green4 wrote:
What does next year look like for 4AA? I know hill is really young and I kind of had the thought that this was gonna be one of the best shots for WBL for awhile.
I expect Stillwater and Hill Murray to be better. WBL is graduating their all senior top line, but do have a good group of young players as well. This was their best shot in a while though, so this one stings. Tonight was a pretty big letdown.
WBLHockeyfan04 or Zach Halvorson question for the WBL fans who have covered the team all season. Tuned in to watch the 12/1 East - WBL and watched the 3-4 loss to Edina on 1/4. The team I watched early season was as good as any of the deep teams out of WBL. Is this a team that just peaked too early as can happen in sport. Some key injuries? Did the lighter schedule (Hibbing. Rapids, Park CG, Woodbury) down the stretch impact the team at all for a deep playoff run?
Hill finishing with Duuth Marshal, Elk River, Moorhead prep that team for a deep playoff run?
Curious what you guys have for analysis as in the Rob Roy to Jake Bischoff era Rapids routinely hurt themselves with a soft IRA schedule leading up to playoffs. I think that hurt some of those teams when trying to get your game up to Duluth East speed.
I saw both of the games against East and Edina as well. As the season wore on I had concerns about their depth scoring beyond their first line because they're still a younger team. They pretty much split goalies throughout the year as well, and never really settled into one. I thought Hill did a very good job against the Bears top line last Friday night. The Bears did have a number of games over the last month where they accumulated a lot of shots and scoring chances with not a lot of goals to show for it.
All in all, I do think this Bears team has more talent than Hill Murray. In a one game playoff though I'll take a Lechner coached team over Sager. Factor in there was probably a lot more pressure on White Bear to win since they're rarely ever a favorite in that game, and we got the result we did. I fully expect Minnetonka to beat Hill Murray by at least 3 goals. They have a lot more depth and speed.
BodyShots wrote:I feel bad for the hockey families of WBL. No matter how well they do as youths, and how hard they work to improve their game, it always ends up with unfilled dreams and expectations once they get on the high school hockey team.
Lets look back on the season and see how well this coaching staffs does in improving the team throughout the year:
Roseville - game 1 win by 6, game 2 win by 4, game 3 win by 2.
Flake - win by 3, win by 1
Cretin - Tie, and lose by 1
MV - win by 8, win by 4
ER - win by 6, win by 4
HM - win by 2, lose by 2
SW - win by 3, win by 3 (WOW, they didn't lose ground for once)
Park - win by 8, win by 6
Wood - win by 13, win by 9
So in summary, 8 out of 9 rematches the opponents did better than the bears in the following games. The other ended in a draw.
Coaching, coaching, coaching. It's kind of like location, location, location. Is White Bear Lake really only a swamp?
To piggyback off of this. Since Sager took over in 2003 he's defeated Hill Murray two times in section playoffs. 2003 semis in his first year as head coach, and in 2011 in the big upset section final. That's it.. Not that many more wins in the regular season meetings either.
BodyShots wrote:I feel bad for the hockey families of WBL. No matter how well they do as youths, and how hard they work to improve their game, it always ends up with unfilled dreams and expectations once they get on the high school hockey team.
Lets look back on the season and see how well this coaching staffs does in improving the team throughout the year:
Roseville - game 1 win by 6, game 2 win by 4, game 3 win by 2.
Flake - win by 3, win by 1
Cretin - Tie, and lose by 1
MV - win by 8, win by 4
ER - win by 6, win by 4
HM - win by 2, lose by 2
SW - win by 3, win by 3 (WOW, they didn't lose ground for once)
Park - win by 8, win by 6
Wood - win by 13, win by 9
So in summary, 8 out of 9 rematches the opponents did better than the bears in the following games. The other ended in a draw.
Coaching, coaching, coaching. It's kind of like location, location, location. Is White Bear Lake really only a swamp?
To piggyback off of this. Since Sager took over in 2003 he's defeated Hill Murray two times in section playoffs. 2003 semis in his first year as head coach, and in 2011 in the big upset section final. That's it.. Not that many more wins in the regular season meetings either.
The important thing is that WB won the regular season contest. We don't want the winning streak to get out of hand like it did until 2011. Better to keep the streaks shorter, and let them end in December rather than February or March.
green4 wrote:
What does next year look like for 4AA? I know hill is really young and I kind of had the thought that this was gonna be one of the best shots for WBL for awhile.
I expect Stillwater and Hill Murray to be better. WBL is graduating their all senior top line, but do have a good group of young players as well. This was their best shot in a while though, so this one stings. Tonight was a pretty big letdown.
WBLHockeyfan04 or Zach Halvorson question for the WBL fans who have covered the team all season. Tuned in to watch the 12/1 East - WBL and watched the 3-4 loss to Edina on 1/4. The team I watched early season was as good as any of the deep teams out of WBL. Is this a team that just peaked too early as can happen in sport. Some key injuries? Did the lighter schedule (Hibbing. Rapids, Park CG, Woodbury) down the stretch impact the team at all for a deep playoff run?
Hill finishing with Duuth Marshal, Elk River, Moorhead prep that team for a deep playoff run?
Curious what you guys have for analysis as in the Rob Roy to Jake Bischoff era Rapids routinely hurt themselves with a soft IRA schedule leading up to playoffs. I think that hurt some of those teams when trying to get your game up to Duluth East speed.
Saw the Bears Hill game, my 2 cents. HM was not the better team, they knew that coming in. What I saw was a HM team that had a plan and stuck to it like any well coached team would do if they knew they were the lesser team. They collapsed around their own net and did the little things right to get the job done. They also took their own chances but only when it made sense. Translation, Hill had less chances but made them count and WBL carried the play and had more chances but the bend but don't break D of HM carried the day. WBL had some impressive size but the tall guys ran out of gas midway through the second. The Bears are missing a couple more skilled forwards that can bury the puck and need to effectively use the tall kids they have and get a little more gritty around the net. What I saw was a few 6'2-6'3 kids trying to score pretty goals like a 5'9 skill guy. The good news for the Bears is I don't think their incoming top players from Bantams are going to Fall for the FULL PAGE AD in LPH recruiting hockey players. I don't believe the AD mentions Academics or Religion at all but I'm sure they get to that after you get dropped off with your hockey bag
