MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Moderators: Mitch Hawker, east hockey, karl(east)
MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
1 Hermantown
2 Warroad
3 East Grand Forks
4 Fergus Falls
5 Duluth Denfeld
6 Mahtomedi
7 Dodge County
8 Little Falls
9 Delano
10 Breck
11 Alexandria
13 Minneapolis
14 Orono
15 SW Christian
16 Thief River Falls
2 Warroad
3 East Grand Forks
4 Fergus Falls
5 Duluth Denfeld
6 Mahtomedi
7 Dodge County
8 Little Falls
9 Delano
10 Breck
11 Alexandria
13 Minneapolis
14 Orono
15 SW Christian
16 Thief River Falls
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Oooph! Little Falls lost an awful lot of scoring and not sure the incoming talent will help a ton. But I like the optimism! Goalie is a huge question mark as well.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Virginia at 12. If they combine with Eveleth this year, as someone else mentioned may happen, then they may move into top ten.
Last edited by rainier2 on Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Denfeld also. I don't see how they don't take a step back due to losses at goalie and defense, even if top two lines will still be very good.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
There is no point in ranking Dodge County, because Brody Lamb has about a 1% chance of returning.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Per a David Lavaque tweet, looks like DC is heading up to AA.Stang5280 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:22 pmThere is no point in ranking Dodge County, because Brody Lamb has about a 1% chance of returning.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
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Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Ouch.rainier2 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 9:03 pmPer a David Lavaque tweet, looks like DC is heading up to AA.Stang5280 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:22 pmThere is no point in ranking Dodge County, because Brody Lamb has about a 1% chance of returning.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
Lee
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Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Would love to see the Minneapolis contingent have a solid year.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
I agree. Hermantown probably lost more talent (Pierce, Pionk, Lund, Dowd, Antcliff, etc) to graduation than anyone else in Class A and are still the team to beat. On paper, EGF looks like the only team that could challenge them IMO. But, then again, the Hawks haven't always lived up to their front-runner status at the state tournament.Stang5280 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:22 pmThere is no point in ranking Dodge County, because Brody Lamb has about a 1% chance of returning.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
Do you think we are seeing a trend with a polarization in the talent of teams at Class A? In other words, are there fewer and fewer teams capable of competing for a state championship or at the top of many sections? Maybe it is Recency Bias, but to me it seems like there is a growing gap between a few great programs/teams, a few more really good teams, some solid teams, then most of the rest of the state.
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Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
I think the past few years, in which the gap was somewhat smaller, are more the exception if you look back over the history of Class A. Go back a decade and it's pretty much all St. Thomas, Hermantown, and Breck, and the occasional surge of talent from EGF and Warroad. Those 5 teams accounted for every championship between 2003 and 2017. It got more competitive, and frankly a lot more fun, over the past few years, with STA moving up and Breck coming back to the pack and Hermantown suffering some surprise upsets. This long run of first-time champs in Class A is a relatively new development. This seeming polarization is more a return to the past norm, though I still think it's somewhat better that it was since the list of dominant teams is a little shorter.Goose21 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:06 pmI agree. Hermantown probably lost more talent (Pierce, Pionk, Lund, Dowd, Antcliff, etc) to graduation than anyone else in Class A and are still the team to beat. On paper, EGF looks like the only team that could challenge them IMO. But, then again, the Hawks haven't always lived up to their front-runner status at the state tournament.Stang5280 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:22 pmThere is no point in ranking Dodge County, because Brody Lamb has about a 1% chance of returning.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
Do you think we are seeing a trend with a polarization in the talent of teams at Class A? In other words, are there fewer and fewer teams capable of competing for a state championship or at the top of many sections? Maybe it is Recency Bias, but to me it seems like there is a growing gap between a few great programs/teams, a few more really good teams, some solid teams, then most of the rest of the state.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
I see that Karl just weighed in, but I will offer some thoughts that I had already been working on.Goose21 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:06 pmI agree. Hermantown probably lost more talent (Pierce, Pionk, Lund, Dowd, Antcliff, etc) to graduation than anyone else in Class A and are still the team to beat. On paper, EGF looks like the only team that could challenge them IMO. But, then again, the Hawks haven't always lived up to their front-runner status at the state tournament.Stang5280 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:22 pmThere is no point in ranking Dodge County, because Brody Lamb has about a 1% chance of returning.
Breck also graduates a ton. Morgan and Theissen return on D, but the top two forward lines are all gone. It will be a rebuilding year (or two) for sure.
The Class A landscape looks bleak for next season. Barring a major surprise, the two 8A teams are the only squads standing in the way of Hermantown.
Do you think we are seeing a trend with a polarization in the talent of teams at Class A? In other words, are there fewer and fewer teams capable of competing for a state championship or at the top of many sections? Maybe it is Recency Bias, but to me it seems like there is a growing gap between a few great programs/teams, a few more really good teams, some solid teams, then most of the rest of the state.
No, I don't think it's recency bias. The talent in Class A is very much concentrated at the top, and the margin has become increasingly wider between the "have" and "have not" programs. I think this can be attributed to a few factors.
1. Most of the private schools, or at least the former powerhouses, have opted up to AA.
2. A few of the former contending programs, both private and public, are shells of their former selves (Breck, Lourdes, South St. Paul, Hibbing, to name a few).
3. Player movement - So many of the talented players from weaker or middling programs are enrolling at or moving into AA or stronger A programs.
The movement of Class A powerhouses to AA, like Benilde and STA, was a bit of a double-edged sword. Sure, it allowed for some other programs to step into the spotlight (particularly Hermantown and EGF), but it also reduced the overall talent pool at the Class A level and just turned the former hunters into the hunted at the top. The Class A tournaments of 10 to 15 years ago definitely featured more in the way of future college talent and, I believe, a higher overall level of play, at least from the semifinals forward. Now the high-end talent is largely concentrated into a few teams and, barring Cinderella runs from a Greenway or even Mahtomedi, the results seem almost preordained. Even the section playoffs have suffered; gone are the "sections of death" with a Breck/Delano/Blake/Orono or STA/Mahtomedi/Totino grouping.
The most obvious solution is for the current 500 lb gorilla, Hermantown, to opt up to AA. But there is no guarantee that others won't step in to fill their place, and you also start to run the risk of the tournament becoming a two-tier situation, with Class A being a far inferior product.
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Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Well, there you go, two contrasting views.
I won't dispute that the list of very top teams is a little bit shorter. That said, I think the talent level on the not-top teams is somewhat higher than it used to be, even if the Brody Lambs of the world are less likely to stick around for their senior years. Some of the programs that have fallen off have been replaced by others who never would have been in the conversation a decade ago: Delano has risen up, Alexandria having some real talent, Mahtomedi and Cathedral reaching new heights. I also think section arrangements play some role here; there was no 3A/SW MN section 30 years ago.
I'd be curious to run my "history of HS hockey by urbanism" stuff for Class A, and might just have to do so. It'll look a bit different, but you'll see some of the same trends, with the South St. Pauls of the world and the Range teams falling off. (That said, Hibbing would've been a legit title contender in the Perunovich years, and may be again if their PeeWees stick together and continue to improve.) And you'll see gradual improvement on the metro periphery, and in some other places where there's been a concerted effort to build up some programs. The increase in options and player movement probably slows this somewhat, but there has been a decent amount of player movement through pretty much the entire Class A era, so I don't think it's radically new.
In general, though, I'm bullish on Class A hockey now that some of the powers have moved up to AA. (Not totally, of course, but I also don't think a Hermantown-type situation is totally avoidable; there will always be someone who dominates, to greater or lesser degrees.) I think it's having the intended effect of opening doors to new programs, and the talent level in those programs is, on the whole and with obvious exceptions, somewhat better than it was 20 years ago.
I won't dispute that the list of very top teams is a little bit shorter. That said, I think the talent level on the not-top teams is somewhat higher than it used to be, even if the Brody Lambs of the world are less likely to stick around for their senior years. Some of the programs that have fallen off have been replaced by others who never would have been in the conversation a decade ago: Delano has risen up, Alexandria having some real talent, Mahtomedi and Cathedral reaching new heights. I also think section arrangements play some role here; there was no 3A/SW MN section 30 years ago.
I'd be curious to run my "history of HS hockey by urbanism" stuff for Class A, and might just have to do so. It'll look a bit different, but you'll see some of the same trends, with the South St. Pauls of the world and the Range teams falling off. (That said, Hibbing would've been a legit title contender in the Perunovich years, and may be again if their PeeWees stick together and continue to improve.) And you'll see gradual improvement on the metro periphery, and in some other places where there's been a concerted effort to build up some programs. The increase in options and player movement probably slows this somewhat, but there has been a decent amount of player movement through pretty much the entire Class A era, so I don't think it's radically new.
In general, though, I'm bullish on Class A hockey now that some of the powers have moved up to AA. (Not totally, of course, but I also don't think a Hermantown-type situation is totally avoidable; there will always be someone who dominates, to greater or lesser degrees.) I think it's having the intended effect of opening doors to new programs, and the talent level in those programs is, on the whole and with obvious exceptions, somewhat better than it was 20 years ago.
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Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
I spoke to someone very close to Eveleth’s program yesterday and they said that combining with Virginia next season has yet to be determined. In fact, this person told me they think it’s less than a 50% chance it happens. Was also told that the Eveleth coach is considering stepping down as well but, hasn’t made a decision yet.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Just to point out that 2-3 years ago during SCC ‘s run, the A class had about 16-17 D1 commits playing all over Minnesota that year,
which at the time was thought to be an all time record for the A category
which at the time was thought to be an all time record for the A category
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
And there were only four D1 commits in Class A this past season (five if you count Kluender, but I highly doubt he makes it to Wisconsin). The new recruiting rules have some impact on that total, but this wasn’t a stellar year overall for Class A.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
I agree that the former superpowers moving up to AA (or falling off in some cases) created an opportunity for new blood to step into the fray. However, there is still a notable divide between the top echelon and the next tier. Yes, we did have a stint of first-time champions over the past few years, but that feels like it is about to come to a screeching halt. Hermantown and the 8A squads look poised to dominate over the next few seasons.karl(east) wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 9:51 amWell, there you go, two contrasting views.
I won't dispute that the list of very top teams is a little bit shorter. That said, I think the talent level on the not-top teams is somewhat higher than it used to be, even if the Brody Lambs of the world are less likely to stick around for their senior years. Some of the programs that have fallen off have been replaced by others who never would have been in the conversation a decade ago: Delano has risen up, Alexandria having some real talent, Mahtomedi and Cathedral reaching new heights. I also think section arrangements play some role here; there was no 3A/SW MN section 30 years ago.
I'd be curious to run my "history of HS hockey by urbanism" stuff for Class A, and might just have to do so. It'll look a bit different, but you'll see some of the same trends, with the South St. Pauls of the world and the Range teams falling off. (That said, Hibbing would've been a legit title contender in the Perunovich years, and may be again if their PeeWees stick together and continue to improve.) And you'll see gradual improvement on the metro periphery, and in some other places where there's been a concerted effort to build up some programs. The increase in options and player movement probably slows this somewhat, but there has been a decent amount of player movement through pretty much the entire Class A era, so I don't think it's radically new.
In general, though, I'm bullish on Class A hockey now that some of the powers have moved up to AA. (Not totally, of course, but I also don't think a Hermantown-type situation is totally avoidable; there will always be someone who dominates, to greater or lesser degrees.) I think it's having the intended effect of opening doors to new programs, and the talent level in those programs is, on the whole and with obvious exceptions, somewhat better than it was 20 years ago.
Interestingly, I don't think you would find nearly the same level of outward migration of success in Class A. The tournament has largely been dominated by private schools and Section 8 from the inception. The only inner-ring programs I can recall having any modicum of success were South St. Paul and Simley. Some of the outer-ring suburban schools, like Mahtomedi, Orono, and Farmington, made frequent trips to the tournament right from the start. Most of the exurban area programs never had much success at the A level before their enrollment pushed them into AA. STMA and Prior Lake come to mind as examples, though Rogers had a few good teams that ran into Hermantown in the section finals. Delano stands out as the prominent counterexample, where changing demographics and grassroots development combined to build up a consistent power.
One change that does spring to mind is in the southern portion of the state, where schools like Red Wing and Lourdes were competing for championships 10 to 20 years ago, and have now fallen completely off the map. Setting aside the fluky run by Dodge County this year, it seems like it will be a long time before the southern sections send a real threat to the X.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
IMVHO, if Hermantown would do the right thing, and barring a stacked private team like Gentry existing, the 1A tournament would become a very entertaining tournament. You might have some domination from 8A in some years. But otherwise, it might be up for grabs every year from any section. Quarters and Semis could be great. This year would have been:
Little Falls
Dodge County
Delano
Denfeld
EGF
LDC
Mahtomedi
Northern Lakes
Looks like a fun tourney.
Little Falls
Dodge County
Delano
Denfeld
EGF
LDC
Mahtomedi
Northern Lakes
Looks like a fun tourney.
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
EGF breezes.
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Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Teams I would keep an eye on that are not listed… no particular order, just scrolling down Hub standings.
Northfield
Sartell (should be borderline top 10)
Providence Academy
LDC
Northfield
Sartell (should be borderline top 10)
Providence Academy
LDC
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Yes
Based on what I saw, they are now 8AA
Based on what I saw, they are now 8AA
Re: MN Hockey Hub Class A top 16 for 2021-2022
Yes
Very short memory on my part. Tough break for the Sabres since they would have a shot at their first state trip (especially being moved to 5A), but will be an afterthought in 8AA.