Hill-Murray at Benilde 12/6/14

[karl(east)]

I'll probably venture out to St. Louis Park for this battle of private powers. Hill's only played one game, but it was a nice win over Burnsville. Benilde lost to the Blaze, but has a quality win over Elk River.

Should be a good clash of styles as well, with Benilde's quality attack and suspect D vs. Hill's top-flight D and inexperienced forwards.

[Just Checking]

I will take Hill 6-3 40-25 in shots for Hill. They will control play is my guess. I think Hill is underrated or at least not as heralded or talked about and BSM is overrated, I think they are top 10 but not top 5.

[Sats81]

I think HM will win this game too. BSM is often unpredictable though.

[stpaul]

I was at the Burnsville game. HM played very well in the first period and into the 2nd. They were up 3-1 and then went flat for the last 22 minutes of the game. They were lucky to hang on. They did take a lot of penalties and were shorthanded at least 4 times in the 3rd period. They were outshot 15-3 in the 3rd. Casey Staum missed that game. He is one of those topflight D-men. They will be better if he is back. They have had 2 more weeks of practice and conditioning since then. They will have to play better to beat BSM.

[Nevertoomuchhockey]

If Hills D plays to potential this might be a HM by 5 kind of game.

[WestMetro]

Im surprised at this point of the season that the poll is about 75/25 for Hill Murray, I would have guessed more like 50/50. Especially at BSM home ice We will see what happens. I wonder if Kyler Yeo is getting much playing time.

[MNHockeyFan]

Im surprised at this point of the season that the poll is about 75/25 for Hill Murray, I would have guessed more like 50/50. Especially at BSM home ice.

I think BSM's goaltending has to be real solid to give them much of a chance to win. I see that against Burnsville both the sophomore and senior shared goaltending duties, but had a good game stats-wise. As good as their offense may be you are not going to win very many games when you give up 7 GA.

[karl(east)]

Hill wins 5-3 (EN), coming back from a 3-1 deficit to pull it out. The Hill defense is what you'd expect--big and tough--and the top line, with the Mills brothers and Reifenberger, was very potent. BSM was the deeper team, with 3 pretty good lines, but got nothing from their top group and watched their early momentum slowly slip away. Lots of good players there, but no one who stands above the rest at this point, and they need to work on the cohesion.

Yeo shuttled between the 2nd and 3rd lines for Hill. After the 3rd line got worked a few times in the first period, Lechner made some changes and got decent minutes out of his lower lines the rest of the way.

[WestMetro]

Was pretty much a tied dead even game, either party could win, until Hill got that fluke goal at about the 3 minute mark, and then the empty netter.

Agree that BSM squandered the early lead.

Watched Yeo pretty carefully, and wasnt all that impressed. Nor with BSMs nationally rated 99 Dman Connor Mayer. Maybe another day with another look.

Very nice pregame celebration of Jack Jablonski's career and retirement of his number 13.

[C-dad]

I thought Hill looked more positionally sound and more physical (not unusual as BSM seems to never be physical). Seemed to make a big difference too when Hill pulled the soph goalie who started and went to the senior. Senior goalie looked a lot more solid.

[karl(east)]

Agree that BSM's lack of physicality may be an issue. It seems like all of their defensemen all play the same style--they all skate well and can move the puck, but aren't going to throw their weight around the way Hill's D were.

I also agree that Yeo and Meyer were pretty quiet. Anderson and Reifenberger were the best of the young guns on the ice.

It was odd to see both teams start sophomore goalies in such a big game, though Lechner was clearly smart to make the switch after one period, and BSM's wasn't bad.

[WCHBlog]

Worth pointing out that Hill's starting goalie saw 15 shots in the first period, compared to the back-up who saw nine shots over the next two periods.

Begley is probably the better option in the long run for Hill. Their team just needed a wake-up call after a bad first period, and I'd say it worked.