It’s because of those conditions that Blake boys’ hockey coach Rob McClanahan had his team do something he really doesn’t like in their game against Blaine.

“We dumped it and chased it,” McClanahan said. “We found a way to make it successful.

“It’s really hard for me to go to that style. I don’t know if everybody understands, exactly. These fellas have never done that with me, and they responded.”

From the second period on, the No. 8-ranked Bears found their game and ended up on the winning side of a 3-2 victory over Blaine with the sun shining down on Parade Stadium. Junior Joe Miller scored the game-winner with 7 minutes, 57 seconds left in the third period.

So, why the shift to dump-and-chase?

The host Bears put up 17 shots in the first period but faced a 1-0 deficit. Miller said it was frustrating for Blake’s top line, made up of Miller and seniors Jack Sabre and Gavin Best, to get a lot of chances and not score.

They changed their game plan on the fly in the second period, and they started winning races to the puck. Best made quick work of the team’s adjustment, getting the Bears on the board just 1 minute, 34 seconds into the second period to tie the game. The goal, with the assist from Miller, was Best’s 10th of the season and seventh in the past six games.

Blake took a 2-1 lead at the 7-minute mark of the period on a goal from senior Brett Witzke before the Bengals tied it up again early in the third period on a tally from junior Ben Wallraff.

Blaine senior Cole Hansen started the scoring only 27 seconds into the game, tallying his 16th of the season. But McClanahan wasn’t worried, adding that scoring early in a game like that isn’t always a good omen.

“I’ve been on the other side of that where we score right away and then the floodgates open the wrong way,” said McClanahan, a Mounds View hockey graduate, 1980 Olympic gold medalist and first-year head coach at Blake.

Changing the style of play after the first period was good to show just how adaptive Blake can be, Miller said. It shows they’re a dangerous team, regardless of who they’re playing, Sabre added.

“Especially today, showing that we can come out with a win after changing our style of play is good for us and good for our confidence,” Sabre said.

Miller’s winning goal, the 17th of the season for the University of Minnesota commit, went in off his shin pad on a Sabre shot from the point. It was the hockey gods shining on Blake after having missed wide-open nets three or four times, McClanahan said.

“I was just trying to get to the right place in front of the net,” Miller said. “Luckily this guy (Sabre), he was able to turn around and rip one, and luckily it just hit me and went in.”

The win for the Bears was their ninth in their past 10 games as they improved to 13-4-0 overall. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak, in which they outscored opponents 22-3, for the No. 19-ranked Bengals, who fell to 10-6-0.

Though the ice was outdoors on a field, it’s still right across the street from The Blake School. So it’s a bit like “defending your own turf,” Miller said. All the high school players who participated in Hockey Day suited up in make-shift dressing rooms located in the school. Blake’s dressing room was actually the room where Sabre said he had math class last year.  Because Blake was the host team, it likely lifted the importance of the victory for McClanahan’s players, the coach said.

“This is something that these fellas will remember the rest of their lives,” McClanahan said.

With all the preparation and hype that leads up to Hockey Day Minnesota, the players talked before the game about how it would all go by fast. They really wanted to cherish the moment, Sabre said.

“The head hits the pillow tonight, we’re going to want to remember as much as we can,” Sabre said. “So I think we did a good job of that.”

The post Dump-and-Chase appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Edina blanks Blaine for first-ever girls’ hockey state title

St. Paul — It didn’t take long for the Edina Hornets to take control of the Class 2A state title game against Blaine. Just 59 seconds into the first period Lolita Fidler deflected an Eva Hendrickson shot from the blue line under the pads of Bengals’ goalie Jaela O’Brien to put the Hornets in front.

Edina never looked back in a 4-0 victory at Xcel Energy Center to bring home its first-ever girls’ hockey state championship.The Hornets were runner-up twice before in 2010 and 2011.

Fidler scored twice with Olivia Swaim and Olivia Kilberg netting one goal each. Senior goalie Anna Goldstein turned aside 16 Bengals’ shots to earn the shutout.

Edina Assistant Coach Scott Ryerse gets emotional as he hugs senior goalie Anna Goldstein after she records a shutout against Blaine to win the 2017 Class 2A championship. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Blaine would recover from the early deficit and controlled much of the play in the first period but had nothing to show for it. Edina’s Grace Bowlby used a poke check to break up a Blaine odd-man rush to prevent one of the Bengals best scoring chances of the game. Late in the period, Edina’s offense started clicking. O’Brien made a spectacular save, one of 20 in the game, cutting across the cage to keep it a one-goal game but had no chance a few minutes later.

Kilberg tapped in a perfect pass from Evelyn Adams into an empty net to give the Hornets a 2-0 lead late in the first period.

“We do a ton of tipping drills,” Edina coach Sami Reber said. “There is a difference between getting in front of the goalie and just standing there and actually getting in front of their eyes. It was great to see it pay off in a big situation. Hopefully (the players) understand why I harp on it so often.”

The only second-period goal would be scored by Fidler. The Hornets continued to put shooters in great position with pinpoint passing. O’Brien didn’t have a chance on any of the first three goals she let in.

Blaine spent a lot of time in the offensive zone, but Edina would not allow the Bengals to get many clean looks at the net. When they did get pucks to the net, Goldstein was rock solid in goal.

The game was well in hand, but Goldstein’s best save of the contest came late in the third, stopping a breakaway. She was out in front of the blue paint, held her ground and got her right arm on the shot to deflect the puck into the corner.

Fidler scored all three game-winning goals for the Hornets this weekend and Goldstein and the Hornets’ defense would be the only team to shut out the Bengals all season.

Edina would add a fourth goal in the third period and coast the rest of the way.

“It doesn’t seem real,” said Reber, the first female coach to win a 2A championship. “This program has wanted this for so long I couldn’t be more proud of this group. They came to work every single day for this goal.”

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Not even diabetes can slow latest Blaine star’s rise to the top

It’s 3 p.m. on a Monday afternoon at Fogerty Arena in Blaine. A hulking figure steps onto the ice. He is 6-foot-5, but in the three strides it takes him to get over the bench, you see very little of the awkwardness that you might expect.

This is not a basketball player on skates. It’s the next great star to come out of Blaine, Riley Tufte.

When you see him, you do a double take. He wears jersey number 27, given to him as a freshman by former head coach Dave Aus who thought he bared a striking resemblance to another player he once coached.

He has blonde hair and a baby face that almost seems out of a place on a monster of his size. He is Nick Bjugstad 2.0 and he is not upset about that. Because like Nick, Riley also hopes of being in the NHL someday and he has a very good chance.

In fact the two actually talk and text regularly. Nick is friends with Riley’s older brother and has been instrumental in guiding him through a high school career that mirrors his. Sometimes Riley even returns the favor – like giving Bjugstad guff for a recent fight that left him bloody.

Riley is skilled. He doesn’t move like a man who is 6-foot-5. He glides with the ease of Zach Parise, stick handles as smoothly as Patrick Kane but with the frame of John Scott. He is a walking (and skating) oxymoron. Like Nick Bjugstad he shouldn’t be able to do the things he does at his size, but he doesn’t go by the script.

The biggest difference between Nick and Riley comes in their temperament. Riley is polite and kind in interviews, but when you put him on the ice?

“He’s got a good little mean streak in him,” says Blaine coach Chris Carroll.

Although by talking to him you wouldn’t know it.

There is also one more – rather large—difference. Riley has type one diabetes, which he was diagnosed with at 11-years old.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to me to be honest,” Tufte said. “I didn’t know how diabetes worked and I didn’t know if I could play hockey.”

Not only has he played, he has excelled. Tufte’s 26 goals through 16 games are good for fourth in the state and he is expected to be the highest Minnesotan drafted in June’s National Hockey League draft.

He also has a leg up on many other kids his age when it comes to taking care of their body. While most high school aged kids could care very little about what they are putting into their body, Riley has to know.

He makes sure to eat one hour before a game and sometimes during the game and he drinks Gatorade throughout the game as well. Lessons like these aren’t usually learned until a player gets to college, or even the professional level, and has the benefit of a nutritionist. For Riley it’s just one more aspect of who he is that puts him above the rest.

But what is it about the Blaine/Spring Lake Park area that keeps churning out hockey stars? Nick Bjugstad, David Backes, Matt Hendricks, Brandon Bochenski just to name a few have all played games at Fogerty Arena and have gone on to the highest level of hockey.

Blaine is not the first place when you think of elite hockey talent but a quick glance at the names above might suggest differently. Carroll says it’s because of the way the community supports the program. Like many cities kids grow up playing together at a young age and stay together as they rise through the ranks.

They end up feeling a loyalty to the programs as well which is why, when a star talent like Tufte has a chance to go play in the Unites States Hockey League, he passes — deciding to instead finish out his senior season as a Bengal.

Let’s go back to Fogerty Arena on that same Monday afternoon. Practice is underway and the team is doing breakout drills. Tufte is hard to miss, because he is a men amongst boys and because his intensity is palpable. He is yelling – not just at his teammates to work hard – but also at himself, when a shot goes wide or a pass is not right on the mark.

And maybe that is the real reason Tufte is destined to be such a star, because he won’t let himself off the hook, ever. In the end, that is the intangible quality that separates a good player from the star; the guys we don’t hear of past high school from the Bjugstad’s, the Backes’ and the Hendricks’. It’s the drive to know you’re the best and the desire to stay the best no matter what level you’re playing at.

Riley Tufte seems to exhibit that from high above his competition as this giant young man hopes to continue is rise to stardom.

The post Schwartz: Tufte clears huge hurdle appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Cole Koepke and Jesse Jacques scored in the semifinal to send Hermantown back to the title game

St. Paul — Bringing a 1-0 lead into the third period of its Class 1A semifinal, top-seeded Hermantown junior Cole Koepke provided an insurance goal just 1:23 into the final frame to make it 2-0 against St. Cloud Apollo.

“Yeah, that really gets rid of some of the ulcer juices right there,” said Hermantown Coach Bruce Plante. “(That) second goal is a coach-loving goal. I’ll tell you that.”

His team’s 2-0 victory Friday afternoon at the Xcel Energy Center landed Plante and the Hawks in the Class 1A state title game for the sixth year in a row.

“Yeah, isn’t that wonderful?” Plante said. “It’s great, man. I think every team in Minnesota has that same aspiration.

“And what are the odds to be in that game six years in a row? It’s almost laughable if it didn’t hurt so much.”

That’s because unlike other teams across the state, Hermantown has been there the past five years without winning the title. Four of those five, Plante said his players played really well but they just didn’t win. He strives to get his teams playing a hard game and doing the best they can.

This year marks their 12th state tournament. Their only title came in 2007.

In Friday’s game against St. Cloud Apollo, Hermantown, which scored eight goals in its quarterfinal game against Spring Lake Park, was held scoreless until the 6:44 mark of the second period. That’s when sophomore Jesse Jacques fired a blistering slapshot from the top of the circle past Apollo’s goaltender for a 1-0 lead.

“Yeah, that was huge, just to get that first one,” Jacques said, as he addressed the media in the pink and white Minnie Mouse bicycle helmet that Hawks players give to the player of the game. Wearing it for the first time, he said it felt “pretty good.”

Keeping the Hawks off the scoreboard for as long as possible was part of the game plan for St. Cloud Apollo Coach Pete Matanich.

“I thought our guys came out and played exceptionally well today,” he said. “I was hoping we’d be able to put a little pressure on them.”

Offensively, Apollo had its chances, with a breakaway as time ticked down in the first period and a shot off the outside of the pipe, but Hermantown’s defense didn’t give them much and shut them down.

Hermantown’s junior goaltender Luke Olson faced just 13 shots in his shutout. The Hawks haven’t given up a goal in this year’s state tournament. Plante said that their defense has been overlooked all season long.

“We do play good defense, and I think any good championship team has to do that,” he said.

For the final game, it’s a rematch of last year’s 1A championship between East Grand Forks and Hermantown. The Green Wave was victorious last year, 7-3. The two squads met earlier this season, resulting in a 3-0 win for the Hawks.

So, what might make this year’s championship game different from the rest for Hermantown? Koepke knows that this year’s roster, including eight seniors, brings more experience to the table this time. They’ll feed on adrenaline during the game, he added.

“It’s just going to be a good time to get some redemption from last year,” he said.

The post Hermantown shuts out St. Cloud Apollo appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Eagles top Bengals for 5-3 Class 2A quarterfinal win

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Mittelstadt, Graham score twice to lead Eden Prairie over Blaine

St. Paul — At this time last year, the name Casey Mittelstadt wasn’t known by the majority of those attending the boys’ state hockey tournament. While Eden Prairie made a state tournament appearance in 2014, Mittelstadt did not as he was still a bantam.

A year later, Mittelstadt is already making a name for himself at the Xcel Energy Center and the Blaine Bengals received their introduction on Thursday night.

The first-year varsity starter scored two of Eden Prairie’s first three goals to lead the Eagles to a 5-3 victory over the Bengals in the Class 2A boys’ state hockey tournament quarterfinals. The Eagles will face the No. 1 seeded Lakeville North Panthers — who outlasted Eden Prairie 5-4 in three overtimes last year — in the state semifinals.

In Middelstadt’s state tournament debut, he couldn’t have had a much better experience.

“It’s pretty much indescribable,” Middelstadt said of the state atmosphere. “It’s crazy out there. There’s so many people here and I grew up every year coming to it, skipping school, so it’s pretty special to be out there.”

While it was a surreal moment getting to play in a tournament he watched as a youth hockey player, the University of Minnesota commit had to make sure his nerves didn’t get the best of him. But when he lit the lamp for his first time in the state tournament, his nerves disappeared.

When a shot from Mittelstadt nailed the Blaine post with just under four minutes remaining in the first period, it foreshadowed his goal that came less than 30 seconds later as he redirected teammate Brady Schoo’s shot from the point, into the Bengal net. The sophomore forward would later score his 26th goal of the season with 10:10 left in the second period, giving Eden Prairie a 3-1 lead.

“Coming in, you’re pretty nervous,” Middelstadt said. “I was trying to calm the nerves down in warmups. It’s a big stage and I grew up coming every year. It was nice to get [a goal] early and settle into the game a little bit.”

A 3-1 deficit proved to be too much for a Bengal offense that struggled all night to put any pucks on the Eagle net. Through three periods, an Eden Prairie defense led by Nicky Leivermann held a potent Blaine offense that averages almost five goals per game, entering the tournament, to just three scores and 12 total shots on net.

As the Bengals continued to struggle to produce on offense, the Eagles continued to find even more success in their offensive zone. Their other leading scorer, Michael Graham, tallied two goals of his own with his second goal coming with 5:05 left in the second period.

The lead that Eden Prairie’s top two scorers provided proved to be enough to defeat the Blaine Bengals and Eagles head coach Lee Smith knows he’ll need similar production for his team to continue to win at the Xcel Energy Center this weekend.

“The only chance you have of winning a state tournament is your top guys playing big,” Smith said. “And our guys did tonight, and they’ll have to again tomorrow night.”

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Five-goal second period vaults Blaine back to St. Paul

MAPLEWOOD – Blaine’s three year state-tournament drought is over.

The Bengals (22-5-1) got off to a fast start and poured it on from there to rout neighboring rival Centennial 8-1 in Section 5AA final on Thursday night at Aldrich Arena.

Riley Tufte led the way for Blaine with five points on a goal and four assists while Luke Notermann added three points of his own (1g, 3a). Alex Penn and Easton Brodzinski each scored twice for the Bengals and defenseman Jordan Turnquist picked up a goal and a pair of assists.

Blaine goaltender Jon Kallestad made 18 save to pick up the victory. The win breaks the Cougars’ two-year hold on the section title and earns Blaine its 11th state tournament berth.

Not a bad inaugural season for Blaine first year coach Chris Carroll whose team got off to a 4-3 start.

“We’ve come a long way and I glad they give you 28 games to sort it out because, I tell you, [after] our first game against Roseau I don’t know if I’d have predicted this,” Carroll said. “But that’s an unbelievable ride.”

Carroll replaced long-time Bengals’ coach Dave Aus who stepped down after the 2013-14 season to take the head coaching position at Brainerd. Aus guided Blaine to six straight Class 2A tournament appearances (2006-2011) in 14 seasons at the helm but last season’s senior-laden team was the third consecutive to come up short in section play, falling to the Cougars 2-1.

“I don’t think anybody at the start of the year — when you lose 15 seniors — thought we were that good and I don’t think we got a lot of credit, which was fine because I don’t think we deserved it,” Carroll said. “But those guys in that room wanted to be classified as elite and they had to earn it.”

Blaine swept season series from the Cougars (17-10-1) winning a pair of one-goal games, 5-4 at Fogerty Arena and 3-2 at Centennial so more of the same was expected with so much on the line. But the Bengals had no interest in another nail biter.

A 2-0 Blaine lead after one period turned into a 5-0 lead in than three minutes into the second when Alex Penn, Tanner Vescio and Brodzinski scored just 1:55 apart. Centennial starting goaltender Jonathan Albers was replaced at that point by Nathan Fellows, although Albers returned to play the final period.

“We just kept on battling, we just got pucks to the net,” Tufte said of the second-period barrage. “That was the key message tonight was get pucks to the net and forecheck them hard and I think we did that and things went our way.”

The lead was extended to 7-0 before Centennial’s Colton Berg got the Cougars on the board at 11:28 of the second period. Brodzinski closed out the scoring at 1:34 of the third.

After two years of suffering through friendly gloating from their familiar foes, the Bengals are thrilled for the chance to return the favor.

“It’s everything to us,” Brodzinski said. “Now we can brag a little bit to them. They got a few years but we came back this year and took it to Centennial.”

The post Bengals blitz Cougars appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Morse hat trick enough for Lakeville South to nip Blaine

[ Box Score ] | [ Game Sheet ]

SAINT PAUL – Senior forward Morgan Morse made her last appearance in the state tournament as an eighth-grader in 2011 when the Lakeville South Cougars fell short to Hill-Murray 4-3 in the state quarterfinal.

Morse single-handedly made sure that didn’t happen again four years later.

With a hat-trick performance, Morse lifted her team past the Blaine Bengals with a 3-1 Class 2A quarterfinal victory Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center. The Cougars will face the top-seeded Minnetonka on Friday night at 8 p.m.

Lakeville South coach Natalie Darwitz, a former Eagan star who saw her fair share of state tournaments, believes the real Morgan Morse was on display Thursday night.

“I think Morgan [Morse] is one of the most underrated players in the state,” Darwitz said. “No doubt that there is a great senior class of hockey players. But I don’t think [Morse] got the credit she deserved all year.”

Blaine’s Sam Auman fires a shot toward the Lakeville North net as the Cougars’ Kelsey Olsen defends. (MHM Photo / Tim Kolehmainen)

While she may not have been given credit all year, Morse was given credit for three goals in the first night of the state tournament. Compared to her experience at state in eighth grade, Morse’s 2015 state tournament is already off to a better start.

“This year is a lot more exciting,” Morse said. “My eighth grade year, I maybe got a few shifts here and there. But now being one of the lead players getting shift after shift, it’s much more exciting when you get to experience everything in a better view.”

Before the state tournament even started, Morse experienced what she called the biggest play of her career when she ended Lakeville South’s four-year state tournament drought with an overtime winner against cross-town rival Lakeville North in the section 1AA final.

Now set to play the battle-tested Minnetonka Skippers in Friday night’s state semifinal, the Lakeville South Cougars may very well need Morse to make another big play in order for them to play for a state championship.

And if Thursday’s hat trick performance is any indication, Morse will be more than ready to provide a spark for the Cougars.

“Getting that goal to finish [the game] off just lit a match and it just kept me rolling,” Morse said of her game-winning goal in the section final. “It’s exciting to be back and not being at home if we had lost that game.”

The post Cougars win cat fight with Bengals appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

SAINT PAUL—In a thoroughly entertaining contest worthy of the spotlight on the State Fairgrounds Coliseum’s final night as a hockey facility, third seeded Centennial took out top-seeded Blaine 2-1 in the Section 5AA final. Despite a heavy 39-18 shots-on-goal advantage, the Bengals found Cougars’ goaltender Blake Miller to be a riddle too tough to solve throughout the night.

“It was nuts but I have to give props to my [defense],” Miller said on his 18th birthday. “I had to make a couple bigger saves but they kept most of the shots to the outside.”

“Millsy played great and kind of bailed us out when we needed him to but 19 other guys played great too,” Centennial coach Ritch Menne said.

Colin Hughes’ wrister from the right faceoff dot at 15:57 of the second period was the difference as Hughes’ shot off a cross-ice feed from Will Schwartz whistled past Blaine goaltender Andrew Houle for a 2-0 Centennial lead.

“I don’t know what went through my mind, I just saw it go in the net,” Hughes said. “I went and hugged my best friend who happens to be the guy who passed it to me and it was probably the best memory I’ll ever have.”

After Schwartz went off for holding at 1:27 of the third, Blaine’s Dallas Gerads tucked a shot between Miller’s pads 1:18 into the power play to pull the Bengals within one. But the Cougars withstood Blaine’s furious attempt to complete the third-period rally, much to the credit of Miller who finished with 38 saves.

“He always brings it every day,” Centennial forward Adam Anderson said of Miller. “He’s a gamer, he’s mentally tough all the time and he brought it physically.”

Miller was on the receiving end physically all night too as Bengals’ players were consistently inside, not only the Centennial crease, but also the net, generally on top of Miller.

“I expected it because it’s Blaine and they’re our biggest rivals,” Miller said.

Centennial advances to make its second straight state tournament appearance while Blaine exits in the section playoffs for the third straight season after six consecutive trips to St. Paul.

“It’s like a bad nightmare,” Blaine coach Dave Aus said. “I give them credit but I’m not sure the better team won here and that’s what’s hard about the last two years. I’ve felt like we’ve been the best team and we just didn’t get the job done.”

Hughes was asked to compare the two section titles.

“It is so much sweeter than last year,” Hughes said definitively. “Back-to back section champions and it’s versus our biggest rival; you can’t beat that.”

True to their predatory namesakes, the Bengals and Cougars ferociously attacked one another right from the opening draw. Bodies were flying in every direction in a fast, physical first period mostly dominated by Blaine which rattled off 19 of the game’s next 22 shots after Rynar Gorowsky scored the period’s lone goal just 15 seconds in.

Menne said the volume of body play was typical of the Centennial/Blaine rivalry which extends to the youth ranks.

“It’s a rough, physical game and they don’t like us and we don’t like them when we’re out on the ice,” Menne said. “It wasn’t disappointing for anybody that paid the money to get in.”

The Cougars were not without opportunities, however, as Gorowsky threatened twice more in the game’s opening 17 minutes.  A shorthanded two-on-one between Gorowsky and Adam Anderson was thwarted by Bengals’ defenseman Alex Copa while Gorowsky’s breakaway effort at 13:20 was denied by Houle.

The celebration was on for Colin Hughes after Centennial’s section title win. (MHM Photo / Jordan Doffing)

Blaine swept the regular-season series between the two north-metro rivals, beating the Cougars 3-1 in December and 3-2 on Feb. 1 on Easton Brodzinski’s overtime winner. But when it mattered most, the Cougars found a way to win.

“We didn’t play bad, it’s not like we played poorly,” Aus said. “We just got outscored and, unfortunately, that’s what’s most important.”

“Blaine is an unbelievably talented team and they’re so deep and balanced,” Menne said. “But the guys diving and scratching and clawing to do whatever it takes, it was great to watch.

“To be an alumni of Centennial, I’m just really proud of these guys.”

In the chaos of the post-game celebration, Hughes could be seen wandering as if searching for someone to rejoice with.

“I was just looking for my coach to hug,” Hughes said. “He’s done so much for me and I just wanted to thank him for all the opportunities he’s given us as a coach.”

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