U16 Picture remains foggy

The Heritage Tourney is sponsored by Holiday Inn & Suites and is undervalued by both Duluth and its sponsors.  The tourney is a mystery and perhaps next October it will be treated better.  It is a mystery because to the casual hockey fan in the area, nobody knew that it was being played or where it was being played, or why it is being played outside of the teams and parents.  Its companion tourney, a U18 tourney, suffered the same fate.  The shame of it is that the eight team tourney had four teams ranked in the top twenty in the USA entered.  Playing in the Heritage were the #1 ranked Shattuck Sabres, #8 Team Wisconsin, #12 Minnesota Blades, and #20 Chicago Fury.  Besides the home tourney team, the Minnesota Northern Wings (based in Hermantown MN), the tourney had three tough teams from Thunder Bay ON, Kansas City MO, and Madison WI.  They put on a great tourney playing with intensity and an eye to USA district tourneys to be played in March 2015.

The teams were placed into two pools, four teams in each pool.  Shattuck, the Minnesota Northern Wings, the Chicago Fury, and the Madison Capitals were in one pool; Team Wisconsin, the Minnesota Blades, the Thunder Bay Kings, and the Kansas City Mavs Elite were in the second pool.  In their pool, Shattuck beat the Madison Capitals 7-1, tied the Chicago Fury 2-2, and beat the Northern Wings.  The Chicago Fury beat the Northern Wings 6-0 and lost to the Madison Capitals 2-1.  The Northern Wings beat the Capitals 4-0.  The loss to the Wings cost the Caps a position in the semifinals played Saturday evening.  Shattuck took the pools #1 seed, the Fury took the #2 seed.

The Minnesota Blades dominated their pool winning all three games.  They beat Team Wisconsin 4-1, the Thunder Bay Kings 3-0, and the Kansas City Mavs Elite 6-0 to take the #1 seed.  The Badgers came back to beat Thunder Bay 5-1 and Kansas City 5-1 to take the #2 seed.  Saturday evening at the DECC in Duluth the semifinals were played.  The first semifinal matched Shattuck and Team Wisconsin, the second semifinal matched the Blades and the Chicago Fury.

Team Wisconsin beat Shattuck 4-3 in overtime

Youth hockey games are played in the purest sense of the sport.  Saturday's game was a great example of that.  Both teams just wanted to win.  Saturday evening’s game between the Badgers and the Sabres was played at two levels.  The Badgers started the game with a history of losing to the Sabres.  In the short two months of their before season, the Badgers had managed to lose four times to the Sabres, winning once and tying once.  The Badgers started the seventh game in the lonely confines of the large DECC arena that didn’t inspire confidence.  For the Sabres, they had the confidence.  They had an edge to win the game and leave DECC.  They had belief in their abilities and were looking forward to beating either the Fury or the Blades in the Championship game.

But Team Wisconsin survived the first period.  They held the Sabres scoreless and took a 1-0 lead.  They relied on their defense and their goalie, Nathan Cleghorn, to stop the Sabres attack.  The combination of the two worked to stymie Shattuck’s attack low in the zone.  The defense worked the Sabres to the outside and kept the weak side clean.  Still, Cleghorn faced a number of close-in shots, some that just missed or failed to connect.  Halfway into the opening period, Wisconsin scored.

The score came at the end of a Badger’s power play.  Play still in the Sabre's zone, the puck was passed to Badgers’ defense man Michael Karow at the right blue line.  Karow took a shot at the net with the puck rebounding to Trenton Bliss at the right crease.  Bliss put the puck in the net on a neat backhander to put the Badgers up 1-0.  Karow got the assist.  The Sabres came back strong and in the last half of the period put pressure on the Wisconsin defense.  The Badgers held and the period ended with Team Wisconsin leading 1-0.  Shattuck outshot the Badgers 13-6 in the first period.  One thing was clear; the Badgers played a tough defense, but had difficulty on the breakout.  They could clear their zone but could not control the puck in neutral ice.

The second period was all Shattuck.  Former Lakeville South Peewee A player, Austin Pratt teamed with Logan Hutsko to score the first two Shattuck goals.  The first goal was scored after Cleghorn made a tough initial stop that resulted in a rebound to Pratt.  The goal tied the game 1-1.  The second score came after the Sabres fought hard to work the puck to the top of the crease where Pratt scored again.  Hutsko assisted on both of Pratt’s goals.  Trailing 2-1 with just over three minutes left in the period, the Badgers drew a holding penalty.  They almost killed the penalty when Shattuck scored.  Niko Karamanis got the goal, Hutsko got his third assist.  Shattuck left the ice in control of the game, leading 3-1.  They had outshot the Badgers 22-14 in the first two periods.

The Sabres started the third period looking anxious to end the game and “get out of Dodge”.  Not that they felt pressure, they continued to dominate play in the Badger’s zone for the first five minutes of the third period.  Then the Badger’s caught the Sabre defense out of position.  Team Wisconsin’s Blake Ripley scored to cut the Sabre’s lead to 3-2.  It was a “do you believe” moment for the Badgers.  They started to pressure the Sabres.

It didn’t happen quickly.  Over the next 11 minutes, the two teams played an even game with both teams having scoring chances.  With less than a minute to go in the third period, Brock Caufield sitting on the right side of the crease picked up a rebounding puck and one-timed the shot to beat Shattuck’s goalie.  It tied the game 3-3 and set off a small Badger celebration in the large quiet DECC Arena.  The game was tied.  The goal sent the game into overtime and again the clock wound down to under a minute with the two teams playing each other evenly in the overtime.  With 25 seconds left on the clock, Badger defenseman Jadon Motquin broke down the slot and fired the puck past the Shattuck goalie.  This time, it kicked off a large celebration.  The Badgers had hung in and won the game.  In seven games against Shattuck, the Badgers posted 2-4-1 record.  They are the only team to beat Shattuck in the young season (Shattuck has a 13-2-2 record).

The fog is good

The Blades won their semifinal game beating the Chicago Fury 2-0.  Sunday, the Blades beat Team Wisconsin 4-2 to win the Heritage U16 Tourney.  Shattuck beat the Fury 7-0.   And that is why the U16 Minnesota District tourney next March is foggy right now.  If the Sabres had won the Heritage beating the Blades after beating Team Wisconsin, no doubt next March the Sabres would be the strong favorite.  There would be clarity.  The Blades, the Northern Wings, the Elite D’s, and the Magicians teams would have to spend the next four plus months thinking it would take a “do you believe” moment to upend Shattuck's reign.  The Sabres will remain the favorite in next March’s tourney, but now their status is a little grey.  The Minnesota District tourney is a little foggy. There is a glimmer that one of the Minnesota teams can beat the perennial Sabres’ hold on the Minnesota U16 seed to the nationals.  Thanks to the Badgers.