Andover edged the Minneapolis Storm in a Sunday afternoon peewee AA game played at the Parade Ice Arena in Minneapolis. The Huskies will be playing this season in Minnesota Hockey’s District 10 Peewee AA league against perennial D10 favorites, Elk River, Blaine and Centennial.  The Storm will be playing in a combined District 3/District 6 peewee AA league this year.  Minneapolis will face some of the toughest competition in the state playing Wayzata, Osseo/Maple Grove, Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, and Prior Lake each in a home and home series.  Both Andover and Minneapolis will be playing in the Big Pumpkin Tourney held at Moorhead this year.  They are in separate brackets in the 16 team peewee AA tourney.

Period 1: Testing the penalty kills

Andover scored in the first 30 seconds of the opening period.  The Huskies’ Tommy Nowacki beat the defense coming down the right slot.  He broke across the right faceoff circle and fired a shot at the left post.  His break to the right faceoff drew the Storm’s goalie Kiron Morioka right and opened up the left side for the goal.  The score put Andover up 1-0.  The Huskies’ Luke Kron got the assist.  Minneapolis quickly struck back pressuring the Huskies in the Andover zone, but could not score.  The two teams battled evenly after that until Andover drew a penalty.

Last season, Andover had one of the better penalty kills of the Minnesota peewee AA teams.  Halfway through the opening period, the 2014-2015 Huskies had a chance to prove that again.  They drew a checking penalty and then drew a second checking penalty creating two successive 5-on-4 penalty kills.  The Storm pressured the Huskies controlling the puck in the Andover zone for most of the first penalty, but the Huskies kept their box positions and forced the Storm to keep the puck along the boards.  Minneapolis did get some good shots on net, but Andover’s goalie Wesley Swenson made the tough saves.  When the Storm beat the perimeter defense, Swenson made the stops.  On the second penalty kill, Andover kept moving the puck and never let the Storm establish possession in the Andover zone.  This season’s Huskies have a good penalty kill.

The Storm’s penalty kill was also tested late in the period.  With just under two minutes left in the period, Minneapolis was called from tripping.   Thirty seconds later, the Storm drew a cross checking penalty.  In the last minute of the period, the Storm used their size and physical strength to kill the Huskies’ 5-on-3 advantage.  The Storm defense kept the Huskies’ power play in check by taking away the area in front of the net and tying the Huskies’ wings up on either side of the net.  The first period ended with Andover leading 1-0.

Period 2: The Storm "over tests" their penalty kill

It is hard to play half a period of hockey shorthanded.  That is what the Storm did in the second period.  The Storm had a physical size advantage over the smaller Andover team and collisions on ice usually meant the Storm player was left standing, the Huskies’ player left on the ice.  Three successive Storm penalties were called in the second period.  Minneapolis spent half of the second period killing penalties.  They succeeded killing the first two, but not the third.

On a power play with under a minute left in the second period, Andover established possession of the puck in the Minneapolis zone and moved the puck to the center blue line to Michael Clough.  Clough fired a high shot that was going wide left of the net until it ricocheted off a body past the Storm’s goalie Morioka.  Mitchell Wolfe got the assist.  Andover led 2-0 with 35 seconds left on the clock in the second period.  The second period ended 2-0, Huskies leading.

Period 3: The Storm storms back

The Storm opened the third period playing more aggressively, especially at the defensive points when the puck was in the Andover zone.  The Storm defensemen started to focus on holding the zone by blocking the Huskies’ forwards attempts to flip the puck through them, by beating the Huskies’ forwards to the puck and knocking the puck back to the corner, and by stepping up to beat the Andover defense and clear themselves for scoring opportunities.  The result was the Storm pinned Andover in the Huskies’ zone for the first four minutes of the period until they scored.

With a 11 minutes left on the clock, Storm defenseman Lachen Reid took advantage of a soft Andover defense on the right side, stepped up and fired a hard shot that Andover’s Swenson stopped but could not control the rebound.  The puck went into the right corner and was picked up by an Andover wing.  He rotated the puck to the left point and back again to Reid at the right point.  Reid stepped up again and buried the puck to cut Andover’s lead to 2-1.

The Storm continued to rage.  They kept the pressure on the Andover defense collapsing the Andover forwards into the net and forcing Swenson to make some difficult stops.  The Huskies hung on to their single goal lead until they got relief.  The Storm drew a roughing penalty with just under three minutes left in the game.  Andover did not press on the power play content to control and dump the puck deep.  They faced some Storm pressure as the game ended, but Andover had weathered the Storm’s third period attack.  They won 2-1.

What is next?

Andover, a District 10 team, continues to run a D3/D6 gauntlet of tough teams playing Osseo/Maple Grove, Wayzata, Edina, and Eden Prairie over the next 10 days before leaving for Moorhead to play in the Big Pumpkin Tourney (October 31-November 2).  Andover will play St. Cloud in the opening (8-game) round of the Big Pumpkin.  Chanhassen/Chaska plays Blaine in the other side of Andover's four team bracket. 

The Storm is off this week.  They will play District 10’s Elk River and D3/D6 Chanhassen/Chaska early the following week before traveling to Moorhead for the Big Pumpkin.  Minneapolis will play Hermantown in opening game at Moorhead; Edina plays Elk River in the other side of the Storm’s four team bracket.