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Section 1 Mankato West

Section 2 Breck

Section 3 LItchfield

Section 4 St Paul Academy - Totino Grace Friday

Section 5 Princeton

Section 6 St Cloud Cathedral

Section 7 Hermantown

Section 8 Thief River Falls

1 - Hermantown
2 - Breck
3 - Thief River Falls
4 - St Paul Academy (if they win)
5 - St Cloud Cathedral
Princeton gets bumped up to 5 in SPA loses

It looks like Hermantown.

Breck

Thief

Cathedral

You don't want to be 8, 5 or Cathedral.

Breck or Thief to ply the spoiler for the what? 7th year in a row.
Hard to imagine that happening.

If Htown wins, will it be the catalyst??

elliott70 wrote:It looks like Hermantown.

Breck

Thief

Cathedral

You don't want to be 8, 5 or Cathedral.

Breck or Thief to ply the spoiler for the what? 7th year in a row.
Hard to imagine that happening.

If Htown wins, will it be the catalyst??

If SPA wins tonight, they have a chance to play spoiler too. Probably a better chance than TRF.

One game at a time.

Dream scenario. Hermantown blows out the field for once, and steps up to AA for at least a few years.

Reality. The monkey is too big. They fall again, and spend the next 5 years chasing an A championship.

stromboli wrote:

elliott70 wrote:It looks like Hermantown.

Breck

Thief

Cathedral

You don't want to be 8, 5 or Cathedral.

Breck or Thief to ply the spoiler for the what? 7th year in a row.
Hard to imagine that happening.

If Htown wins, will it be the catalyst??

If SPA wins tonight, they have a chance to play spoiler too. Probably a better chance than TRF.

One game at a time.

Yes, forgot them.

#1. Hermantown vs. Litchfield
#2. Breck vs. Mankato West
#3. Thief River Falls vs. Princeton
#4. St. Paul Academy vs. #5 St. Cloud Cathedral

Rinkguy15 wrote:#1. Hermantown vs. Litchfield
#2. Breck vs. Mankato West
#3. Thief River Falls vs. Princeton
#4. St. Paul Academy vs. #5 St. Cloud Cathedral

In the first round, I see two guaranteed blowouts, another with the potential for a blowout, and one good game.

In the second round, TRF/Breck could be good, but I think Breck will just be too deep. Hopefully the SPA/SCC winner can make Hermantown break a sweat.

Championship is Hermantown's to lose. Breck is very good, but Hermantown brings six elite forwards, three elite defenseman, an elite goalie, and quality varsity players complete the rest of the roster.

rainier wrote:

Rinkguy15 wrote:#1. Hermantown vs. Litchfield
#2. Breck vs. Mankato West
#3. Thief River Falls vs. Princeton
#4. St. Paul Academy vs. #5 St. Cloud Cathedral

In the first round, I see two guaranteed blowouts, another with the potential for a blowout, and one good game.

In the second round, TRF/Breck could be good, but I think Breck will just be too deep. Hopefully the SPA/SCC winner can make Hermantown break a sweat.

Championship is Hermantown's to lose. Breck is very good, but Hermantown brings six elite forwards, three elite defenseman, an elite goalie, and quality varsity players complete the rest of the roster.

Hermantown will and should be favored.

However, I think the potential matchup between Hermantown and Breck, if both teams make it to the ship, is closer than current popular opinion.

Hermantown's reputation benefits from six straight state championship appearances and that trickles down to its players' reputations, including invites to the elite league.

I'll use the word "elite" to reference on the ice performance this season.

Breck also brings six elite forwards, plus four elite defensemen, an elite goalie, and quality varsity players complete the rest of the roster.

Here are some stats based on the regular season (recognizing that Hermantown didn't play against Farmington at Farmington due to weather AND that it's not a direct comparison between the two teams as they had different schedules AND that HUB isn't perfect but it's what we have).

Goals: 158 vs. 119 advantage Breck (6.2 per game vs. 4.9)

Points: 422 vs. 305 advantage Breck

Goals Against: 42 vs. 49 advantage Hermantown (tidbit -- Breck's goalie for its first game against Delano where Delano scored 7 goals didn't play the rest of the season)

Shots on Goal: 983 vs. 970 advantage Breck (not a reliable stat)

Shots against: 453 vs. 550 advantage Breck (again, not a reliable stat but there is a noticeable difference)

Power Play: 42% vs. 32% advantage Breck

Penalty Kill: 88.6% vs. 86.8% advantage Hermantown

Short handed goals: 8 vs. 1 advantage Breck

Short handed goals against: 0 vs. 2 advantage Breck

Players with 10 or more goals: 6 (34, 26, 17, 16, 14, 12) vs. 3 (31, 20, 12) advantage Breck

Players with 40 or more points: 5 vs. 1 advantage Breck

Shutouts: 4 vs. 2 advantage Breck

Goalies (with significant playing time):

Breck's #31 with .901 save % and 1.77 GAA and 4 shutouts

Hermantown's #32 with .937 save % and 1.47 GAA and 2 shutouts
Hermantown's #35 with .902 save % and 2.05 GAA and 0 shutouts

Agree it's between Hermantown and Breck.

Trf has struggled against better teams, including these two.

Hermantown and Breck are the easy favorites but I could see TRF making some noise. The great unknown is St Paul Academy.

I saw Breck crush EGF early in the season and thought this was the only team that could hand Hermantown the 2nd place trophy this year. Not so sure anymore. They had mysterious losses to STMA & Rosemount and a tie with Maht. They didn't exactly blow out Delano either, the way Htown is crushing opponents. Breck's schedule wasn't as rigorous either. I hope at least the championship game this year is close.

Hockeyisnotlife wrote: They had mysterious losses to STMA & Rosemount and a tie with Maht.

Agree that the Schwan's Cup was a head scratcher for Breck. It was their only "bad" weekend of the year against two AA opponents who ended at #25 and #26 on MyHockey. Against Mahtomedi, Breck was without two of its second line forwards -- so essentially without it's second line.

Hockeyisnotlife wrote: They didn't exactly blow out Delano either, the way Htown is crushing opponents.

Hermantown didn't exactly blow Delano out either. Hermantown played Delano to a 5-2 win in Duluth. Breck beat Delano 5-3 in a section final on neutral ice.

And, maybe as I and others have said before, maybe section 7 wasn't as strong as people would like to have believed. Hermantown blew out Hibbing in their first matchup, and then again in sections. They also blew out Greenway in sections - who did play them close for one game during the regular season, which got people excited about how good they might be.

So which was the better indicator of Hermantown vs. those two teams? The one close loss or the three blowouts?

Hockeyisnotlife wrote: Breck's schedule wasn't as rigorous either.

That's your opinion. Strength of schedule from MyHockey and Pagestat wouldn't support that.

Hockeyisnotlife wrote: I hope at least the championship game this year is close.

Agree!

If Hermantown doesn't beat Breck handily, there is far too much positive press on the team from up north.

stromboli wrote:
And, maybe as I and others have said before, maybe section 7 wasn't as strong as people would like to have believed. Hermantown blew out Hibbing in their first matchup, and then again in sections. They also blew out Greenway in sections - who did play them close for one game during the regular season, which got people excited about how good they might be.

So which was the better indicator of Hermantown vs. those two teams? The one close loss or the three blowouts?

It was howardst that kept tooting the 7A horn that they were the best section in the state. I think most rational people realized 2A and 6A were definitely deeper, but the top three in 7A were at least as good as the top three in any other A section.

I wouldn't be shocked if Breck played a tight game with Hermantown, but with the way the Hawks played the last couple of weeks it is hard to pick against them, A or AA.

Hibbing and Greenway were very good A teams. If Hermantown would have been AA this year, Hibbing would have been the #2 seed at the tourney had they won 7A. Hibbing beat the #3 seed TRF, EGF, Greenway twice, a Cloquet team good enough to beat East and Bemidji, Brainerd, played Apollo very tough, and hung in there with GR. And Greenway was not far behind Hibbing.

I think Hibbing was for sure a top 5 A team and Greenway was for sure a top 10 A team, and Hermantown completely destroyed them at the end of the season. I think the Hawks are firing on all cylinders right now and I honestly think they would win the AA tourney, much less the A tourney.

But Breck does have the talent to stay with them, and if the title game choke creeps back in for Hermantown, then they will be in real trouble, just like what happened to them vs EGF last year.

It'd be great to see Breck or Hermantown get upset in the semis, but I just can't see it.