The Black Team is dominated by players skating for Lake Conference High Schools next fall; the Yellow Team is dominated by players skating in the South Suburban and Metro East Conferences. The Yellow defense has four Eagan defensemen and two South St. Paul defenders for their defense. Sophomores Gavin Gugino and Corey Rehder, junior Ben Wilary, and senior Jonah Mikiya skated last season for Eagan in the South Suburban. Mikiya skated defense on the Wildcat varsity and should provide the experience to lead the defensive corps. Wilary and Gugino skated for the Wildcats JV.
South St. Paul finished in the middle of the Metro East conference. The Packers have two juniors, Brandon Roloff and Jackson Luhrs, on the Yellow team. Roloff and Luhrs skated for the varsity. Luhrs scored 13 points 4 goals in regular season play. South St. Paul’s varsity posted a 16-9-0 record losing to Simley in 1-0 in the sectional semifinals after beating Totino Grace 6-0. The two Yellow goalies are Wildcats, junior Luke Conway, and sophomore Graeme Edmund. Conway skated for the Eagan JV team and the Eagan Association’s BAA team the past two seasons. Edmund played for the Association’s BAA team last season.
The Yellow forwards have players from five high schools on the team. Three Wildcats hope to be skating for the Eagan varsity in the coming season; juniors Aiden White and Aiden Burn join senior Parker Swanson. White and Burn skated varsity last season. Swanson scored 6 points 2 goals in 20 regular season varsity games. Lakeville North skates in the South Suburban. Three Lakeville North players will be skating for the Yellow, sophomores Max Finkel and Matt Bernier and junior Sam Baratto. The Panthers will be graduating eight players from last season’s Class AA state tourney team, but return seven of their top 10 scorers. Finkel skated for the Lakeville Hockey Association’s Lakeville North BAA team last season, Bernier skated JV for the Panthers, and Baratto skated junior gold.
St. Thomas Academy won the Metro East.
Two St Thomas Academy players, junior Tom O’Neill and senior Bo Marvin, join the Lakeville North and Eagan forwards. O’Neill skated JV for STA last season and Marvin was on the STA Junior Gold B team that won the state title. Two juniors from St. Paul’s eastside hockey, St. Paul Johnson junior Michael Cudahy and South St. Paul’s Sam Lehmann will be skating for the Yellow. Lehmann skated JV/varsity for the Packers and Cudahy skated varsity for Johnson.
Hill-Murray junior Cooper Schumacher and Wayzata junior Jacob Fischer complete the forwards. Schumacher skated for the Eagan Association’s bantam AA team in 2016-2017 and skated on the Hill-Murray JV team last season. Fischer skated for the Wayzata’s JV team and was on the Wayzata soccer JV team. All three Yellow alternates are Eagan players; juniors Cole Gibson and Joshua Alexander and sophomore Nicholas Boor. Gibson skated for the Eagan Varsity last season posting 7 points 4 goals in the season and along with Alexander played on the Eagan bantam AA team in 2016-2017. Boor played Bantam AA at Eagan last season.
Yellow Team Summary: This team is dominated by the Suburban and Metro East conference but in some ways the Yellow is also the reincarnation of the Eagan 2016-2017 BAA team and will provide the fans with unique opportunity to see how those players have developed as a team over the past year after skating one year of playing high school.
Counting the alternates and Schumacher, nine of the Yellow players skated for the Eagan Hockey Association’s Bantam AA team in the 2016-2017. Further, all of the players on the Yellow except for goalie Edmund and alternate Boor will be juniors or seniors next fall and it is hard to distinguish as to what player will have a good game or spring season. The Yellow is a balanced team.