll take Prior Lake over EP, like the Tonka pick for the next 3 yrs or so. This should be a fun top 3-4 here.

3AA - STA vs. Rosemount
Jefferson over Rosemount. Jags are contenders the next 2 yrs.

4AA - Stillwater vs. Hill
agree, no one else has the horses

5AA - Anoka vs. Blaine
I'll take Centennial vs. Maple Grove here. Centennial is loaded at this age group

6AA - Wayzata vs. Edina
safe money bet. I'm in.

7AA - Grand Rapids vs. East
Elk River or Cloquet may sneak in ... but i doubt it. Solid pick

8AA - Bemidji vs. Brainerd
STMA over one of them ... I'll go STMA vs Moorhead
*edit to add Moorhead, thanks Elliot, missed them

Sections 6 and 7 should be the hardest paths in.

One step further ... why not? My thinking is based off of the 2013-15 Bantam AA seasons
1AA- Farmington
2AA- Minnetonka
3AA- Jefferson
4AA- Hill-Murray
5AA- Centennial
6AA- Wayzata
7AA- Grand Rapids
8AA- Moorhead