The Starkey team (or Team Southwest) is comprised of players from high schools in the Southwest corner of the Twin Cities area.  This year’s team has six players that played their youth hockey in the Edina Association.  All six played on Edina's varsity team that won last season’s State Class AA Championship.  The six Edina players are joined on Starkey by six players from Edina’s Lake Conference rivals, Prior Lake and Minnetonka.  Holy Family Catholic, Orono, New Prague, and Holy Angels players join the 12 to complete the 2014 roster.  One player, Ben Newhouse/Benilde-St. Margaret’s is also a product of the Edina Association's youth teams.

In a quirk, four Starkey defensemen (AJ Robbel, John Schuldt, Ben Newhouse, and Ryan Zuhlsdorf), goalie Jacob Berger, and forward Casey Dornbach played together on District 6’s HP-15 team in 2012.        

Starkey or Team Southwest Offense

The TCF Bank team has the top offensive set of forwards in the UMHSEL this season, but Starkey offense is not far behind.  Five of the Starkey forwards are from the Class AA Championship Edina team.  Dylan Malmquist (32 points/12 goals), Kieffer Bellows (27 points/10 goals), Matt Masterman (26 points/11 goals), Garrett Wait (20 points/9 goals), and Casey Dornbach (6 points/4 goals) all played 25 games for the Hornets in the 2013-2014 regular season.  Malmquist, Bellows, Masterman, Wait, and Dornbach were the Hornets’ #3, #5, #6, #7, and #10 scorers.  Collectively they scored 46 goals in 25 regular season games.

And they have attracted attention since.  Bellows was selected #1 in the United States Hockey League draft by the Sioux Falls Stampede (#13 overall) and has committed to Boston University for the 2016-2017 season.  Malmquist was drafted in the 2012 USHL draft by Muskegon and traded this year to the Lincoln Stars.  Casey Dornbach was taken by the Lincoln Stars in the 2014 USHL draft.  All three could end up in the USHL in the 2014-2015 season.  Bellows could end up playing for the Stampede and Malmquist and Dornbach could end up playing for the Stars.  If they do, that would cut short any play in the UMHSEL this fall.  

There is no fall off in talent on the remaining seven Starkey forwards.  Gavin Payne (son of former Minnesota North Star Steve Payne-yes the old green and gold NHL team) has long been watched by YHH.  As a peewee, Gavin along with Joey Luedtke, led the Orono Association’s peewee A team to the state tourney won by Edina led by Malmquist.  Payne played defense then.  Two years ago, as sophomores, Payne and Luedtke led the Orono Spartan Varsity (Class A) in scoring.  Last season Payne moved to Minnetonka (Class AA) and led the Skippers Varsity in scoring.  Payne has posted 59 points/21 goals in the past two seasons.

Holy Family Catholic has two of its varsity forwards on this team, John Peterson and Will Garin.  Peterson led the Fire in scoring last season with 62 points/29 goals and was a top performer in the UMHSEL in 2013.  Fire junior Garin played his third season for Holy Family and posted 36 points/16 goals in 18 regular season games.  Garin was part of the HP-17 Minnesota Selects that attended a USA national camp in New York the first part of July.     

Prior Lake’s varsity also contributes two of their top players to the Starkey team, Will Reedy and Kevin Fellows.  Reedy (21 points/9 goals) was the Lakers #3 scorer last season; Fellows (23 points/12 goals) led the Lakers in scoring.  

Alex Gregor/New Prague and Marshall Barns/Holy Angels complete the Starkey offense.  Gregor led the Trojans to the semifinals of last season’s Class A state tourney posting 40 points/18 goals in regular season play.  He is an unassuming player on the ice, but has been a good playmaker setting up Trojan teammates and a good scorer with a deceptively tough shot to stop.

Last season Barns, the Stars #4 scorer (21 points/3 goals) and Gregor opposed each other in the now defunct Missota Conference won by New Prague.  This fall will be Barns’ fourth season for the Stars’ varsity.  Barns has posted 101 points/30 goals in 73 games for the Stars the past three seasons.  The two high schools will play in different conferences this year; New Prague joins the Wright County Conference (and will face Holy Family Catholic with Garin and Peterson) and Holy Angels joins the Tri-Metro Conference.

Line pairing should be no problems for the Starkey coaches.  Add one top player like Payne to the Edina five and you have two good lines.  Pair Peterson and Garin with a Gregor or Barns and you have another good line.  Add Gregor or Barns to the Prior Lake pair of Reedy and Fellows and you have another good line.  But then players do not always show for UMHSEL games due to other commits.  If that happens, throw the names of those that show in a bag and you will still get three formable lines with scoring punch as long as nine show.

Starkey or Team Southwest Defense  

The Starkey team has a solid set of defensemen this season. There is no one outstanding defenseman, they are all good.  Ben Newhouse returns to play in the UMHSEL.  Newhouse, Benilde-St. Margaret’s #3 scorer (33 points/5 goals in 24 games, has been a consistent performer since he was an Edina peewee A player.  Newhouse has averages 6 assists to every goal he scores.  Over the past three seasons, Newhouse has proven to be very effective at controlling play in an opponents’ zone. 

Prior Lake left the Missota Conference at the end of the 2009-2010 season and joined the South Suburban.  The Lakers have played tough since finishing in the upper half of the regular season standings the past four years.  But Prior Lake has not gotten past Edina in the Section 2AA playoffs.  This coming season should see the emergence of the Prior Lake Association’s 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 peewee A players on the high school varsity.  Those teams dominated the Edina youth teams in District 6 play.

Defenseman Matt Denman is one of those key players.  Last season, he posted 12 points/1 goal in 25 games for the Laker varsity.  That high ratio of assists to goals is a change from his peewee years where he was a top goal scorer while playing defense for the young Lakers.  

John Schuldt was the Skipper’s #3 scorer last season (12 points/7 goals in 25 games) in his second season on the Tonka varsity.  He joins Skipper teammate Gavin Payne on the Starkey roster.  Schuldt, 6’3” 205 lbs, and Payne will captain the Skipper Varsity for the 2014-2015 season.

Ryan Zuhlsdorf/Edina posted 12 points/1 goal for last season’s Hornet Class AA champs.  Last May, he committed to play for the Gophers in 2015-2016 season and appears to be headed to the USHL next season playing for the Sioux City Musketeers.  AJ Robbel/Jefferson will be a junior this season; he has played two years on the Jags’ varsity posting 17 points/3 assists in 48 games.  This season Jefferson moves from the South Suburban to the new Metro West Conference that will be in its’ first season.  The Jags will likely end up competing with Benilde-St. Margaret’s for the Metro West’s first hockey crown.    

Matt Anderson/Holy Family Catholic posted 14 points/3 goals in 25 regular season games for the Fire last season as a ninth grader.  It was the 1999 borne Anderson’s second season with the Fire varsity; he jumped from playing Shakopee peewee A hockey to the Fire varsity two seasons ago.  Anderson will be one of the few sophomores-to-be playing in the UMHSEL this fall and has committed to play hockey for UMD in the 2018-2019 season.

Starkey or Team Southwest Goaltenders

Jacob Berger/Minnetonka and Jon Flakne/Orono are the Starkey goalies for 2014.  Berger played in the 2012 HP-15 program and had a good run making it to St. Cloud in June, 2012.  He has played the last two seasons for the Skippers’ varsity posting 15-12 record while holding his opponents to under 2.5 goals a game while stopping 90% of the shots on net.  His worst game last season was a penalty filled 7-1 loss to Holy Family Catholic that had thirteen penalties called against each team.  His Starkey teammates this year, Garin and Peterson, did the damage.  Garin had a hat trick (on three power play goals) and assisted Peterson on two goals (one power play) to account for 5 of the 7 goals scored.

Jon Flakne/Orono came on strong at the end of last season for the Spartans.  He posted a 15-7-1 record in the regular season keeping Orono opponents to 2 goals a game while stopping 91% shots on net.  But what really made his season was an outstanding performance in the Section 2A championship game, a 2-1 win over Breck, where Flakne stopped 46 of 47 Breck shots.

                                 Starkey (or Team Southeast) Roster