Eagan’s Summer Meltdown Tourney, played last weekend at the Eagan Civic Arena, was won by Lakeville North I.  To most, it would be no surprise that the Panthers I team won.  Lakeville North has most of their players returning from last year’s Class AA State Tourney runner-up team.  But it was not an easy tourney for the Panthers; they needed a last minute goal to tie Andover in pool play 2-2 and avoid potential elimination in a Saturday morning game, then came back to trounce BSM 7-0 in the evening game.  In the semifinals Sunday morning, a Panther defenseman came through with an outstanding assist setting up the tying goal as time ran out in the second period to give North a 3-2 overtime/shootout win over Eagan in the semifinals.  In the championship game, behind the strong goaltending of Ryan Edquist (returning to Lakeville after two years at Shattuck) North beat Farmington 3-1. 

Pool I Order of Finish: Farmington, South St. Paul, Tartan I, and LVN II

Farmington blitzed all three teams in Pool I beating Tartan I 8-0, Lakeville North II 13-0, and South St. Paul 8-0.  The Tigers and South St. Paul opened the tourney with Friday afternoon wins.  The Tigers beat Tartan I and South St. Paul beat Lakeville North II 7-3.  The Packers tied Tartan I 5-5 before losing to Farmington in the pool championship game.  Farmington showed significant offensive strength skating three good lines (Grady Hauswirth-Wyatt Jensen-Jake Trippel on one line; John Siebenaler-Austin Martinson-Justin Novak on another line; and Tyson Koch-Darby Grengs-Matt Olund on another line).  Novak was last year’s Tiger scoring leader and along with Siebenaler had an outstanding tourney; but the Koch-Grengs-Olund line made a real difference on the ice.  They led the team in scoring.  Defensemen Erik Holmstrom, Devin Bernu, and Tyler Jette also contributed to the Tigers’ scoring.  Farmington’s goaltenders did not give up a goal until late in the semifinal game against Eastview.

Pool II Order of Finish: Eastview, New Prague, Burnsville I, and Tartan II

Eastview and Burnsville I battled in a Friday night game with the Blaze winning 3-2.  In the second Pool I game Friday, New Prague beat Tartan 4-1.  Saturday  Eastview beat New Prague 3-1 in the morning and beat Tartan 5-0 in the evening game finishing with 6 points giving up four goals in the three pool games.  New Prague beat Burnsville I 4-1 in the evening game to finish with 6 points giving up five goals.  Burnsville beat Tartan II 3-2 in their Saturday morning game to finish pool play with 6 points, but Eastview had the tiebreaker (their defense held their pool opponents to the least number of goals (four) and the Lightning advanced. 

Pool III Order of Finish: Eagan, East Ridge, St. Francis, and Park

Eagan and East Ridge beat the other two pool team in the first two games played setting up a Saturday evening game for the Pool III championship.  Eagan beat Park 4-0 on Friday and St. Francis 4-2 Saturday morning.  East Ridge beat St. Francis 3-1 on Friday and Park 8-0 Saturday morning.  Going into Saturday’s evening game East Ridge had the tie breaker, but the Wildcats had the goals.  Eagan won the Pool III championship beating East Ridge 3-1 in a tight nicely played game.

The Wildcats played steady hockey in winning their three pool games.  Their scoring was spread among their players.  In their 5-1 win over St. Francis, eight players shared in the scoring.  East Ridge was more of a surprise over the weekend.  They also played steady hockey, but showed an improved defense over last season holding their three opponents to four goals. 

Pool IV Order of Finish: Lakeville North I, BSM, Andover, Burnsville II

Lakeville North I struggled in Pool IV then simply blew Benilde/St. Margaret’s out of the championship round with a 7-0 Saturday evening win.  The Panthers I beat Burnsville II 3-0 in a tough Friday game and tied Andover 2-2 Saturday morning.  The Huskies’ #3 scored both goals.  The Panthers #16 scored with 3 seconds left on the clock to tie the game.  In Saturday evening’s win over Benilde, North applied steady pressure on the Red Knights scoring twice in the first, three times in the second, and twice in the final period to win 7-0.  The Panthers’ Nick Poehling didn’t score but assisted on four of the seven goals.  Ryan Edquist (former Shattuck U16 goalie) was in the nets for the Panthers.  Edquist, who lives in Lakeville, played for the Shattuck Bantam team in 2012-2013.  In 2013-2014, he posted a 19-16-2 record for the Shattuck U16’s giving up an average of 2.5 goals a game.

Before losing to North, the Red Knights beat Andover 4-1 with Auggie Moore scoring twice for Benilde in Friday’s late night game. Benilde beat Burnsville II 3-2 Saturday morning with Moore scoring the game winner.  The Red Knights appeared to be headed for the championship round until North blitzed them Saturday evening.  Andover could be a surprise in the coming season.  After a slow start against Benilde, they tied Lakeville North I 2-2 and beat Burnsville II 4-2.  The Huskies were in contention playing in a tough pool.

Burnsville II’s goaltending had a great game in their 3-0 loss to Lakeville North I stopping 28 shots in the first two periods of their game.  With the Blaze’s outstanding defenseman Sam Rossini playing the 2014-2015 season for the Waterloo Black Hawks and the USA U17 teams, the Blaze goaltenders will be busy.  Rossini has committed to the University of Minnesota for the 2016-2017 season. 

Championship Sunday

First semifinal matched Farmington and Eastview; second semifinal matched Eagan and Lakeville North I.  Farmington coasted to a 4-0 lead until early in the third period when Eastview closed the score to 4-2.  Farmington scored the winner to pull back ahead 5-2.  Eastview came back adding two late third period goals to cut the lead to 5-4 turning the last minutes of the final period into a chaos before the Tigers won to advance to the championship game.

Two things defined the second semifinal game between Eagan and Lakeville North I.  Trailing the Wildcats 2-0 late in the second period, North scored twice to tie the game 2-2.he second coming as time ran out.  After a scoreless third period and 5 minute overtime, north won in a shootout to advance.  The extraordinary play of North’s defenseman diving to flip a puck over to Nick Poehling on the weakside to tie the game was exceptional and timely.  The clock ran out as the puck hit the net.  The second was the domination of North’s goalie in the shootout; the Wildcat shooters could not get Edquist to commit resulting in him blanking all four shooters.

In the championship game, Farmington came out hard and pressured the North defense in the first period.  North held on to end the opening period in a scoreless tie 0-0.  The second opened with the Panthers drawing a 5 minute major penalty.  Two minutes into their power play, Farmington scored to go up 1-0.  Grady Hauswirth got the score from the left slot beating Edquist on the left side.  The Tiger’s held on to that lead until late in the second period when they drew two successive penalties.  Farmington killed the first penalty, but gave up a power play goal on the second to tie the game 1-1.  With two minutes left in the second period, North scored again on a rebound goal from the left side to take a 2-1 lead into the third period.  The clinching goal came halfway through the third period.  Nick Poehling’s pass from behind the right side of the Farmington net ended up bouncing off a Tiger defenseman for the score.  Lakeville North won the championship game 3-1.

Some Tourney Notes:

Score sheets were kept, but no rosters were written down making identifying the players difficult.  Tartan’s goalie, wearing #33, had an outstanding tourney playing strong in the nets.  In one hour, he stopped New Prague in the third period of a Tartan II game (19 of 20 shots, YHH count) and moved next door to stop Farmington’s first 17 shots in a Tartan I game before giving up a score.

The tourney went as expected except for the appearance of Edquist in the nets for the Panthers.  He made the difference between winning or losing for North and set the stage for South Suburban hockey next season.  With Farmington joining the South Suburban, all four pool winners this weekend will be playing South Suburban hockey next winter; two teams (Lakeville North and Farmington) will most likely be playing for the Section 1AA championship next March and a ticket to the Xcel; an old school hometown rivalry is about to get hotter.  Lakeville and Farmington are separated by five miles of Highway 50.

Tartan split their teams; but their line of 12-13-8 skating for Tartan I had a good tourney.  New Prague’s duo of Ben Witt and Alex Gregor showed they could move the puck and score.  The Trojans showed promise beating Tartan I and Burnsville I in pool play.  Their one loss to Eastview was close (2-1 going into the last minute of play).  Eastview defenseman #18 scored both Lightning goals.

South St. Paul had a good tourney with two good lines.  The line centered by Cameron Buhl was especially effective in moving the puck.  Their defense #2 was especially strong.  East Ridge played solid hockey, pushing Eagan to the limits in their Saturday evening game that decided the pool championship 3-1.

Lakeville North I got all the attention winning the tourney, but #25 for the North II team had a good tourney and proved to be an effective scorer low around the net.

Farmington’s third line out (Koch-Grengs-Olund) started to attract attention as the tourney wore on; the game became more physical when the line was on the ice.  Success in scoring does that.  Farmington’s speed at the forwards caused opponents’ defensemen fits and given some space often turned into 2-on-1 or 3-on-1 rushes with some great passing.

Eagan’s defense made their opponents work; add to that Eastview’s tough defense, Farmington and Lakeville North’s aggressive and experienced defenses and the rest of the South Suburban teams will find beating the top four teams difficult.  Prior Lake, the 2012 state peewee A champs could still be a year away.  Among the four teams, at this very early point, Famington has the offense edge over Lakeville North with Eagan and Eastview trailing.  Prior Lake should create some havoc among the top four; Burnsville remains a dangerous team.  With Jefferson and Kennedy gone this year and Shakopee joining the conference, Shakopee, Apple Valley, Lakeville South, and Rosemount are in for a tough season.  High school hockey power shifts to the South Suburban this year.