Pre-Season Review

[blueblood]

Please post an preview to this year's team using the following guidelines. blueblood will begin with the projected Tonka Warriors.

Returning players - 6; 3 forwards, 2 defensemen and 1 goalie

New players - projected lineup is expected to be senior loaded with as many as 14 seniors making the team. Backup goalie expected to be a junior.

Expected Tournaments - Spirit of Duluth, Tonka, Edina, and Duluth Jr Gold

Outlook - IF a majority of the seniors who are cut from the Tonka Varsity play Jr Gold, this could be a contending team for the state title.
This year's version of the Warriors will not score as many goals as last year, but they should be more evenly balanced with many players contributing 12 to 15 goals. Goaltending will be a strength on the team and could carry them a long ways.

Pre-season top 5 teams:

1) Edina - defending champs will be playing on home ice in State Tournament if they qualify
2) Wayzata - 2 strong Jr Gold B teams will reload the Trojans
3) Tonka - see above
4) White Bear Lake - see Wayzata comments
5) Wessy's Boys - young team last year returning about 12 players

[BlaineJGA]

Will be a decent team depending on who is coming back and who gets cut from the varsity. Projected to come back will be 3 defense, 5 forwards the team could be very young. Should have good goalies coming in but lost the top scorers from the previous season. Prediction would be in the top 10 probably not a shot at the state title. Should be a young team or an older team all depends on the cuts made at the high school level

Tournaments
Spirit of Duluth, Schwan's super rink, Tournamnet of champions in Chicago.

[TCoachF]

Champlin Park will be tough this year. Even though they got rid of their head coach at the HS level, many kids who could play there have opted to stay in Jr. Gold. Everyone from their U-16 team that went 37-2-1 and won state last year are playing Jr. Gold A this year. That core with the expected cut of a few Srs. because the new coach wants to get a jump on making the team his will make for a strong Champlin squad.

However, like they have always said, we won't know for sure until they strap them on.

[bigpictureguy]

Champlin Park will be tough this year. Even though they got rid of their head coach at the HS level, many kids who could play there have opted to stay in Jr. Gold. Everyone from their U-16 team that went 37-2-1 and won state last year are playing Jr. Gold A this year. That core with the expected cut of a few Srs. because the new coach wants to get a jump on making the team his will make for a strong Champlin squad.

However, like they have always said, we won't know for sure until they strap them on.

U-16 talent does not translate to Jr.Gold A. Good luck to Champlin, but if they think that their U-16 team with a good record will come up the JGA and dominate...They have a long season coming...

[CrazyClown]

I think your giving edina too much credit they have only five returning skaters and a much depleted HS team so help from jv cuts will be down. The only thing to look for is there returning goalie he had seven shutouts.

[blueblood]

Both of the Edina Jr Gold B teams had great records last season. I expect there will be a handful of players from those teams make the A team along with JV cuts.

Edina is always good in hockey due to the sheer numbers of players they have.

[TCoachF]

I did not say Champlin Park was going to dominate. (I don't think I did?) What I said was they were going to be a tough team to face based on an "exceptional" U-16A run and a HS program that year after year has pushed kids into the JRG program because of coaching incompetence.

What I can say for sure was that the U-16A team from last year had at least 5 varsity skilled players on it. With this years Senior cuts by the new coach, I would expect at least 3-4 more. Not bad talent for a JRG team.

But as I said earlier, this is why we strap them on.

Good luck to all JG teams this year.

[bardown30]

I think your giving edina too much credit they have only five returning skaters and a much depleted HS team so help from jv cuts will be down. The only thing to look for is there returning goalie he had seven shutouts.

Along with 4 of 6 D men and one of their top scorers.