Class A Rankings 2-12-17

[HShockeywatcher]

1. [1] Hermantown (21-1-1)
Beat Superior and Brainerd then took OT to beat Bemidji.

2. [2] Delano/Rockford (19-3-1)
Close loss to Holy Family on the road and then crushed Waconia. No more challenges before sections. Should be 2 more wins this time next week.

3. [3] Breck (18-3-2)
Beat Benilde on the road and crushed Providence. Should be a 20 win regular season; can they beat Delano the second time around?

4. [6] Mahtomedi (12-11-1)
Tied Mounds View, got shut out by St Thomas, then beat Cathedral. Just over .500 the Zephyrs have been tested a lot this season.

5. [4] St. Paul Academy (20-4-0)
Beat Providence and Virginia then lost to Greenway. Having beaten both Cathedral and Mahtomedi, it's hard to think to drop them much from this one game.

6. [5] St. Cloud Cathedral (16-6-2)
Lost to St Cloud then to Mahtomedi. Close the season against Monticello in a game they really don't want to lose.

7. [7] East Grand Forks (14-7-2)
Lost in Moorhead then beat Roseau and Alexandria last week.

8. [8] Sartell (13-5-3)
Beat Fergus by 1 and lost to Alexandriato close out the regular season.

9. [9] Alexandria (15-7-3)
Beat Little Falls and Sartell then lost to East Grand Forks by 1 to end the season

10. [-] Greenway (16-7-1)
The Raiders haven't looked great as of late, but 3 goal wins over Johnson and SPA this weekend are huge. Can they follow that up with a win over International Falls this week?

11. [11] Hibbing/Chisholm (16-7-0)
Lone game last week was an OT win over Eveleth-Gilbert.

12. [12] Orono ( 14-8 )
Beat Waconia and Hutinson

13. [13] Fergus Falls (14-9-1)
Lost to Sartell by 1 on the road.

14. [14] Blake (12-11-0)
Lost to Cretin, beat New Prague and lost to Duluth Marshall.

15. [10] Totino-Grace (10-11-2)
Two OT games and a loss to Blaine this week. Still hard to tell much about this team, but they are battle tested.

[greenwayraider]

A big part of Greenway's successful weekend is the return of forward Grant Troumbly. He is not playing all shifts yet but should be 100% by Sectionals. The first line of Lantz-Troumbly-Lawson was lethal. Lawson had four goals against SPA including a pure hat trick.

[Slapper Al]

So let me get this straight, SPA loses one game in the last 3 weeksand drops behind a team they beat. That same team gets outshot 30-9 and loses 7-0 that same week. These teams share a common opponent in the last 3 weeks and SPA loses 3-1 while Maht loses 7-1. I know it gets boring to have the same teams in the same spots, but it just makes zero sense that Maht keeps getting rewarded for the fluke victory against STA in which they were outshot 2-1. And I am a STA fan.

[BP]

So let me get this straight, SPA loses one game in the last 3 weeksand drops behind a team they beat. That same team gets outshot 30-9 and loses 7-0 that same week. These teams share a common opponent in the last 3 weeks and SPA loses 3-1 while Maht loses 7-1. I know it gets boring to have the same teams in the same spots, but it just makes zero sense that Maht keeps getting rewarded for the fluke victory against STA in which they were outshot 2-1. And I am a STA fan.

Agreed. When you have had four running times games (6-0 vs Tartan, 7-0 vs STA, Breck 7-1, and 9-2 to Hermantown), you are not a top 5 team, let alone a top 10 team.

[HShockeywatcher]

So let me get this straight, SPA loses one game in the last 3 weeksand drops behind a team they beat. That same team gets outshot 30-9 and loses 7-0 that same week. These teams share a common opponent in the last 3 weeks and SPA loses 3-1 while Maht loses 7-1. I know it gets boring to have the same teams in the same spots, but it just makes zero sense that Maht keeps getting rewarded for the fluke victory against STA in which they were outshot 2-1. And I am a STA fan.

SPA beat Mahtomedi in OT in the first game of the season for both of them; they have played 23 games since. Mahtomedi has been beaten by some good teams and also played some good ones close, as well as coming out with some good wins. You say the STA win is fluky then maybe another game could be as well, right? Either way, you have to look at the body of work, not just individual games.

I posted this last week and had no responses. I'll add the Cathedral game for this week. Mahtomedi Class A games:

4-5 L SPA
7-1 W SSP
7-1 W Simley
7-5 W TG
3-0 W Sibley
3-0 W Blake
3-0 W TRF
1-7 L Breck
2-9 L Hermantown
3-1 W Cathedral

Agreed. When you have had three running times games (6-0 vs Tartan, 7-0 vs STA, and 9-2 to Hermantown), you are not a top 5 team, let alone a top 10 team.

So getting beat by a top 10 AA team, the top A team in the state and a conference opponent a month ago (who they also lost by 1 to earlier) means you're not a top 10 Class A team?
Delano lost in running time to Holy Family, they must be pretty bad too, right?

[BP]

Actually, it's 4 running time games in 4 weeks. That's a lot for a Top 5 team, that's all I'm saying. Tartan is a non-ranked AA team, and it was 6-0. I get it happening 1 time to one of these teams, but when it's FOUR times, you have to wonder. And against St Thomas last week, they had ONE shot on goal through two periods. There's a difference between being competitive and losing and getting blown out of the rink.

In Delano's case...same adage that you used above. Everyone gets 1. But not 4 in 4 weeks.

BUT, thank you for the work you put in, that is sincere. Just debating on them being a little too high at this point. A month ago-yes. Now-no.

[nahc]

Wait........ no Luverne....?? Must be a typo........ :)

[HShockeywatcher]

Actually, it's 4 running time games in 4 weeks. That's a lot for a Top 5 team, that's all I'm saying. Tartan is a non-ranked AA team, and it was 6-0. I get it happening 1 time to one of these teams, but when it's FOUR times, you have to wonder. And against St Thomas last week, they had ONE shot on goal through two periods. There's a difference between being competitive and losing and getting blown out of the rink.

In Delano's case...same adage that you used above. Everyone gets 1. But not 4 in 4 weeks.

BUT, thank you for the work you put in, that is sincere. Just debating on them being a little too high at this point. A month ago-yes. Now-no.

Sure, but where do you put them?
Also, I tend to mostly ignore the specifics of how a team lost, especially to a better team. Mahtomedi beat Blake 3-0 and Breck beat them 8-4 so Mahtomedi's better, right? Doubt it.

In 2017, Mahtomedi has losses to Hill-Murray, Tartan, Stillwater, Breck, Hermantown and St Thomas. There is 1 team in Class A I would be confident would do better than them in that stretch and they are ranked above Mahtomedi.

For reference, Saturday's PageStat has Mahtomedi as #7 in Class A and #41 overall, with Tartan #41 overall. Tartan is #43.
Which is basically my point. "not ranked in AA" means little in comparison to Class A. Using PageStat, there are 3 Class A teams that would likely be ranked in the top 25 of all AA were they AA teams.

Thank you

[elliott70]

Mahtomedi beat Blake 3-0 and Breck beat them 8-4 so Mahtomedi's better, right? Doubt it.

So you are saying beating someone 3-0 is better than beating someone 8-4?

[HShockeywatcher]

Mahtomedi beat Blake 3-0 and Breck beat them 8-4 so Mahtomedi's better, right? Doubt it.

So you are saying beating someone 3-0 is better than beating someone 8-4?

Yes. I'd be quite interested in the case that it's not beyond "they scored less goals..."

[HShockeywatcher]

3 TRF
2 EGF

[TTpuckster]

3 TRF
2 EGF

I listened to that last night.
Goalie for TRF was very good.

But....man that hurt.

[zamboniexhaustinhaler]

3 TRF
2 EGF

I listened to that last night.
Goalie for TRF was very good.

But....man that hurt.

Their goalie has stole several games, different goalie did the same last year.

Crazy.

[stromboli]

For a different take on ranking the Class A teams, I decided to see what would happen if I combined three sources -- Pagestat, My Hockey Rankings, and Let's Play Hockey. That gives me two formula based ranking systems and one based on coaches' opinions. The combined rankings and average ranking among the three sources is shown below. The bolded lines indicate all three sources had those teams ranked the same. Ironically, Maht was ranked #7 in all three (no disrespect to HSHW's opinion).


Rank Team Average Rank
1 Hermantown 1.0
2 Breck 2.0
3 Delano 3.0
4 St Paul Academy 4.0
5 St Cloud Cathedral 5.3
6 East Grand Forks 5.7
7 Mahtomedi 7.0
8 Hibbing 9.0
9 Alexandria 9.7
10 Orono 10.0
11 Sartell 11.0
12 Greenway 11.3
13 St Paul Johnson 13.3
14 Minnehaha Academy 14.0
15 Rochester Lourdes 15.0

[HShockeywatcher]

For a different take on ranking the Class A teams, I decided to see what would happen if I combined three sources -- Pagestat, My Hockey Rankings, and Let's Play Hockey. That gives me two formula based ranking systems and one based on coaches' opinions. The combined rankings and average ranking among the three sources is shown below. The bolded lines indicate all three sources had those teams ranked the same. Ironically, Maht was ranked #7 in all three (no disrespect to HSHW's opinion).

Of those 3, LPH is the one put together by people and not a computer ranking. It is also released every Wednesday and this Wednesday they had Mahtomedi at #5. Which is right where I'm at, but I'm choosing to give a win over Cathedral more credit than a loss to Greenway.

All of SPA, Cathedral, EGF and Mahtomedi have had good seasons.
In Class A...
SPA has only lost to Breck (x2) and now Greenway...
Mahtomedi has only lost to SPA, Breck and Hermantown...
EGF has lost to Greenway, TRF and tied Cathedral...
Cathedral has lost to Htown, Delano, Breck, Mahtomedi, and SPA and tied EGF and Alexandria...

Obviously it's hard to compare schedules since not everyone has played the same teams, but SPA and Mahtomedi look the best of those to me with it really being a toss up between Cathedral and EGF...

I'm also curious how people are okay putting Breck ahead of Delano with Delano beating Breck 5-2 on the road while using SPA beating Mahtomedi in OT in the first game of the season as a reason not to put Mahtomedi ahead of SPA...

Delano's only blemishes are losing to Hermantown by 1 and to Holy Family twice...