Sibley and Chaska/Chanhassen AA opened play at 7:45 AM;  Edina and Wayzata met at 9:15 AM.  The first game matched a “spunky” team in Sibley playing with a short bench (missing players) against a rugged Chaska team.  The second game matched two longtime rivals, Edina and Wayzata.  The Hornets showed some great play in the offensive zone against Blaine the day before and were the clear favorites. The Trojans have good offensive skills and were out to beat the Hornets.  It is a great rivalry.   As a Wayzata fan once mentioned, it took a few years to get all that green paint out of the PIC.  The championship game was played in the evening.

Semifinal: Chaska/Chanhassen edges Sibley 3-2 in overtime

Sibley started the day down players leaving the Warriors with 11 forwards.  One of the missing players was Brandon McFadden.  McFadden was a YHH top 50 pick last year and has improved his skills this year.  Without McFadden, Sibley is a though team to beat as Chaska found out.  Chaska won, but it was more through attrition that wore the smaller and fewer Warrior forwards down at the end of the game and in overtime.

Chaska took an early first period lead 1-0 on a goal by Ethan Benz.  At the 9 minute mark, Sibley’s Riley O’Brien beat the Hawk defense at the Chaska blue line and soloed in on goalie Justin Bach.  O’Brien beat Bach with a quick shot from the slot putting the puck into the upper right corner of the net.  The game was tied 1-1.  At the 5 minute mark, the Warriors’ Luke Williams beat the Chaska defense along the left boards in the neutral ice, cut to the net and beat Bach with a quick shot to the upper right corner from the lower left face off circle to give Sibley a 2-1 lead.  Skating only 11 forwards and trying to maintain a fast game pace, the Warriors kept the Hawks tied up in Sibley’s zone and the Chaska defense back peddling on their breakouts.  The first period ended with Sibley leading 2-1.

The second period was a battled to a standstill for the first 14+ minutes.  Then with 21 seconds left to go in the period, the Hawks’ Jacob Langhienrich took a shot from the left blue line.  His shot beat Sibley’s goalie low left to tie the game 2-2.  It was a heart breaker for the Warriors coming just as the period was ending and the teams headed for the locker rooms.  The tired Warriors hung on in third period; they played most of the period in the Sibley zone defending the Hawk attack with an occasional breakout.   Both teams had good third period chances, but it took a Hawk overtime goal to win the game.  With less than two minutes left in the overtime, Bobby Brink, picked up a loose puck inside Sibley’s blue line left and fired a partially screened shot that beat the Warriors goalie on the right side.  Hawks won 3-2 and advanced to the championship game Wednesday evening. 

Semifinal: Edina AA beats Wayzata AA 7-1

Edina’s took the opening faceoff, established control in the Trojans’ zone, moved the puck to Peter Colby on the left point.  Colby took a screen shot, beating Wayzata’s goalie Bailey Huber, to put the Hornets up 1-0 with 30 seconds off the clock in the first.  After that, things got worse for the Trojans.

Edina’s defense kept the Wayzata attack pinned in the Trojan’s zone and moved the puck well forcing the Wayzata defense to constantly reach and react.  It took the Hornets seven minutes to get their second goal.  This time Drew Bishop scored.  A minute later, the Trojan’s Rhett Pitlick beat the Edina defense skating down the right boards, cut to the net, and beat Edina’s goalie on a hard shot to left corner to cut the Hornets lead to 2-1.

The Hornets scored twice in the thirty seconds after Pitlick’s score to end the first period scoring 4-1.  The first goal came off a Hornet pass off the end boards to the slot and resulted in a scramble in from of the Wayzata goalie with Aaron Frenkel punching the puck into the net with his stick.  The second goal came off a 2-on-1 rush that caught the goalie forward.  The weak side pass (right to left) went between the goalie and the net and hit Jett Jungels’ breaking on the left side to put the Hornets up 4-1 and end the first period scoring.  Edina went on to add three more goals and win 7-1.  

Championship: Edina 9-2 over Chaska/Chanhassen AA

Edina AA came out in new (or at least different) light green uniforms that reminds one of the old Chevy color from the 1960’s and to a certain extent emulates the uniforms of the High Performance AAA league out of Detroit.

Not that it mattered.  In their game against Sibley, Chaska’s defense had lost their discipline and were not playing good team defense.  The Hawks had lost their spacing especially in the Chaska zone.  Edina did not start with a sharp offensive attack that they had showed in the first period of their pool game against Blaine Tuesday.  They Hornets still took it to Chaska in the first period scoring 3 goals to take a 3-1 lead at the end of the first period.

The Hawks opened the game, intent on quickly turning the puck at their blue line or from deep in their zone if the Hornets fired the puck deep.  The Hawks wanted to deny Edina possession in  the Hawks' zone.  It worked for the first six minutes.  At the 9 minute mark of the first period, a Hornet shot the puck from the left point area.  The puck was tipped on the way to the net.  The Hornets led 1-0.  Aaron Frenkel got the score.  Two minutes later, Edina’s Grant Sillianoff scored on a nice pass from the end boards.  Sillianoff's shot came from the sweet spot in the slot.  He buried the puck.  Chaska came back on a goal by Blaine Warnet to cut the Hornet lead to 2-1.

Then came the key play of the game.  It was a simple play, Edina’s defenseman Ben Brinkman stepped up at the Chaska blue line and buried the puck with a hard shot that not only froze the goalie, but froze the fans.  The crowd of over 300 did not react to the goal for seconds.  Brinkman’s goal ended the first period scoring with Edina leading 3-1.

Chaska opened the second period by getting a hooking penalty call.  It set up the Hornets fourth goal when the Hawks’ goalie Justin Bach’s attempted stick save on a high hard shot from the left point was too quick.  The puck caught the inside edge of Bach’s stick and was deflected into the net.  Edina led 4-1.  A minute later, Liam Malmquist scored a fifth Edina goal from the sweet spot.  Two minutes later, Brinkman beat the Chaska right defense swinging wide to the boards and cutting to the net to score on the short side.  Edina led 6-1 with the game half over.  Chaska’s Warnet scored with thirty seconds left in the period to cut the Edina lead 6-2.

The Hornets added three more goals in the third period to end the scoring 9-2.  The Hornets were clearly the better team in this Invitational this year.  They outscored their opposition by 33-4 in the five games played and ran their new win streak to 15 games.     

Peewee AA/A at Mid-season

January 1 marks the halfway point of the 2013-2014 season.  District playoffs are just 6-7 weeks away, regionals and state tourneys will be played in the first part of March.  About half of the peewee AA/A teams will have their season ending by the third week in February.  The other half will move on to a regional tourney looking to qualify for state.

At this point in the season, there are few true AA peewee teams in the state.  The Edina Invitational Tourney shows that and a quick trip around the districts confirms that most AA teams are struggling to beat A teams.  In D16, AA teams are struggling to beat A teams, D15 teams are in a similar situation, D12 has Grand Rapids AA looking good, D11 AA teams are struggling with the possible exception of Cloquet and Superior (and Superior AA is not eligible for the Minnesota tourneys), D10 is in a similar situation with AA teams struggling, D9’s Rochester Red has done well, but lost to Duluth East 2-1 recently, D8 has one AA team in Sibley, D6 has Edina AA, Chaska AA, and three possible teams in Prior Lake, Eden Prairie, and Minnetonka, D5 has none at this point, D4 has no peewee AA teams registered, D3 has two possible teams Wayzata AA and OMG AA, and D2 AA teams are struggling.

All this is one way of saying, halfway through the season, there are two exceptional AA teams in Edina AA and Sibley AA and four or five that could develop to that next level and compete with Edina and Sibley.  If that holds, at the end of the season, the AA regional seeding process for the East, West, and South regions could become difficult.  A selection committee will have a very narrow basis to eliminate 9 AA teams from the 27 AA teams that did not qualify through district play (six teams will qualify via district play).  Then the committee has to set up three regional draws.  They better lock their doors, it will not be an easy task.  Note, the North AA Regional is set with four districts (D16, D15, D12, and D11) determining the 8 team regional draw as a result of district playoffs.

After Edina, the view in this corner of YHH is that if the AA state tourney were held next week and Edina and Sibley were seeded in opposite brackets, the two teams would meet for the state title.  But in youth hockey, 6-7 weeks is a lifetime for the players.  Some can grow two inches over night.  Then everything changes.