Last Sunday, the league played two games at IGH.  Going into Sunday’s evening games, the league leading Orange team played the White team and the second place Green team (trailing by 4 points) played the Yellow.  The Orange were upended by the White 5-2 and the Green made up a little ground in the title chase by tying the Yellow 3-3.

Three minutes into the opening period of the Orange/White game, the White’s Jack Graveline/St. Thomas scored putting a rebound off the Orange goalie Matthew Foss/Northfield into the net.  Hunter Staack/Hopkins and Clay Geary/Lakeville got the assists.

The single goal lead held for the White until the 7 minute mark of the first period.  Alex Stage/Cooper ended up with the puck in the slot and beat White’s goalie Matthew Lindell/Eden Prairie high on the left side to tie the game 1-1.  Hayden Gautsche/Cooper and Eli Hofherr/Minnetonka got the assists.

With less than two minutes left in the opening period, the White took a 2-1 lead on another rebound goal.  This time Matt Dallmann/Totino Grace scored unassisted.  The first half ended with the White team up 2-1.  Five first half penalties slowed the Orange team.

White scored two goals in the opening minutes of the second half to put the game away.  Graveline scored what would be the game winner putting White up 3-1.  Sean Stefaniak/Lakeville and Brandon Helget/Prior Lake got the assists.

The White’s Ben Rusert/St. Thomas scored the second goal of the half to put the White team up 4-1.  Geary and Cody Reckard/St. Michael Albertville got the assists.

Late in the second half, Orange’s Victor Morgan/Achiever Academy scored with an assist from Joe Huber/Cooper to cut White’s lead to 4-2.  White’s Haytham Oeid/Holy Family scored for the Orange to end the scoring 5-2 White.  Gravelineand Sean Stefaniak/Lakeville got the assists.

In a game of evenly matched teams, the Yellow team jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, the Green came back to tie the game 2-2.  Yellow scored again to take a 3-2 lead only to have Green tie the game late in the second half 3-3.

Austin Langworthy/Mankato West scored Yellow’s opening two goals.  On his first score, Tyler Bump/Prior Lake and Javaughn Soretire/Kennedy got the assists.  On Langworthy’s second score, Andrew Morgan/Prior Lake got the assist.

Green came back to tie the game on a goal by Max Rosenfield/Henry Sibley with an assist from Jake Noel/Northfield and on a goal by Tyler Rock/Holy Family with assists  from Connor Clemons/Prior Lake and Casey Rock/Holy Family

Yellow’s James Hartley/Kennedy scored to put the Yellow team up 3-2.  Jory McWilliams/Kennedy and Nick Larson/Cooper each got an assist.

Will Mix/Achiever Academy knotted the game 3-3 with assists from Ryan Jowett/Cretin Derham Hall and Mack Stevens/Achiever Academy.

In watching the IEPL games, the overall game tempo is up for the whole game.  The inability to body a player from the front or side forces the defense and offense to skate and handle the puck.

The defense coming into the puck carrier has to slow and be prepared to go in a number of directions while the offense has that extra split second to make a positive move.  That places emphasis on quickness and puck control and results in a higher scoring game.  It shows up in the stats, 64 out of the 72 forwards in the league this year have scored at least one goal.  Even one of the eight goalies has put a point on the board.

For the goalies, the game is no picnic.  In the end, no one team can dominate for a long period of time.  It results, from a goalie perspective, in a lot of 2-on-1, 3-on-1, or solo rushes.  A goalie has to be in top form to get a shutout.  Won and loss records are the most important stat in the IEPL.  With the constant high flying attacks on the nets only one goalie has managed a shutout this season.  Save percentages and goals against don’t matter; what matters is stopping the next rush and winning the game.

The league keeps stats of the games played and publishes them on their site weekly.  Ryan Jowett/Cretin-Derham Hall leads the Green team in scoring and leads the league in scoring with 35 points (13 goals).  Curt Hansen/Prior Lake leads the Yellow team in scoring with 28 points (20 goals).  Hansen is the leading goal scorer in the league averaging better than a goal per game.

The Orange team scoring is led by Andre LaRenzie/Minnehaha Academy with 26 points (16 goals); the White team is led by Cody Reckard/STMA with 16 points (7 goals).  The Orange goal tenders Shaun Durocher and Mathew Foss have combined to post a 12-5 record for the season and are the leading goalies in the league this year.

The Ice Edge AAA organization is planning to expand the league next season by adding four more teams.  They are also looking to expand competition with outside teams by forming one or two IEPL all-star teams to play a limited schedule outside of the league.  The all-stars would be selected from IEPL league teams and still play a regular IEPL schedule.

The IEPL game rules in many ways parallel that used by some of the NAHL franchises in their approach to tryouts which are often held in the Twin Cities in the summer months (late May to early August).  That approach essentially has evaluators watching a number of games formatted like the IEPL games.

The league plans to keep their “rub out only” rules and believe that as a home for the “bubble players” they offer a solid means of improving quickness and stick handling for all players in the league before the start of high school tryouts.  From a YHH perspective, it looks like the Ice Edge have found a winning formula for all involved and that helps hockey development in Minnesota.