26-#7 Hayden Brickner/Centennial AA-Hayden is a lanky skater on the ice with smooth skating and great game awareness.  As a result, Centennial had a great year finishing second in the D10 peewee AA league, winning the D10 playoffs, and winning the West Regional tourney to take the #1 seed to the state tourney.  On the ice, Hayden constantly is adjusting to the play and looking for the opportunity to put the puck in the net.  He plays his position, but he adjusts to the change of puck direction smartly.  A good shot and good stick handling ability, Hayden is the type of player that fits in with the offensive attack that is happening at that moment.  If the need is on the right side of a rush he takes it; if he senses his team mate carrying the puck is in trouble he manages to find a way to pick the “about to be loose” puck up and sustain the attack.  He has a deadly accurate shot and is a big reason why the Cougars made the Peewee AA State Tourney this year. 

 27-#11 Nick Lanigan/Duluth East-Some kids have to have the best equipment when they hit the ice.  They love hockey, but they always want the best stick or latest gloves.  Because they outgrow equipment constantly, hockey kids usually get their way.  Nick, on the ice, looks like a kid who doesn’t care what equipment he has, he just wants to play hockey.  When YHH saw him at the White Bear Tourney, he was playing forward and he looked the like the old “rink rat” picture.  But it was easy and fun to watch him play.  He is a good skater, has a great quick shot, and like most goal scorers always seems to be in the right spot.  He skates the full ice, back checks, and plays defense well.  So it was no surprise to see him in the State Tournament at defense more than offense.  Nick is just a good player and the “rink rat” image fits a kid from the east side of Duluth that is littered with outdoor ice. 

28-#14 Joesph Sutton/Mounds View-Joe played center/forward for the Mustangs this past season and was their chief goal scorer.  An excellent back checker, but his specialty was the ability to score down low, usually out what YHH calls a “melee” or a scramble of kids fighting for the puck in the crease area.  Joey was the one most likely to come up with the puck.  After a good start to the season, Mounds View struggled.   They ended their D2 play with 5 tied games and in the middle of standings, but had a good Edina Invitational tourney losing to the Colorado Arapahoe 3-2 in the third place game (out of 12 teams entered).  Joe has good size, good hands and a quick shot.  More importantly he is a consistent scorer; scoring one or two goals game after game. 

29-#33 Trey Roberts/Luverne-Trey is a big defense man on a nine man team.  He is a tough defense man with one of the hardest shots around, is a deceptively good at the “inner skills”, and has good game awareness especially making the pass on the breakout.  Not the sharpest in the all-round skills, one can tell he plays baseball in the summer.  The best thing about Trey this past season is that he knew he would be on the ice for most of the game.  Most kids don’t understand that resting every other shift; or resting two of every three shifts is important.  It allows their body to recover.  If they continuous skate, the body becomes tired and can’t recover until after the game is over.  So when Trey hits the ice, he has to conserve his energy from the start.  He does that well.  In the third period of Luverne’s state tourney quarterfinal 1-0 win over Park-Cottage Grove, Trey played most of the third period and dominated play on his side of the ice.  In sequence after sequence he would not give up on the defense, constantly turning and checking as the Wolfpack forwards moved the puck.  He would do that until he gained control of the puck cleared the zone or passed to a breaking teammate.  His play reminded me of the Last Star Fighter’s “death blossom” weapon, whirling about.  Trey is another Luverne kid like defense man Toby Sengvongxay (Select 15 that made the Minnesota Select team last summer) to watch in the coming years.  And it would be fun to see him play baseball. 

30-#9 Cole McCarver/North St. Paul-There has to be a reason why North St. Paul made it to the East Regionals this year.  After the association’s peewee’s struggled the last two years, the Polars moved from peewee B to A this year and had a season where the peewee A developed from a so-so start in November to potential state tourney entry in March.  YHH noticed the Polars’ improving so it was no surprise when they took the #2 seed in the D2 playoffs and made it to the regional semifinals before losing a tough game to Park-Cottage Grove 4-3.  Cole McCarver played center/forward for the Polars and was one of their top scorers.  He has all the skills, skating, shooting, and puck handling; but he is a kid that breaks down the defense on a rush especially at the opponents’ blue line.  If he has an edge in the defender in front of him, he takes it.  If he draws the defense to him, he sets up the open wing with a nice paced pass that leads the wing to the shot.  Cole is a top 50 this year and probably a North St. Paul Spring League graduate.

31-#18 Joey Stillings/Eastview-Joey played defense for the Lightning the past season.  He is a big strong player, a good skater and puck handler with a hard shot.  Early in the season, Joey was really effective scoring on solo rushes from his blue line to the opponents net.  But as the season moved on, he focused more on defense.  His defensive play combined with the Lightning’s great goal tending made this season’s team one of the top ten in the state.  For the first time in a number of years, the Lightning made it to the East regional tourney only to draw unbeaten and soon to be state champion Edina AA in the opener, loosing 4-1.  Stillings is a major contributor to the Lightning’s great season and is a player to be watched in the future.  He is good. 

32-#5 Sarah Chute/Wayzata AA-Sarah plays defense for the AA Trojans and is a YHH Top 50 player from last year.  She plays a steady defense and occasionally will go for the net.  She skates well, passes well, and plays a tough defense.  That she excels at; her defensive play can be best explained by looking at the picture.  The picture was taken in the last five seconds of the third period of the Trojans’ game against St. Michael/Albertville in the Peewee AA State Tourney semifinals.  The game was tied 2-2 and the STMA player trying to break free is a good one, Zach Sjelin.  Sarah is the Trojan in the middle of the picture.  She is focused on stopping Sjelin.  Knowing time is running out, she has moved up in the Trojans’ zone to prevent Sjelin from getting a blistering shot on the net; but when Sarah moved, she moved at a slight angle that forces Sjelin to come into her play.  More importantly she has placed her stick behind Sjelin’s preventing him from getting a full force shot on the net.  Sjelin shot made it to the goal, but only at a fraction of his normal speed.  If Sjelin had been allowed to take a full force shot, he would have had an excellent chance to win the game.  Instead, Sarah’s defense stopped him and the clock ran out.  The Trojans won the game in overtime and went on to lose in the championship game to Edina AA, but Sarah plays a tough defense.

33-#9 Clayton Phillips/Edina AA-One thing is certain about Clayton at the start of the year.  He was ready to play hockey.  He started the season by dominating Edina’s opposition as a strong wing.  He ended the season by dominating Edina’s opposition as a strong wing.  In the world of peewee hockey, that is not an easy thing to do.  Clayton is a strong skater, has a good accurate shot, and can score.  But he finds different ways to score.  Against Wayzata AA in the State Championship game, three minutes into the first period, Clayton beat the Wayzata defense on right side rush down the boards, cut into the faceoff circle and scored on a hard shot that beat the goalie on the left side (glove) and hit the upper left corner.  His Hornet team came alive after that goal and started to dominate.  Early is the second period, Clayton put the puck on the Wayzata goalie.  The goalie stopped the initial three foot shot and held position trying to control the loose puck.  It bounded slightly left and Phillips put his stick on the puck and pushed the puck through the goalie to score.  That “push” was more a contest of strength between the two players that Clayton won.  Edina led 3-0 and the game was over.  Wayzata never got back into the game.  Edina won 7-0.  Clayton scores from everywhere.

34-#39 Garrett Sandberg/STMA-If you ask a 12-year old kid, “what is his hockey dream”?  Most would answer to score the winning goal in a state tournament game.  Garrett is one of those big forwards that the STMA association has been producing in the last four years starting with Brandon Zajicek (member of the 2009-2010 STMA peewee A now an outstanding defense man for Shattuck-St. Mary’s U16 team).  Over those four years, these kids have elevated the STMA program such that nobody is surprised when they play in a state tourney.  In sudden death overtime against Minnetonka in the state tourney quarterfinals, Garrett picked up a loose puck near the Skippers’ blue line, broke to the outside edge of the right face off circle and beat the Skipper’s goalie on a hard shot to the left side to score the winning goal in a state tourney game.  Garrett is strong, good hands, good skater, and a prolific goal scorer.  He also got to live most peewee players’ dream.

35-#30 Gabe Holum/Grand Rapids-Gabe is a big goalie for the Thunderhawks who just loves to play goalie or at least that what a fan would see when he takes charge of the net at the start each period.  Some goaltenders define their play by the area they cover and fear getting further then the top of the crease.  When the Rapids played in the Eden Prairie Thanksgiving Day tourney, Gabe defined his area of coverage as most of the Grand Rapids zone, often playing the puck from a faceoff dot out of the zone or running the puck around the boards from behind the net.  For a big goalie, Gabe is quick, agile and has great hands.  He is not a “clam” goalie, but more of one that tries to control the flow of the game by redirecting the rebounds.  Not an easy thing for a peewee to do.  In the picture on the left, Gabe is diving on a loose puck at the right face off dot trying to control the puck.  He failed that time and it cost him.  But at the state tourney in Edina, he came out on the ice at the start of the period and played the same way.  Gabe is a good goalie. 

36-#6 Megan Cornell/Jefferson-Megan played a steady strong defense all season long for the Jags.  The Jags had a good season this year making it to the semifinals of the South AA regionals.  Few people would have predicted that.  Megan was one of the reasons for the Jag’s success.  When you hire a person for doing a job, you have to be pleased when they do it well.  She just plays defense well.  She has reasonable size, good hands, but it is her defensive awareness that caught YHH’s eye. 

She positions herself almost ahead of the flow of the play when the puck is in the Jags zone; as a result the play comes to her, she does not chase and she follows through with the play never giving up.  There are two pictures for her that demonstrates what YHH saw.  In the Woodbury Rumble championship game against Edina A won by the Jags in a shootout, Megan shows how to defend the weak side, Edina’s favorite play.  In the first picture she has stayed focused when an Edina forward on the right shoots into the goalie (that is a good way to start a weak side play).  She has positioned herself for the possibility of a loose puck rebounding or flopping in the open crease.  The Hornet shot ended with a loose puck under the Jefferson’s goalie’s leg pad, but Megan has locked up with an Edina forward trying to poke the puck in the net by having established position.  She did not go at the Edina forward and take a penalty.  In the second picture she uses her strength and has positioned her body square to the ice such that her forward momentum propels the hard charging Hornet into the net away from the puck.  Jefferson’s goalie made the save.  No penalty was called on Megan.  Somebody has taught her how to play defense well.

37-#1 Karlie Riess/New Ulm-Sleepy Eye-YHH liked the New Ulm-Sleepy Eye team this year from the start.  Part of the reason is that they skated three girls (Alexandria Beltz, Danielle Weiss, and Lauren Klein) in addition to Karlie at goal.  When they won the D5 Silver Peewee A regular season title, a small cheer when up at YHH.  Danielle especially caught our eye; she skates and plays like Rhett Pitlick.  But Karlie’s goaltending was outstanding in District 5 play, the Indians gave up 13 goals in their last 11 district games with her in the nets.  In the D5 playoffs, Karlie gave up 1 goal and led her team to a D4 championship title and a #1 seed to the South Regional beating Luverne 1-0 in the championship game.  At the South Regional, NUSE faltered losing a tough opening round game to Rochester Black 2-1.  Karlie has good size and quick hands.  She holds her position well remains upright ready to make the save.  She does not sit back on the goal line and as result covers the net area well forcing the shots into her.  When she drops to the ice, she remains upright barely letting the pads touch until she is certain where the opponents’ shots are going.  She stymied the Luverne forwards in a pressure packed second and  third period time and time again, including a long 5-on-3 penalty in leading the Indians to the D4 #1 seed in the D5 championship game.