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Who's going to be good? Anybody going to have a big let down? Thoughts?

Here's my best guess:
1.Hermantown
2.Breck
3.Hibbing
4.Blake
5.Warroad
6.STA
7.Duluth Marshall
8.Thief River Falls
9.Rochester Lourdes
10.East Grand Forks

rainier wrote:Here's my best guess:
1.Hermantown
2.Breck
3.Hibbing
4.Blake
5.Warroad
6.STA
7.Duluth Marshall
8.Thief River Falls
9.Rochester Lourdes
10.East Grand Forks

STA isn't reloading along with Breck?

1. Hermantown
2. St. Thomas Academy
3. Breck
4. Mahtomedi
5. Duluth Marshall
6. Warroad
7. Blake
8. Totino-Grace
9. East Grand Forks
10. Little Falls

Other notables: Rogers, Hibbing, Duluth Denfeld, St. Cloud Cathedral, Albert Lea, Rochester Lourdes, International Falls, Orono.

PuckRanger wrote:1. Hermantown
2. St. Thomas Academy
3. Breck
4. Mahtomedi
5. Duluth Marshall
6. Warroad
7. Blake
8. Totino-Grace
9. East Grand Forks
10. Little Falls

Other notables: Rogers, Hibbing, Duluth Denfeld, St. Cloud Cathedral, Albert Lea, Rochester Lourdes, International Falls, Orono.

Denfeld is AA next year with the school merge.

I heard that they got some sort of waiver to allow them to skate in A.

I believe if you check the section assignments for next year, DuLuth Central is listed in 7a.

Well there is no Duluth Central next year, so that would be wrong.

Just going on what the MSHSL has listed in their web site.

No Political Connections wrote:I heard that they got some sort of waiver to allow them to skate in A.

Of course they did........

1. Hermantown
2. Hibbing
3. Breck
4. St. Thomas Academy
5. East Grand Forks
6. Totino-Grace
7. Thief River Falls
8. Blake
9. Duluth Marshall
10. Rochester Lourdes

Many of the usual suspects on the list along with teams like Little Falls and St. Cloud Cathedral who both have many solid players returning.

We could see a final similar to this year's:
-Hermantown is losing only 5 seniors, although one is their goalie, their #2 in scoring will be back.
-St Thomas is only losing 9 seniors, top 4 leading scorers are seniors, but their goalies both have two more years.
-Breck only has 5 seniors on their roster.
-Warroad only 6.
-Hibbing only 5.

Crazy how young some of the best teams are.

Section 1A Point of View:

Rochester Lourdes will have a considerable down year, will be interesting how they will be replacing Heimer in goal along with their top three defensemen in Vesel, Slightam and Brandrup. Scoring returns so they still have hope on holding on to a top 10 spot.

Albert Lea seems like an always interesting team, Eric Carlson is a crafty player. Though I don't think he'll be leaving for AAA like other Big 9 players did last year, I don't think its out of the realm of impossibility. If he leaves that's a huge hit for the Tigers.

New Prague is a team on the rise I think they will be a very good team in the years to come. They were a pretty young group of freshmen and sophomores with some seniors in the mix. They had scoring from all over the place last season and I expect them to be even better next year.

My Top 10:

1. Hermantown
2. Breck
3. Hibbing
4. STA
5. Warroad
6. Blake
7. Duluth Marshall
8. Totino-Grace
9. Little Falls
10. Rochester Lourdes

Honorable Mention: New Prague, Mahtomedi, EGF, TRF, SCC and IFalls

Duluth 4 wrote:Denfeld is AA next year with the school merge.

Their enrollment (1156) is still too low for automatic AA (1275 is the cutoff) and they did not opt up. They will be in Central's place in section 7A.

1. Hermantown
2. St. Thomas Academy
3. Breck
4. Hibbing
5. Totino-Grace
6. Duluth Marshall
7. Rochester Lourdes
8. Blake
9. Little Falls
10. East Grand Forks

TRF, Warroad, Virginia and Delano lose most of their scoring. The top six should be very good. Hermantown, Hibbing and Breck were very young and will be better. Goaltending may be an issue for a lot of the top teams. My guess is that we will see another large group of sophomores come up big once again.

HShockeywatcher wrote:We could see a final similar to this year's:
-Hermantown is losing only 5 seniors, although one is their goalie, their #2 in scoring will be back.
-St Thomas is only losing 9 seniors, top 4 leading scorers are seniors, but their goalies both have two more years.
-Breck only has 5 seniors on their roster.
-Warroad only 6.
-Hibbing only 5.

Crazy how young some of the best teams are.

Hibbing loses 4 2 goalies and a center and wing

house69 wrote:

HShockeywatcher wrote:We could see a final similar to this year's:
-Hermantown is losing only 5 seniors, although one is their goalie, their #2 in scoring will be back.
-St Thomas is only losing 9 seniors, top 4 leading scorers are seniors, but their goalies both have two more years.
-Breck only has 5 seniors on their roster.
-Warroad only 6.
-Hibbing only 5.

Crazy how young some of the best teams are.

Hibbing loses 4 2 goalies and a center and wing

Actually they lose 2 goalies and their 1st and 2nd line centers. 70% of their scoring returns. If their goalie next year is decent, they will be a top three team.

HShockeywatcher wrote:We could see a final similar to this year's:
-Hermantown is losing only 5 seniors, although one is their goalie, their #2 in scoring will be back.
-St Thomas is only losing 9 seniors, top 4 leading scorers are seniors, but their goalies both have two more years.
-Breck only has 5 seniors on their roster.
-Warroad only 6.
-Hibbing only 5.

Crazy how young some of the best teams are.

I wouldn't say "only" 9 seniors, that's over half their team. And you concluded for us that these were quite valuable losses with your next statement. That being said I'm sure STA will still be good as always.

HShockeywatcher wrote:We could see a final similar to this year's:
-Hermantown is losing only 5 seniors, although one is their goalie, their #2 in scoring will be back.
-St Thomas is only losing 9 seniors, top 4 leading scorers are seniors, but their goalies both have two more years.
-Breck only has 5 seniors on their roster.
-Warroad only 6.
-Hibbing only 5.

Crazy how young some of the best teams are.

This was supposed to be a down year for the Mustangs. Of Breck's 5 seniors, 2 of them are the backup goalies, one defensemen and 2 forwards. They have their starting goalie, 5 of the D are back and their top seven scorers are all returning. Hard not to have them ranked #1 in my book.

I would agree, breck should be 1, but their achilles heal will be the goaltending.

East Grand Forks will be a big up and comer for the next few years.

eastsideguy wrote:I would agree, breck should be 1, but their achilles heal will be the goaltending.

Breck returns a huge core of their team that has a lot of success in recent years. Hermantown will be the team to be I think because of how talented they are and how much they have coming back. The big key for these teams along with Hibbing is going to be goal tending. St. Thomas has the advantage in goal where these previous 3 teams don't but STA doesn't return as much they do, STA has a lot of depth though which makes them very dangerous.

GordonBombay99 wrote:

eastsideguy wrote:I would agree, breck should be 1, but their achilles heal will be the goaltending.

Breck returns a huge core of their team that has a lot of success in recent years. Hermantown will be the team to be I think because of how talented they are and how much they have coming back. The big key for these teams along with Hibbing is going to be goal tending. St. Thomas has the advantage in goal where these previous 3 teams don't but STA doesn't return as much they do, STA has a lot of depth though which makes them very dangerous.

Way too early to tell. A dad told me that Breck may be losing another three kids--two moving on to juniors and a third transferring. On the other hand, he also knows of two goalies that have been looking at transferring to Breck, one of which would likely be a good bet to start.

I think the northern teams proved this year to be stronger than most people thought they would be. I also think the difference between the STAs, Brecks, Blakes and the 2A schools is starting to grow as a result of the transfer limitations. STA was close to the top AA teams this year but I doubt they will be next year. The better young players are looking for the top tier time in order to have a chance to play beyond high school.

pucker52 wrote:

GordonBombay99 wrote:

eastsideguy wrote:I would agree, breck should be 1, but their achilles heal will be the goaltending.

Breck returns a huge core of their team that has a lot of success in recent years. Hermantown will be the team to be I think because of how talented they are and how much they have coming back. The big key for these teams along with Hibbing is going to be goal tending. St. Thomas has the advantage in goal where these previous 3 teams don't but STA doesn't return as much they do, STA has a lot of depth though which makes them very dangerous.

Way too early to tell. A dad told me that Breck may be losing another three kids--two moving on to juniors and a third transferring. On the other hand, he also knows of two goalies that have been looking at transferring to Breck, one of which would likely be a good bet to start. l.

Awesome. Good for the Govies in the Tri-Metro.