Twelve teams will be playing in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League, seven teams (Great Plains, Team North, Team Southeast, Team Southwest, Team Northeast, and Team Wisconsin) play a full regular season schedule.  Shattuck-St. Mary’s Prep Team misses the opening two weekends of play and plays a full schedule after that.  The Shattuck team has consistently been or vied for USA Hockey’s U-18 National Tournament.  Last November, Shattuck won the National Invitational Tourney played in New Hope winning three straight overtime games.  Last March, the Sabres lost to Neposet Valley 5-1 in the U18 national semifinals held in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Colorade Rampage has played the opening weekend of the Elite League the past few years.  They struggled last year in the elites, but this year had a good weekend beating Team North 5-3, Great Plains 4-3, before losing to Team Northwest 8-2.  The Rampage defense was impressive and is the subject of another YHH post.

The Rampage won the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association Tier 1 Title last season but lost to the Colorado Thunderbirds in the Denver Division of U18 Tier I hockey and were eliminated from the national tourney.

The Chicago Fury will play three games this year in the Elite League.  The games will be played next weekend when the league travels to Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Two other teams, an U17 team and the MEPDL Stars (top players from the Elite D League) play two games.  The rosters have yet to be announced.

The Elite league will play their regular season week 3 schedule at the NAHL Showcase in Blaine in front of a potential of 500 college and pro scouts.  The games are scheduled to be played on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday-September 20 to 22.  Shattuck-St. Mary’s Prep team will debut that weekend.

Team Wisconsin demonstrated great passing and the ability to contain another team in their opponent’s zone in their three weekend games.  They constantly did a two man check in the corners with the off forward playing in the right or left slot depending on the corner (left corner/left side of the slot).  They allowed the defense on the point to move into the zone along the boards to cut off any clearing attempt off the boards and did not commit the off forward to the blue line.

The result is that their opponents in the corner had no passing lane other than to rotate the puck to the far corner and often gave up the puck in the corner or flung the puck along the end boards to clear the zone.  The far defense man was always looking for that play and his job was to stop the puck and regardless of zone, fire it deep.

Eventually, the Wisconsin team would tire their opponents and enjoy some open ice on the perimeter to move the puck and shot.  And they could move the puck and shoot.

The problem was if the defense failed to get the puck deep, the Wisconsin team would be on the disadvantage on a breakout starting in their half of the neutral zone.

In their game with Great Plains (Luther Auto), the score was 1-1 with five minutes to go in the second period and Team Wisconsin trapped the Luther Autos in their Great Plains zone for most of the final minutes in the period.

The defense men on either point were great in quickly dumping the puck deep until 40 seconds were left in the period.  Then a Great Plainer trapped the puck along the boards inside the red line.  He could have fired the puck deep, but hesitated and the puck rolled six inches over the red line.  Now the defense tried to regain the puck possession in the Great Plains half of the ice; but an aggressive Plainer drove the puck through the defense man inside the Wisconsin zone.

The Wisconsin defense never caught up to the puck.  For the next 30 seconds, the Wisconsin team scrambled as the Luther Autos passed the puck around the perimeter, hit Kobe Roth/Warroad coming into the slot from the left to right.  Roth drilled the puck through a screen to put the Great Plains team up 2-1 as the second period ended.

Team Wisconsin never recovered and went on to lose 4-1.  But the Red are a great passing team and can really control the puck in their opponents’ zone.  They will be an interesting team to watch as the season progresses.

Three players stood out at this past weekend games for Wisconsin, forward Michael Wilson/Fond du Lac, forward Jared Erickson/Waupaca, and forward Conner Blanck/St. Mary’s Springs Academy.

Team Southeast (TCF) literally beat the “North” last weekend.  The TCFers beat Team NORTHwest 5-4 (Velocity), Team NORTHeast 7-6, and Team NORTH 6-2.  They were the only elite team to emerge from the opening weekend unbeaten.

Nick Swaney/Lakeville South scored the hat trick in the TCFers win over Velocity.  Lucas Gillet/Rosemount scored the winning goal with two minutes left on the game clock for the 5-4 win.  Despite out shooting the Northwest team 36-22 at the end of the second period, Southwest  had a narrow 3-2 lead.

In their 7-6 win over Team Northeast (Mpls-St. Paul Magazine) Saturday evening, Southeast was out shot 29-16 in the first two periods and trailed 6-5.  Willie Brown/Hill-Murray senior who has been injured the past two seasons, scored the game tying and the game winning goals in the third period.  Brown also had a first period goal to get the hat trick.

In a wild, wide open game Sunday, the TCFers and Team North (Muscle Milk) put 52 shots on the net in the first two periods.  Though the shots were fairly even (32-26), Southeast scored 6 times to take a 6-2 lead into the final period.  With the score tied 2-2 halfway through the game, the TCFers exploded with four goals, led by Tommy Novak/St. Thomas Academy.  Novak scored two of the four goals and assisted on a third goal.

Novak, Swaney, and Brown ended the weekend as the #2, #3, and #4 scorers behind Colorado Rampage’s Jack Suter.

After losing their opening game to Team Southeast, Team Northwest (Velocity) went on to thump Team Southwest 6-3 and the Colorado Rampage 8-3.  The Northwest team has five Wayzata players on their roster from last year’s Class AA state tourney team.  In their loss to Team Southeast, two of the Trojan’s, Max Zimmer and Matt Freytag scored the Velocity’s first two goals.  Zimmer added an assist.  Calvin Spence/Champlin Park and Travis Brown/Rogers each scored a goal and an assist.

In the Velocity 6-3 win over Team Southwest (Starkey), Zimmer and Freytag continued to put points on the board.  Zimmer scored two unassisted goals (the second on a power play) and Freytag notched a goal.  The Velocity defense chipped in this game, Johnny Austin/Benilde-St. Margaret’s posted a goal and an assist.

In their final 8-3 win over Colorado last weekend, seven players took over the scoring from Freytag and Zimmer.  Adam Anderson/Centennial scored twice.  Six other players (Johnny Austin, Travis Brown, Calvin Spencer, Tyler Tomberlin/Andover, Spencer Naas/Benilde-St. Margaret’s, and Chase Springman/Elk River each scored once.

In all, the Starkeys put 144 shots on goal in the first three games include 63 shots in their 6-3 win over Velocity.

Team Wisconsin and Grand Rapids, MN hosts the elites’ weekend two play.  The Chicago Fury will join Team Wisconsin, Team Northeast, and Team Northwest for Saturday and Sunday games at the Stevens Point Ice Hawk Arena.  The Fury will be tested by all three teams in a tourney that could set the tone for the Fury’s chances to make it to the nationals (to play Shattuck?).

Team North, Team Southwest, Team Southeast, and Great Plaines will play at Grand Rapids.  Team Southeast should win three more games, but they have to play Team North loaded with D11, D12, and D16 players including Grand Rapids goalie Hunter Shephard.  Shephard zeroed out all three Grand Rapids opponents in the opening weekend.  The Saturday 6:00 PM game in Grand Rapids should be an interesting game to watch.