First Class A Rankings of the Year

Older Topics, Not the current discussion

Moderators: Mitch Hawker, east hockey, karl(east)

Post Reply

Who is the team to beat in Class A right now?

Poll ended at Sun Dec 04, 2011 6:47 pm

St Thomas
12
25%
Hermantown
7
15%
Breck
21
44%
Totino-Grace
1
2%
Lourdes
0
No votes
Thief River Falls
5
10%
Warroad
2
4%
 
Total votes: 48

HShockeywatcher
Posts: 6848
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:21 pm

First Class A Rankings of the Year

Post by HShockeywatcher » Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:47 pm

As I did last year, I took LPH's preseason rankings as a guide to start my rankings and used a handful of games from last week and my opinion to tweak things a little bit. Looking at schedules, there should be much playing between top teams and things should pan out real quickly.

With only a few games this week, I only included comments with the first five teams. Section rankings will come in the coming weeks.

Enjoy!

1. St Thomas Academy (0-0)
The Cadets won the state title last year and there is talk they have lost firepower. They host #14 Marshall in their season opener and travel to Rochester for their third game against #5 Lourdes; we’ll get a good view of how they play against the other top teams in the state early on.
This week: Sat vs #14 Marshall

2. Hermantown (0-0)
The Hawk’s only Class A loss last year was in overtime in the state finals to St Thomas. They have a usually good Class schedule this year, minus Breck and St Thomas as usual. Common opponents will help us sort them out as the season goes on.
This week: Fri @ Sauk Rapids

3. Breck (2-0)
Breck opened the season with two good wins against fellow private schools in Duluth, #10 Cathedral and #14 Marshall. Many have said they are the team to beat; they have common opponent games with St Thomas and the two will play in Minneapolis in January.
This week: Tues @ Mahtomedi

4. Totino-Grace (0-0)
A high preseason ranking this year and the Eagles start the year with two away games against good 8A opponents.
This week: Fri @ Thief River Falls, Sat @ East Grand Forks

5. Rochester Lourdes (0-0)
I didn’t give Lourdes much credit last year, they went through the year with few losses and start the year this year ranked well. They play a great schedule again this year.
This week: Thurs vs Red Wing, Sat vs Tartan

6. Thief River Falls (0-0)
This week: Tues vs Roseau, Fri vs Totino Grace, Sat vs Blake

7. Warroad (0-0)
This week: Fri @ Mound-Westonka, Sat @ Orono

8. Hibbing/Chisholm (1-1)
This week: Tues @ Marshall, Sat vs Chisago Lakes Area

9. Duluth Marshall (1-1)
This week: Tues vs Hibbing, Saturday @ St Thomas

10. Little Falls (0-1)
This week: Tues vs St Cloud Apollo, Fri @ Virginia, Sat @ International Falls

11. St Cloud Cathedral (1-1)
This week: Fri @ Sartell

12. Blake (2-0)
This week: Tues @ Cretin-Derham Hall, Fri @ Crookston, Sat @ Thief River Falls

13. Duluth Denfeld (0-1)
This week: Tues @ Ashland, Sat @ Cambridge-Isanti

14. Rogers (0-0)
This week: Tues @ Sauk Rapids-Rice, Sat @ Mahtomedi

15. East Grand Forks (0-0)
This week: Tues @ Bemidji, Fri vs Park Rapids, Sat vs Totino-Grace

TTpuckster
Posts: 2724
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:26 am
Location: State of Hockey

Post by TTpuckster » Sun Nov 27, 2011 7:36 pm

EGF should be higher and will most likely win Section 8.

ImageImageImage

defense
Posts: 1637
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:20 pm
Location: right here

Post by defense » Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:19 pm

TTpuckster wrote:EGF should be higher and will most likely win Section 8.

ImageImageImage
This is most likely true.

Redlight
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:56 am

Post by Redlight » Mon Nov 28, 2011 12:10 am

Seems about right. STA seems to be getting the top spot based soley on it's performance last year. Based on who they have coming back and thier elite league showing vs. Breck the logical change this early would be to rank Breck at #1 and STA somewhere between 2-4. I think Totino is deserving and will likely stay in the top 5 all year provided Roo stays healthy.

HShockeywatcher
Posts: 6848
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:21 pm

Post by HShockeywatcher » Mon Nov 28, 2011 7:12 am

Redlight wrote:Seems about right. STA seems to be getting the top spot based soley on it's performance last year. Based on who they have coming back and thier elite league showing vs. Breck the logical change this early would be to rank Breck at #1 and STA somewhere between 2-4. I think Totino is deserving and will likely stay in the top 5 all year provided Roo stays healthy.
This is what I based it off of, the same with Hermantown being ahead of Breck. That being said, Eden Prairie won last year and LPH has them starting the season at #8, so that is probably not why they did it either.

I personally do not know a lot of any of the three rosters. I remember Hermantown lost one scorer but a couple of the good ones last year were juniors. I remember last year making comments that regardless of what happened, Hermantown should be the team to beat this year.

Anyone have any insights on # of seniors lost last year?

Also, anyone know which, if any, sections are using QRF ranking vs coach voting?

hshockeyfan53
Posts: 292
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:28 am

Post by hshockeyfan53 » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:18 am

Their top scorer was Garrett Skrbich who had 61 points during the regular season. He and the goalie Connor Lucas are the only two significant losses for the Hawks. They return their #2-#7 scorers and have one of the better senior forwards in the state in Jared Thomas. Also, their top 3 defencemen return led by seniors Jared Kolquist and Brian LeBlanc.

Goldy23
Posts: 368
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 7:11 pm

Post by Goldy23 » Mon Nov 28, 2011 1:47 pm

HShockeywatcher wrote:
Redlight wrote:Seems about right. STA seems to be getting the top spot based soley on it's performance last year. Based on who they have coming back and thier elite league showing vs. Breck the logical change this early would be to rank Breck at #1 and STA somewhere between 2-4. I think Totino is deserving and will likely stay in the top 5 all year provided Roo stays healthy.
This is what I based it off of, the same with Hermantown being ahead of Breck. That being said, Eden Prairie won last year and LPH has them starting the season at #8, so that is probably not why they did it either.

I personally do not know a lot of any of the three rosters. I remember Hermantown lost one scorer but a couple of the good ones last year were juniors. I remember last year making comments that regardless of what happened, Hermantown should be the team to beat this year.

Anyone have any insights on # of seniors lost last year?

Also, anyone know which, if any, sections are using QRF ranking vs coach voting?

Breck lost 5 seniors. Two of them were back up goalies. They are returning their top 8 scorers from last years team that led the State in scoring. Sorry Mustang/Private school haters, but who is going to outscore this years team? Not likely anyone in Class A. Breck had 15 goals this weekend against two of the most consitantly dominant Class A privates.

These guys (and STA) should have been playing AA for the past 10 years.

Northern Defender
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 2:23 pm

Post by Northern Defender » Mon Nov 28, 2011 2:40 pm

I was at the Breck SCC game Friday night and I think if you look objectively at this year's SCC team, you would see that Breck's accomplishment was not that telling. SCC is a very young team. Also, please keep in mind that Marshall tied a Two Harbors team earlier in the week. Something that would never have happened a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, Breck looks good, but I think we need to get a few games into this thing before we start annointing the next state champion.

Goldy23
Posts: 368
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 7:11 pm

Post by Goldy23 » Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:11 pm

Northern Defender wrote:I was at the Breck SCC game Friday night and I think if you look objectively at this year's SCC team, you would see that Breck's accomplishment was not that telling. SCC is a very young team. Also, please keep in mind that Marshall tied a Two Harbors team earlier in the week. Something that would never have happened a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, Breck looks good, but I think we need to get a few games into this thing before we start annointing the next state champion.
Agreed. Not looking to annoit the next State Champ.....Just trying to make a legit case for Breck to be ranked at #1 and ahead of STA at this stage in the season based on the facts.

HShockeywatcher
Posts: 6848
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:21 pm

Post by HShockeywatcher » Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:26 pm

Goldy23 wrote:
Northern Defender wrote:I was at the Breck SCC game Friday night and I think if you look objectively at this year's SCC team, you would see that Breck's accomplishment was not that telling. SCC is a very young team. Also, please keep in mind that Marshall tied a Two Harbors team earlier in the week. Something that would never have happened a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, Breck looks good, but I think we need to get a few games into this thing before we start annointing the next state champion.
Agreed. Not looking to annoit the next State Champ.....Just trying to make a legit case for Breck to be ranked at #1 and ahead of STA at this stage in the season based on the facts.
To throw another opinion out there:

Breck most likely handled SCC based on the score, but I wouldn't say that beating a team, that most polls have ranked in the 10-15 range, by 2 while allowing 5 GA shows to put them head and shoulders above others.

I would throw out there that the 5 GA is pretty scary if they are returning their starting goalie (which seems to be what Goldy23 was saying).

I used the close loss as an indication that Marshall may be better than the initial rank, but I would say that one could also say that it could be an indication that Breck isn't as good as thought.

I haven't seen them, nor have I form an opinion of much this early yet, just throwing stuff out there. It is also entirely possible they could get scored on a lot and just score more than others. The Packers are barely in the top half of PA (14th out of 32) and yet they haven't lost.

Goldy23
Posts: 368
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 7:11 pm

Post by Goldy23 » Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:43 pm

HShockeywatcher wrote:
Goldy23 wrote:
Northern Defender wrote:I was at the Breck SCC game Friday night and I think if you look objectively at this year's SCC team, you would see that Breck's accomplishment was not that telling. SCC is a very young team. Also, please keep in mind that Marshall tied a Two Harbors team earlier in the week. Something that would never have happened a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, Breck looks good, but I think we need to get a few games into this thing before we start annointing the next state champion.
Agreed. Not looking to annoit the next State Champ.....Just trying to make a legit case for Breck to be ranked at #1 and ahead of STA at this stage in the season based on the facts.
To throw another opinion out there:

Breck most likely handled SCC based on the score, but I wouldn't say that beating a team, that most polls have ranked in the 10-15 range, by 2 while allowing 5 GA shows to put them head and shoulders above others.

I would throw out there that the 5 GA is pretty scary if they are returning their starting goalie (which seems to be what Goldy23 was saying).

I used the close loss as an indication that Marshall may be better than the initial rank, but I would say that one could also say that it could be an indication that Breck isn't as good as thought.

I haven't seen them, nor have I form an opinion of much this early yet, just throwing stuff out there. It is also entirely possible they could get scored on a lot and just score more than others. The Packers are barely in the top half of PA (14th out of 32) and yet they haven't lost.
You make many good points. In the Marshall game it should be noted that Breck was ahead 6-2 at the end of the 2nd, suggesting that the game wasn't as close as the score would indicate. No question, their are questions on defense and with somewhat unproven goaltending which could haunt them against elite teams, but like the Packers they can get by with an average defense when their offense is the most potent in the class. Nice work on the rankings in any case. Look forward to your updates again this year!

Hockey North
Posts: 124
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2008 2:23 pm

Post by Hockey North » Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:44 pm

Northern Defender wrote:I Also, please keep in mind that Marshall tied a Two Harbors team earlier in the week. Something that would never have happened a few years ago.
Let me clarify, They tied 1-1 in one 15 min period scrimmage. Not a full game scrimmage. This has no bearing on what kind of team they have.
Marshall is also a young team, especially at Forward and how those kids step up will determine the season. At this point, I really dont have a guage on how good or bad they will be, they are a work in progress.


Marshall plays some ranked teams over the next month.
Hibbing - 11/29
St Thomas Academy - 12/3
Benilde - 12/10
Detroit Lakes 12/16
Crookston 12/17
Grand Rapids 12/22
Delano 12/27

Maybe by then we will know more.

HShockeywatcher
Posts: 6848
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:21 pm

Post by HShockeywatcher » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:03 am

Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.

flatontheice
Posts: 883
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:48 pm

Post by flatontheice » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:43 am

HShockeywatcher wrote:Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.
Breck is not as good as goldy says.

danglemitts2877
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:13 pm

Post by danglemitts2877 » Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:29 pm

Out of curiosity, did anyone go to the Breck/Cathedral game? Breck has some explosive talent up front, but they scored a lot of goals coming from bad breaks. Breck is not as good as everyone is saying. Just because they beat up on a weak Cathedral team that is extremely young and battling injuries (starting tender and top returning scorer from last season) does not give them the top spot in class A.

--------------------------------
Did STA move up to AA yet?

Puck76
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 5:53 am

Post by Puck76 » Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:56 pm

danglemitts2877 wrote:Out of curiosity, did anyone go to the Breck/Cathedral game? Breck has some explosive talent up front, but they scored a lot of goals coming from bad breaks. Breck is not as good as everyone is saying. Just because they beat up on a weak Cathedral team that is extremely young and battling injuries (starting tender and top returning scorer from last season) does not give them the top spot in class A.

--------------------------------
Did STA move up to AA yet?
Breck played a very good game, good speed, puck movement. I watched them last year vs Cathdral also and in my opinion they are much improved. Cathedral is a team with potential and needs some time for the defense to work together. They were also missing one of their top defenseman from last year and have another solid forward that will contribute that just became eligible. It is early but Breck will be very solid this year. Cathedral in a few weeks when everyone is back and has some playing time should be an interesting team.

Goldy23
Posts: 368
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 7:11 pm

Post by Goldy23 » Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:08 pm

flatontheice wrote:
HShockeywatcher wrote:Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.
Breck is not as good as goldy says.
yeah, yeah....except when its true like in '09 &'10! :D

Some points on Watcher's question.

The did win all three games (2 against teams in your top 15)
Scored 22 goals in those games for a total goal differential of better than 2-1
Other than the opening faceoff's have never been tied let alone behind.
None of the games were ever really in question
In the Mahtomedi game, two of their starting D were unavailable to play.
In the Marshall game, they were ahead 6-2 at the end of 2 and one of the goals scored in the 3rd was when Anderle's blade fell off his skate and he was crawling back to the bench.

With that said, I will agree with some of the posts that the D so far has been soft and the goaltending has been suspect. It's early and they clearly aren't hitting on all cylanders yet (as most teams aren't), but time will tell if they are going to be the complete team like the '09/'10 squads or just a high scoring team that can't keep the puck out of there own net. Either way they shouldn't have a problem making it out of a weak Section but if the D and goaltending don't improve they may find themselves overwhelmed against the best in the class.

Still can't see anyone who is currently more deserving of the top spot at this time though.

The Enlightened One
Posts: 95
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:39 pm
Location: Some place cold

Post by The Enlightened One » Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:55 pm

Did Breck play all of their kids in the Marshal game? I talked to somebody at the rink who thought that they might have played them early on and then sat a few of their top dogs and played their 3rd and 4th liners a bunch.

HShockeywatcher
Posts: 6848
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:21 pm

Post by HShockeywatcher » Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:20 pm

Goldy23 wrote: Still can't see anyone who is currently more deserving of the top spot at this time though.
I would say that a team that lost one top scorer from last year and only lost one game to a Class A team last year, which was in OT, a more deserving team. But, call it listening to LPH, call it "best until you're beat" or even call it my bias, I'd say before games are played, St Thomas is more deserving as well.

All that said, I am a firm believer that the point of the game is to get at least one more goal than your opponent. If Breck beats Como 15-14 sometime this season, did they win? Beyond that, what happened during the game, what the team was trying out during the game, etc, etc is not known. There is nothing that says teams need to play their lines as they would in February against top notch competition.

At this point I'm just asking questions as I know little myself. I put Marshall where I did, up from 14 where LPH has them, because of their close loss to Breck. Going by LPH's rankings, the #2 team just beat the #10 team by 7, the #14 team by 2 and the #16 team by 3.

The SCC win is a shocker that they didn't do better, but the other two don't look great at face value.

larsengeno27
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Nov 18, 2010 8:19 pm

Post by larsengeno27 » Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:09 pm

I agree that Breck has to get better on their all-around defensive play, (ie-defense needs to play defense and the forwards need to get back and help out), but it has been doing much better than what has been suggested on this forum.

The team has given up 10 goals in 3 games. However, 5 of those have come on the power play and 1 was on a penalty shot.(according to hockey hub stats) So in reality, Breck has given up 4 even strength goals in 9 periods of hockey, which is pretty good.

Biggest problem with Breck is that they are taking way too many penalties.
(22 minors plus 2 checking from behinds,according to hockey hub stats,
in 3 games is terrible).

MNpuck14
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:15 pm

Post by MNpuck14 » Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:48 am

Goldy23 wrote:
flatontheice wrote:
HShockeywatcher wrote:Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.
Breck is not as good as goldy says.
yeah, yeah....except when its true like in '09 &'10! :D

Some points on Watcher's question.

The did win all three games (2 against teams in your top 15)
Scored 22 goals in those games for a total goal differential of better than 2-1
Other than the opening faceoff's have never been tied let alone behind.
None of the games were ever really in question
In the Mahtomedi game, two of their starting D were unavailable to play.
In the Marshall game, they were ahead 6-2 at the end of 2 and one of the goals scored in the 3rd was when Anderle's blade fell off his skate and he was crawling back to the bench.

With that said, I will agree with some of the posts that the D so far has been soft and the goaltending has been suspect. It's early and they clearly aren't hitting on all cylanders yet (as most teams aren't), but time will tell if they are going to be the complete team like the '09/'10 squads or just a high scoring team that can't keep the puck out of there own net. Either way they shouldn't have a problem making it out of a weak Section but if the D and goaltending don't improve they may find themselves overwhelmed against the best in the class.

Still can't see anyone who is currently more deserving of the top spot at this time though.
when you say "In the Mahtomedi game, two of their starting D were unavailable to play." are you refering THEIR to Breck or Mahtomedi? because Mahtomedi was missing two of their starting D as well. They had 4 D on tuesday who had never suited for a varsity game before, 3 of which were sophomores. So I don't think Breck gets off easy just because 2 of their players were hurt. It was a very good and close game. Breck just has some very strong talent and Mahtomedi had some costly errors in the defensive zone, but other than that it was a great game.
Dangle Snipe n Celly

Mite-dad
Posts: 1233
Joined: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:16 am

Post by Mite-dad » Thu Dec 01, 2011 7:44 am

Goldy23 wrote:
flatontheice wrote:
HShockeywatcher wrote:Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.
Breck is not as good as goldy says.

In the Marshall game, they were ahead 6-2 at the end of 2 and one of the goals scored in the 3rd was when Anderle's blade fell off his skate and he was crawling back to the bench.
Sounds like Breck needs to recruit a good equipment manager.

Redlight
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:56 am

Post by Redlight » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:02 am

Mite-dad wrote:
Goldy23 wrote:
flatontheice wrote:
HShockeywatcher wrote:Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.
Breck is not as good as goldy says.

In the Marshall game, they were ahead 6-2 at the end of 2 and one of the goals scored in the 3rd was when Anderle's blade fell off his skate and he was crawling back to the bench.
Sounds like Breck needs to recruit a good equipment manager.
Now that is FUNNY! You'd think those kids could afford better equipment.

C-dad
Posts: 645
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:47 pm

Post by C-dad » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:38 am

Redlight wrote:
Mite-dad wrote:
Goldy23 wrote:
flatontheice wrote:
HShockeywatcher wrote:Anyone see Breck play with any insight into what's going on? Two close wins against teams ranked in the preseason not close to as high as them. Is Breck not as good as every had said? Are they figuring out goaltending issues? Did Marshall and Mahtomedi have really good games?

This first week is already turning pretty crazy with some of these results.
Breck is not as good as goldy says.

In the Marshall game, they were ahead 6-2 at the end of 2 and one of the goals scored in the 3rd was when Anderle's blade fell off his skate and he was crawling back to the bench.
Sounds like Breck needs to recruit a good equipment manager.
Now that is FUNNY! You'd think those kids could afford better equipment.
All the parents' money went for tuition.

Post Reply