White Team

White Team Offense-Seth Benson/Moorhead, Luke LaMaster/Duluth East, Dylan Mills/Hill-Murray, Griffin Ness/Wayzata, Nick Putnam/St. Michael-Albertville, Marko Reifenberger/Hill-Murray, Dylan Samberg/Hermantown, Nolan Sullivan/Eden Prairie, and Alex Verbout/Roseau.

Alex Verbout, an eighth grader, is a high scoring playmaker off Roseau’s Bantam AA last season.  In the 2012-2013 season, Verbout played for the Roseau Association’s peewee AA team that struggled to win a dozen games.  Six months later he is the scoring leader for the Rams playing a tough bantam AA schedule in Northwestern Minnesota area.  Verbout made it to the top 102 15 year old list this summer and should be a player to watch in the future.  With another year left at bantams and the varsity graduating their top eight scorers (who scored 112 out of 116 goals), it is hard to believe that Verbout will be left off the high school roster next fall.

Luke LaMaster bounced between defense and forward as a peewee A/AA playing for the Duluth East Association teams.  He played a solid defense as a peewee.  At offense, he shinned on the ice especially when matched with Nick Lanigan and Garrett Worth.  LaMaster, Worth, and Lanigan are all first year bantams.  With the Duluth East varsity team that made the trip to the Xcel only graduating four players from their 2013-2014 team, the 5’11” LaMaster will likely play bantams next fall.  The Duluth East players started the “rat rod” look with some youth players wearing old school tattered jerseys.  The varsity wore old school tattered uniforms at the Xcel last March.  A “rat rod” car is true to the old look of a hot rod with rusty often grayish exterior that simply denies the car’s power and performance.  It fits the Greyhounds’ hockey teams. 

Nick Putnam is part of that St. Michael/Albertville Association’s wave of players about to hit the high school varsity.  Putnam skated for the STMA Bantam AA team in 2013-2014 that ended up NOW ranked #11 in the state.  They missed the state tourney for the second year in a row getting beat 5-1 by an Elk River team led by Nate Horn and Max Michaelis.  Both Horn and Michaelis are also at the St. Cloud camp.  Putnam’s Bantam AA team had eleven players from the Knights’ 2012 state tourney peewee A team on its roster last season.  Two of the 2012 peewees (Mitch Bourgerie and Jack Kelly) played a full season for the Knights’ varsity.  Bourgerie was the varsity’s #2 scorer (27 points/11 goals in 25 games) and Kelly played 25 games at defense.  The Knights varsity should move up next year and could challange Duluth East in Section 7AA.  Putnam is another player that has skated summer hockey for the MN Flames.

Eden Prairie’s varsity team roster will open up this fall with six of their top eight scorers graduating.  That comes just in time for the players who played for the 2011-2012 peewee A team that made it to the state tourney.  Nolan Sullivan was one the twelve players from the peewee A team; all twelve have played their second year of bantam hockey for the Eagles’ association last season.  Two players (James Marooney and goal Dayton Rasmussen) played last season for the Holy Catholic Family varsity.  Rasmussen is one of 20 Minnesota HP-16 players selected to go to a USA Hockey camp this summer.  He previously turned down an offer to skate two years with the USA teams as part of a two year development effort that requires going to school in Michigan.  With the Eagles varsity opening up and needing scoring, Sullivan and peewee A teammate Casey Mittlestadt (a HP-16 Final 54 pick) should start the move to varsity this fall.  Marooney is also at the St. Cloud camp playing for the Royal Blue team.

Marko Reifenberger played mostly on Hill-Murray’s varsity team last year and played for the Hill’s junior varsity team in the 2012-2013 season.  Before joining the Hill-Murray JV team, he played two years for the Hastings peewee A team.  Reifenberger has played summer hockey for the Minnesota Iceman with Dylan Samberg who will be a teammate on the White offense.

Dylan Samberg played for the Hermantown Association’s peewee A state tourney runner-ups in 2012.  He is one of the twelve players on the 2012 peewee A team played on the Hawk’s bantam AA team that lost to Elk River in the Bantam AA State tourney quarterfinals last March.  Samberg is a playmaker.  In the opening game of the state peewee A tourney against Monticello/Annandale/Maple Lake, Samberg had five assists.

Seth Benson originates from the Fargo side of the Red River.  The 6’3” forward plays a physical game that attracts a lot of the Spuds’ opponents in the offensive corners.  Still Benson can score.  His presence at St. Cloud on the White team is a bit ironic.  It assures that the Moorhead/Roseau rivalry in Section 8AA will continue for the next few years; the ironic part is that Roseau’s Alex Verbout is a White team potential linemate.  In the winter, these two will be battling each other for a ticket to the Xcel.

Dylan Mills is another big forward.  The 6’1” Mills played last season on Hill-Murray’s junior varsity as an eighth grader.  Mills played peewee A hockey for the Hastings Association in 2012 along with Reifenberger.  The two Hill-Murray recruits from Hastings will have a chance to garner some national attention.

Wayzata’s Griffin Ness played for the Wayzata Blue Peewee A team in the 2011-2012 season.  The Wayzata Association split their peewee A’s that season into two balanced teams, Blue and Gold.  Both teams had winning seasons.  The Gold posted a 22-18-4 record; the Blue finished 25-16-7.  The Gold lost in the District 3 playoffs; the Blue went to the East Regional, but failed to advance in a regional that was dominated by Lakeville South (Austin Pratt, Scott Reedy, and company) and Osseo/Maple Grove (Sam Huff, Jack Kelly, and company).  The next season, the Wayzata Association went with a single top team at bantam AA and peewee AA levels.  Ness returned to play peewee AA that season and moved to Bantam AA this past season.    

White Team Defense-Matt Anderson/Holy Catholic Family, Tyler Dingmann/Wayzata, Casey Kallock/East Grand Forks, Carson Kosobud/Moorhead, Graham Lorsung/Sartell, and Michael Pettijohn/Totino Grace

Matt Anderson played for the Shakopee Association peewee A team in the 2011-2012 season and jumped to the Holy Catholic Family varsity for the 2012-2013 season, a move that pitted him defending the Fire goal against the likes of Benilde-St. Margaret’s Grant Besse, Edina’s Connor Hurley, and St. Thomas Academy’s Tom Novak six months after losing to Burnsville's Peewee A team 4-3 in the District 6 playoffs.  Anderson plays a smart defense and consistently uses his body around the Fire goal to block opponents away from any rebounding puck. As a bonus, Anderson can score.  In 50 games played for the Fire Varsity over the last two seasons, Anderson has scored 21 points (4 goals).

Tyler Dingmann played on Wayzata’s Bantam AA team last season in his first year at the bantam level.  He joined Griffin Ness and 10 other Trojans that played on the Wayzata Gold and Blue peewee A teams in the 2011-2012 season as a first year player and has skated well.  The 6’2” Dingmann follows “mold” of Wayzata varsity defense playing with size and strength, but is facing a second year at bantams.  St. Cloud could change that.

Speaking of “molds”, Casey Kallock fits a different “mold”.  He may not grow to six feet, but he follows the “mold” of the Green Wave’s Ty Ausmus.  Kallock, like Ausmus, is bit of a playmaker from the defensive position and is of similar size.  Ausmus, who plays defense for the current Class A champions, was selected as one of 17 players to represent Minnesota at USA HP-17 national camps this summer.  Kallock, an eighth grader, played for the East Grand Forks Bantam A team last season.

Carson Kosobud skated for the Moorhead Bantam AA team last season.  He can score and can move the puck well on the power play.  Kosobud played peewee hockey for the Arizonia Bobcats before joining the Moorhead Association youth teams.  Graham Lorsung has played the last two seasons for Sartell Association’s bantam A team.  The Sabre’s bantam A’s made it to the state tourney in 2013 and struggled to post a .500 record last season.  Lorsung is another player who has played summer hockey for the MN Flames.

Michael Pettijohn played junior varsity at Totino Grace last season posting 13 points (2 goals) in 23 games.  Before joining the Eagles’ junior varsity, Pettijohn skated on Spring Lake Park Association’ 2011-2012 peewee A team.

White Goal Tenders-Bryce Crowley played for the Blaine Bantam AA team that finished fourth (out of 5 teams) in District 10 play.  District 10 scheduled a four game home and home series for each team last year.  The Bengals ended up playing four games each with the NOW ranked #3 Elk River and #12 ranked Anoka.  The Bengals then lost to Elk River and Anoka again in the D10 playoffs but still finished the season strong enough to be seeded #7 in the South Regional.  They were eliminated by St. Cloud 4-3.

Lance Leonard played in the nets for the Moorhead Association’s Bantam AA team last season. 

Notes

Did you know that Michigan has invited 119 players to their camp held in June 14-19 on the Lake Superior State Campus.  A number of the Michigan players invited played Tier I hockey in the High Performance Hockey League such as Alexander Chmelevsk and Ivan Lodnia. Both were top scorers for Belle Tire last season.  Belle Tire lost in the nationals to the Chicago Mission.  The Mission then lost to Shattuck-St. Mary’s in the championship game.  Not all players chosen were Tier I players.  Nick Brink and Joesph Phillips played for the Marquette MI Sentinals 99 AA team that played in St. Cloud’s Granite City Classic the past three years.  Brink and Phillips are also among the 119 players attending Michigan’s camp.

Goal tenders are in short supply nationally, most likely a sign of the economy.

For the curious, the association with the most players on the 17 member HP-17 and the 20 member HP-16 team was Wayzata Association.  They had two HP-16’s and two HP-17’s.  Edina, Duluth East and Burnsville each had three players in those two groups.  Three members of the 97 Fire made the HP-17 team (Will Garin, Christiano Versich, and Peter Tufto).  Except for high school play in the next two seasons, the 97 Fire are gone.   

Five players at the HP-15 camp, Blake Bergquist/Duluth East, Luke LaMaster/Duluth East, Alex Verbout/Roseau, Alec Severson, and Alex Pollock/Bemidji skated together on the 1999 Northern Wings in 2011 (a peewee major year?).  

Hermantown has another player from its 2011-2012 peewee A team making a trip to a USA national camp, Mikayla Kero.  Kero is among the 20 players making the trip after completing HP-15 Girls tryouts last week in St. Cloud.  Kero will be joined by Catherine Skaja/New Prague and Megan Cornell/Benilde-St. Margaret's.  All three players are YHH Top 50 peewee A picks when they played youth hockey.

Not everybody wants to play for the nationals.  Last year, Blaine’s Riley Tufte turned down the opportunity; this year Holy Family goalie, Dayton Rasmussen also turned the offer.

All three Poehling brothers committed to play hockey at St. Cloud State a month ago.  Nick and Jack will be seniors this fall and could play as soon as the 2015-2016 season for the Huskies unless they opt for a year in the USHL.  Ryan will be a sophomore next year and his first season for the Huskies could be 2017-2018.

District 8 placed 18 of the 20 players on the D8 Festival team on the final 102 players in St. Cloud.

What is next?

The plan is to spend Wednesday and Thursday watching teams play at St. Cloud.  Wednesday there will be the final three games of round robin play; White versus Lt. Blue, Green vs Royal Blue, and Red vs Gold.  Thursday the six teams will be seeded for fifth, third, and championship games to be played in the morning.