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I'm hoping to be in Grand Rapids next weekend for some Elite League Hockey - Team NORTH (218)

Team North vs. Northwest 9.15.2018

https://youtu.be/hvEWe2QbFqI

Between the HP league at the u16 level(Green Giants, Loons, Walleye, etc.), the Magicians, Blades, and Blizzard, who are the best 2-3 teams and who are the standout players to watch? I noticed the Alaska Oilers u16 team is down in MN for about a week and a half, went 2-1 so far against HP teams and plays the Blades, Blizzard, and Magicians on Monday-Wednesday. https://www.alaskaoilers.com/schedule/t ... son=530801

kniven wrote: ↑Sat Sep 15, 2018 4:54 pm Team North vs. Northwest 9.15.2018

https://youtu.be/hvEWe2QbFqI

Too bad, I was sitting in front of you and to the left.

Blue Army beat the AK Oilers Friday
Blizzard play the Army today
Blizzard probably best U16 in MN this year- Blades lost some to Elite League

kniven wrote: ↑Sat Sep 15, 2018 4:54 pm Team North vs. Northwest 9.15.2018

https://youtu.be/hvEWe2QbFqI

Vs. Great PlInes 9.15.2018
https://youtu.be/GkwnN6_f6KE

That was quite the game today, Team North vs. Southwest. KarlEast was there, as well. It's always nice to hang out and watch 218 high school hockey players with the Greyhound dude!

Kniven and Karl, any thoughts from this weekend's action? Who impressed from Team North and any other teams you watched?

kniven wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:24 am

kniven wrote: ↑Sat Sep 15, 2018 4:54 pm Team North vs. Northwest 9.15.2018

https://youtu.be/hvEWe2QbFqI

Vs. Great PlInes 9.15.2018
https://youtu.be/GkwnN6_f6KE

Vs. SouthWest 9.16 2018
https://youtu.be/mm7Jo77gYoY

ThatMNHockeyGuy62 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:38 pm Kniven and Karl, any thoughts from this weekend's action? Who impressed from Team North and any other teams you watched?

Donovan from DEast

elliott70 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:21 pm

ThatMNHockeyGuy62 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:38 pm Kniven and Karl, any thoughts from this weekend's action? Who impressed from Team North and any other teams you watched?

Donovan from DEast

Donovan, Biondi, and Langenbrunner are obvious. I guess my biggest suprise was how raw Mason Langenbrunner and Joey Pierce looked. After watching these 2 dominate bantam AA's for 2 years. I have no doubt that this elite league experience will have these 2 ready to made major immediate impacts on their hs teams. CEC will need Langenbrunner to step right in and be effective especially with the loss of Dane Stoyanoff for the year...

Well done with video Kniven

Tonka and Deast opposing talent in this game is preview of State Trny championship rematch?

Donovan will be at the X Prospects game Wed nite. Some predicting lower first round fir him next June

TheHockeyDJ wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:09 am Between the HP league at the u16 level(Green Giants, Loons, Walleye, etc.), the Magicians, Blades, and Blizzard, who are the best 2-3 teams and who are the standout players to watch? I noticed the Alaska Oilers u16 team is down in MN for about a week and a half, went 2-1 so far against HP teams and plays the Blades, Blizzard, and Magicians on Monday-Wednesday. https://www.alaskaoilers.com/schedule/t ... son=530801

The invite teams like Blizzard & Blades are considerably stronger than the recognized Tier I teams, I believe. I'll see quite a few NAPHL games this week.

Blizzard 16s are so deep and solid that I don't feel they have "standout" players in comparison to each other. Some that played very well when I saw them: Ludtke, Reller, Galatz, Holt. By no means an exhaustive list. Tomorrow it could be 4 other kids and the day after that somebody else. A real nice team.

Blizzard 15s are excellent. Beacom, Peterson, Lewis, Bischoff, Ziemski, Lund. Like the 16s, no weak links. I expect both teams will fare well in Blaine.

Even if I missed a beautiful day and the better part of a zany football game, it was a day well-spent at IRA. I got in two of the more entertaining Elite League games I've ever seen.

In the first one, Northwest jumped out to a 3-0 lead after one before Great Plains roared back with 5 unanswered to win. The Greenway kids had a very good day, with Lawson scoring twice and Troumbly notching the game-winner. Great Plains had two nice lines in sync between Lawson-Huglen-Doherty and Braccini-Warner-Troumbly. Northwest's effort seemed pretty inconsistent, and earned the ire of their coaching staff. Luc Laylin probably caught my eye most often of anyone for them. Scott Oliver, meanwhile, is a Minnesota treasure.

I chose to make the trip to catch the Southwest-North game since those appear to be the two top teams in the league, and it really didn't disappoint, ending in a 5-5 tie with even-ish shots. It was an edgy, hard-fought game, and I expect some recent memories between the East, Edina, and Tonka players helped fuel that, as there was certainly no love lost between those groups. As one might expect, Southwest brought the speed while North brought the power. Donovan did not play today--mild ankle injury so he sat out ahead of his Prospects Game commitment later this week--but Biondi, meanwhile, was on the ice a ton. He and Luedtke drew coincidental minors amid a scrum with about 20 seconds left, and the kid who replaced him on the ice after that, Brainerd's Mason Kruse, scored the tying goal with 13 seconds to go. (I also really enjoyed Ricky Lyle and F.H. Paine being North's two players creating traffic as they sought the tying goal. East's feistiness and net-front presence this season is going to be a lot of fun to watch, with those two leading the way.)

Luedtke really stood out for Southwest, though the North players also got under his skin for a few penalties. Beyond him, I'd say the Edina contingent as a whole looked very good, and Lagerback put in a pair of goals as well. Not a whole lot from the Chaska crew on Southwest in this one. I agree with kniven that many of the North sophomores had quiet days, with the exception of Peart, who lit the lamp twice. He's going to be a fun one to watch. (Pierce was shifted to forward to fill some of their injury gaps, though, so I'm not sure how much we should judge his performance.)

elliott70 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:21 pm

ThatMNHockeyGuy62 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:38 pm Kniven and Karl, any thoughts from this weekend's action? Who impressed from Team North and any other teams you watched?

Donovan from DEast

Thanks for the hot take Elliott.

Thanks for the in depth write up Karl!

Laylin is great. Too bad the rest of STMA is in rebuild mode. Luedtke is an absolute stud. I struggle to use the word “underrated,” because he’s been getting more credit lately, but he doesn’t seem to get the hype he deserves. Always hard to tell from stats alone, but Pitlick appears to be tearing it up (though clearly not today’s game) and a few of the Chaska kids on CCM seem to be doing well.

On a different note: What is going on with Northeast? I thought they’d be much better than they’ve been.

kniven wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:02 pm

elliott70 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:21 pm

ThatMNHockeyGuy62 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:38 pm Kniven and Karl, any thoughts from this weekend's action? Who impressed from Team North and any other teams you watched?

Donovan from DEast

Donovan, Biondi, and Langenbrunner are obvious. I guess my biggest suprise was how raw Mason Langenbrunner and Joey Pierce looked. After watching these 2 dominate bantam AA's for 2 years. I have no doubt that this elite league experience will have these 2 ready to made major immediate impacts on their hs teams. CEC will need Langenbrunner to step right in and be effective especially with the loss of Dane Stoyanoff for the year...

The younger Langenbrunner looked out of place. Obviously skilled but inexperienced and made bad choices.
He will be good against Flake but struggle with DEAST and Andover.
Pierce looked fine, not outstanding but steady - no mistakes.

O-townClown wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:10 pm

TheHockeyDJ wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:09 am Between the HP league at the u16 level(Green Giants, Loons, Walleye, etc.), the Magicians, Blades, and Blizzard, who are the best 2-3 teams and who are the standout players to watch? I noticed the Alaska Oilers u16 team is down in MN for about a week and a half, went 2-1 so far against HP teams and plays the Blades, Blizzard, and Magicians on Monday-Wednesday. https://www.alaskaoilers.com/schedule/t ... son=530801

The invite teams like Blizzard & Blades are considerably stronger than the recognized Tier I teams, I believe. I'll see quite a few NAPHL games this week.

Blizzard 16s are so deep and solid that I don't feel they have "standout" players in comparison to each other. Some that played very well when I saw them: Ludtke, Reller, Galatz, Holt. By no means an exhaustive list. Tomorrow it could be 4 other kids and the day after that somebody else. A real nice team.

Blizzard 15s are excellent. Beacom, Peterson, Lewis, Bischoff, Ziemski, Lund. Like the 16s, no weak links. I expect both teams will fare well in Blaine.

Thanks, it will be interesting to see how the Oilers do against the invite teams this week. In places like Alaska this is what they care about the most, as in most other states, tier 1 is more important than HS hockey and so these kids play together basically all year. When I watch HS hockey up here it seems slower than MN, which I'm sure it is. Alaska does produce some top end talent, but I think it's the drop off in depth that is much more pronounced. I'd like to see one of the Anchorage schools like South, Dimond, or West play a top team like Duluth East, Edina, or Minnetonka mid-season.

Edina, Minnetoka, Duluth East. Those three have probably close to 20 NCAA Division I players on their Varsity when it is all said and done. Plenty of committed kids now and some of the underclassmen will get there. While you might like to see them face an Alaska team, I'm afraid it would get ugly. Edina won the state 3rd Place game last year 11-0 and put 40% of their schedule into running time. These top-top Minnesota HS teams can really run it up against okay teams when they get rolling.

I think Oilers will do very well in Minnesota this week. Will let you know if I see any of their games. I get my game assignments today and will catch 26 games in 4 days.

Elite League Goalie Leaders after 2 weeks shown in the chart below. Fairly tight range

Southwest Christian Lukas Haugen remains in the lead. HIs opening weekend game against Team Southwest was spectacular. I havent seen him again myself. Others thoughts? What scouting feedback on him? If he maintains this pace, might he conceivably be a long shot for Brimsek despite his regular season weaker SOS?

I would expect Fritsinger's stats to move up towards the top at some point. He was one of my preseason picks for Brimsek finalists. Will be a few others in the running for the second slot.

Glockner unavailable to date

#33 Lukas Haugen Southeast .953
#30 Josh Weyandt CCM .943
#30 Collin Dorzinski Northeast .933
#1 Carter Clafton North .913
#30 Rem Keople Wisconsin .910
#30 Bailey Huber Southwest .906
#1 Nate Bradbury Great Pla .901
#30 Lukan Hanson North .897
#1 Ben Fritsinger Northwest .893
Mueller
Welsch

Bardown, have you got any stats for Johnson in MNEPDL?

Howe and Boynton have busy weekend schedule for U18 Blades starting Thursday night at Brooklyn Park

Anyone have any info where Daninger, Carlson, and McGuire have been playing?

SOS and Team performance will be a key factor in determining Brimsek Award Winner. Look for Fritsinger and Glockner to be in contention for the award.

Rematch of North vs Southwest this Saturday 5.30 at New Hope. I’m assuming Ryder will be there.

O-townClown wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:44 am Edina, Minnetoka, Duluth East. Those three have probably close to 20 NCAA Division I players on their Varsity when it is all said and done. Plenty of committed kids now and some of the underclassmen will get there. While you might like to see them face an Alaska team, I'm afraid it would get ugly. Edina won the state 3rd Place game last year 11-0 and put 40% of their schedule into running time. These top-top Minnesota HS teams can really run it up against okay teams when they get rolling.

I think Oilers will do very well in Minnesota this week. Will let you know if I see any of their games. I get my game assignments today and will catch 26 games in 4 days.

I agree, and I'm a Minnesota guy. The Oilers did tie the Magicians and Blizzard. Then I noticed on the Oilers facebook page they have players from Michigan, California, Colorado, and Russia on their roster. Now I know why they can be competitive with Minnesota teams. An all Alaska roster I don't think would ever have that kind of success down there.

WestMetro wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 2:54 pm Rematch of North vs Southwest this Saturday 5.30 at New Hope. I’m assuming Ryder will be there.

I made the drive down to NH this afternoon: quick observations. Players who stood out on the North were G Clafton, D Peart (very nice pickup for Brett Larson & SCSU) D Paine, D Gotz, F Biondi, F Donovan. For SW were G Glockner, D Luedtke F Pitlick, F (from Blake, can’t remember his name but great skater, think he was 16) F Nevers. SW led 1-0 & should have been up like 3-0, missed a couple of backdoor & odd man rush chances. Then LaValle took a double minor late in the 2nd period & at the period ending horn, Lagerback took a bad penalty giving North a 2 man PP to start the 3rd which Biondi finally cashed in on from Donovan. North then grinded for another goal and SW kind of ran out of gas (2nd game of day, I believe for both teams) and North then got an insurance goal to win 3-1. Another observation is that although DE is a very deep team...they have two (truly) blue chip players in Donovan & Paine...and thats it. Had never seen Peart before and was impressed. Clafton is a really good goalie, a chip off his old mans block Edina really will miss Walker, Brinkman and the Greek freak DK..I’m not so sure young but up and coming EP might end up better than the Hornets by seasons end. Adding Streetar & Motzko & not losing anyone to Juniors, Tonka is the clear #1 HS team when November rolls around.