Day 2 completes the first 25 players in the Top 50 this year.  Day 3 will list 12 more and will be posted on the weekend.  There is no order to how the players are listed.  Last year we started each post with 1 but thought that was confusing.  This year, the Top 50 will be numbered 1-50.  It does not make any difference what number a player is, all the Top 50 players are considered equal.  The only YHH difference will be the player of the year selected from one of the Top 50.  That will be in the Day 5 post. 

14-#17 Luke LaMaster/Duluth East AA-YHH noticed Luke last year as a first year peewee.  He came close to making the 2011-2012 Top 50.  He was playing defense when YHH first saw him this year and playing well, but not well enough to be a top defense man.  Just before the state tourney, YHH predicted there was something good going on in the Hounds camp; at the State Tourney it was apparent, Luke was playing offense.  He was doing a great job using his size, strength and passing to create scoring situations for his team mates and himself.  As a result, the Hounds came within a goal of knocking off unbeaten Edina AA in the peewee AA state tourney semifinals, losing 4-3.  For Luke in the space of six weeks, he went from a good prospect, in YHH’s opinion, to a great prospect.  Whatever he is doing, keep it up.  It is working.

15-#7 Aaron Meyers/Thief River Falls A-Often a kids’ perception of reality drives his actions and most often a kid sees his own faults and never tries.  This is not to say that Aaron sees his life that way, but with only 11 skaters on the team, games can get long in the third period.  Sometimes players outside the Twin Cities give Twin Cities teams too much respect.  That can be a wrong preception, but not the Prowlers.  At the St Cloud tourney in mid-January, YHH noted that Prowlers were playing well.  TRF were trailing a tough Hastings team by one goal late in the third period only to lose 7-4 in their first game in pool play.  Hastiings went on to play in the South AA regional.   The Prowlers went on to lose two more tough games at St. Cloud, but had a good season led by good forward play of Aaron and his teammates (especially Brady Anderson).  Aaron is a good skater with quick acceleration, has good size and has a quick accurate hard shot.  He is a prolific goal scorer and plays his position well.  He should see himself, at least for this month, as one of the top 50 peewee A players in the state.

16-#11 Jake Hale/Minneapolis Storm A-A good size center/forward, Jake is just a good all-around player.  He has the skating, the stick handling, and the game savvy that makes him a good player.  But what makes him standout is his on ice presence.  He was one of the drivers for Storm’s successful Peewee A State Championship year and always played with a coolness finding the right play at the right time.  After losing to Orono A 5-2 in the D3 playoff championship game, the NOW ranked #2 Storm won their next seven games including their state championship win over Orono 5-4 (a game YHH hated to miss-overtimes at Edina).  The Storm started slow this season and Jake was one of the steady players on ice.   His team eventually coalesced around him.  Congratulations to Jake and the Storm, they developed into a great team over the season.

17-#35 Luke Maul/Park-Cottage Grove A-If there was a Cinderella team in the state tourney, the Wolfpack was that team.  After struggling all year District 8’s Peewee A league finishing in tenth place in a twelve team league, nobody paid much attention to PCG.  Few probably knew what the PCG on their uniforms meant.  But they stunned everybody with a post season run to the state tourney in Faribault and ended up losing 1-0 to Luverne in the quarterfinals.  The “Wolfmen” as we called this PCG team won their two district playoff games by one goal.  They won their three East Regional games by one goal before losing to Luverne by one goal.  Luke was their goalie in every game.  At the start of the year, one could see he had talent, but needed to develop.  In PCG’s run to the state tourney, one could see that Luke had developed his talent and emerged as a top goalie in a season of a lot of good goalies.  A nice size player who holds his position well, Luke lets the play come to him.  He positions himself well particular on the long shot avoiding collapsing into the crease and opening up spots for the opponent to snipe at.  Quick and even tempered, yet challenging to PGC’s opponents, Luke is a Top 50 this year. 

18-#14 Jacob Anderson/Mankato A-Jacob is a “whoszat” player.  Mankato had a great season.  They won the District 9 regular season, took the district’s #2 seed to the South Regional, but in the end couldn’t beat Rochester Black to get a shot at the state tourney.  If you watched the Maverick’s play, Jacob was barely noticeable at times.  Then after he racked up a couple of quick goals, you would turn to someone and ask “whoszat”?  Jacob has good size, has quick hands and a quick stick but is most difficult to check out of the play.  He is great working low around the net or beating the defense coming into the zone.

19-#13 Jack Olsen/Lakeville South AA-Jack is at the top or is the top defense man in a season of good defense men.  A big, rangy skater, Jack covers a lot of ice in the Cougars’s zone.  He is especially great at working the puck out of the corner, often hitting the far side breakout pass to spring one the speedy Cougar forwards loose on a surprised opponent’s defense.  But the real surprise is when he takes off with the puck.  More times than not, it results in a Cougar goal often scored from the top of the crease at full stride.

20-#3 Connor Bizal/Elk River AA-The Elks looked to be focused and ready to make a strong post season run when YHH saw them easily beat a tough Brainerd AA team in a game played in mid-February.  After focusing all January on playing D10 league games, finishing first with a 20-2 record that narrowly edged out Centennial AA, the newly crowned D10 champs looked ready.  So it was disappointing when they faltered in the D10 playoffs.  Connor developed nicely over the season.  A big forward, a strong skater on the ice, and a goal scorer in tough situations in front of the net, he was a leading point “getter” for the Elks in their championship season.  On that Saturday against Brainerd AA he played an extremely good game getting a hat trick plus.  A good skater and a strong shooter who knows how to use his body in tight situations around the net, Connor is a top 50.

21 and 22-#39 Ben Beatie and #13 Trevor Lunde/Eastview-Last year, Ben stole the show on the Eastview peewee A team.  He had a great season and was a top 50 pick.  Trevor got lost at the end of the season.  This year Trevor improved and Ben had to contend with another goalie, sharing game time.  From the fan view, the two look like they have become pals, not rivals, over the two seasons.  Ben continued to play well this year and continues to improve.  He is extremely agile in the crease and never gives up on making the save.  His play must have helped spur Trevor.  Trevor started out struggling in the goal, but kept his focused on improving his skills.  Trevor is extremely “light in his feet” (ask a dancer what that means) for a goal tender in pads and heavy goalie skates.  It helps make Trevor quick, agile, and active in the crease.  It also makes him, along with Ben, a top 50 pick.  Eastview has developed some great goal tenders over the past four years, and the way these two play, you can add another three years of great goal tending at the high school level.

23-#32 Zach Sjelin/St. Michael/Albertville-The Knights had a strong team this year with a number of big strong skaters on that team and Zach stood out.  A smooth skating defenseman with a great understanding of the game, Zach played a tough defense and has a great shot from the point.  But his real strength is that he knows how to pick his spots to become part of the STMA attack often ending up scoring the goal.  Back at defense, Zach uses his size well to frustrate the Knight’s opponents.  He helped drive the Knights to a great season and a fourth place finish in the AA state tourney.  Announcers better learn how to pronounce “Sjelin”, they will be saying it often enough in the future. 

24-#14 Nick Portz/St Cloud AA-Nick is a kid that sneaks up on the fans.  He has good size, skates well, and is a good stick handler.  When you watched a St. Cloud game you sort of see him on the ice doing good things, but your attention is drawn to other St. Cloud players.  Nick seemed to get lost on a St. Cloud team that had a number of good players this year.  Then he does something good and the puck is in the net.  In the Center Ice Classic in January, Nick scored two hat tricks in the Huskies five games including a hat trick in the championship game.  In the South Regional, he didn’t do as well; he only scored one hat trick (against Jefferson) as St. Cloud advanced to the state.  A solid player, Nick should be part of a tough St. Cloud team in the coming years.

25-#19 Garrett Daly/Lakeville North-Garrett was a YHH top 50 pick last year playing for the Apple Valley Eagles as a first year peewee on the same team as another Top 50 from last year, Baron Thompson.  He, like Thompson, has grown.  He always was a great stick handler, shooter and skater.  This year he has become bigger and stronger and has developed a good sense for the game.  As a center/wing for the Panthers, he generates offense, not necessarily his own, and has improved.  He has taken a major step forward in his physical game and making quick decisions in moving the puck.  At the White Bear Lake tourney against Edina AA, he was the strongest player on the ice for the first two periods and kept the game close well into the third period before losing 5-2.