Farmington’s Schmitz-Maki Ice Arena is a terrific venue for high school.  Built in 1975, the rink has seating on two sides and lots of standing room including overhead standing above the goal reserved for the opponent's netminder in the third period of every game.  The design is simple, the distance from front door to the ice is at most 50 feet, and the seating on both sides puts the fans in the top rows almost on the ice.

The arena seats hold 750 fans; for the Tuesday rivalry game and the first ever South Suburban Conference meeting Lakeville North and Farmington, at least another 750 fans were standing around the rink 2 or 3 people deep in some places.  They all greeted the Panthers with boos and jeers or silence whenever North came out of their locker room.  It was high school hockey at its best; a lot of exuberance, but no rowdiness.  The Tiger fans dominated the stands, but North had a strong contingent there also.  And the two teams put on quite a show.

The two teams last met in the Section 1AA championship game won by North easily 6-0.  Farmington stopped the North’s vaunted Poehling line (brother Jack, Nick, and Ryan) in that championship game but could not keep North’s defensive corps (led by Angelo Altavilla and Jack McNeely) off the scoreboard.  They posted 5 points/3 goals in that game.  The Poehlings are back this year as is most of their defensive corps including Altavilla, McNeely and Jack Sadek.  McNeely and Sadek anchored the TCF Bank team that won the UMHSEL regular season title the fall; the Poehlings played on that team, but not as one line.

The Farmington/Lakeville North rivalry ratcheted up one notch last season with the knowledge that Farmington would join the South Suburban Conference this year.  The teams would be playing home and home games every year in the South Suburban.  Adding fuel to the rivalry, Lakeville North ended up with goalie Jake Oettinger in the nets for the Panthers last season.  Oettinger was Farmington’s starting goalie as a peewee A for three years and as a bantam for one year before joining the Panther Varsity last season.  He shutout the Tigers in the Section 1AA championship game stopping 25 shots.  Oettinger has moved on this year and is playing for USA Hockey’s U17 team this season in the USHL.

The Tigers had a good peewee A team that lost to Edina in the 2011 state championship game in 2011.  Edina had Ryan Zuhlsdorf and Kieffer Bellows on that peewee A team.  The 2011 Tiger peewees are starting to fully impact the Tiger’s varsity this year.  The Tiger varsity defense corps is anchored by Erik Holmstrom, Tyler Jette, and Devin Bernu.  All three were on the 2011 peewee team.  Varsity forwards Grady Hauswirth, Darby Grengs, John Siebenaler, Jake Jensen, and Wyatt Jensen all skated on the 2011 peewee A team.  Grengs is a sophomore this year, the others are juniors.

All eight Tigers were on the ice in the Section 1AA loss to North 6-0.  Senior Gage Overby was in the net stopping 31 of 37 Panther shots on goal.

Period 1: The Tigers are timid

As expected, North rolled out the Poehling line for the opening faceoff.  The Poehlings collectively posted 107 points/45 goals in 24 games last season.  The Tigers countered with a line composed of John Siebenaler, Justin Novak, and Austin Martinson.  The three Tigers were the top three scorers for last season’s varsity team collectively posting 122 points/52 goals in 25 games.  The matching of the two lines was one of the on-going stories in the game.  The Poehlings ended up scoring 5 of the 6 Panther goals including the game winner; the Siebenaler/Novak/Martinson line scored 4 of the 5 Tiger goals.

Both team played physical in the opening minutes of the first period delivering a number of tough checks.  It resulted in a sort of feeling out process that, in turn, resulted in Lakeville North starting to build pressure on the Tigers.  North was gaining control of the puck low in the Farmington zone and moving the puck quickly side to side.  The North forwards were beating the Farmington defense to the puck always with a two man fore check.  Instead of Farmington’s defense using their strength to fend off the fore check, the Tigers tried to finess the puck out of their zone.  The finessing played into North’s aggressive style of play resulting in soft Tiger passes being picked off or blocked back into the Farmington zone deep.

The Poehlings are masters of the aggressive fore check and they are skilled at puck control in heavy traffic.  As the period progressed, their line became more and more effective working the puck low.  With packed arena crowd cheering every good play, the Tigers held in there.  But six minutes into the period, the Poehlings struck.  It was a simple play.  A quick pass from the right side of the Farmington zone to Nick Poehling in the left face off circle resulted in a quick shot.  The shot beat Gage Overby and put the Panthers up 1-0.

At that point, the Tigers sagged a little.  The Panthers kept the pressure forcing the Tigers into long clearing passes.  One of these passes hit the right side boards and bounced towards Panther goalie Ryan Edquist.  Edquist skated into the right face circle to clear the puck with a pass to the left corner away from Tiger’s Austin Martinsen skating down the right side.  Edquist did not get enough “stick” on his clearing attempt.  The puck slid slowly across the open crease where Martinsen caught up with it and rapped it into the net as Edquist made a diving attempt at a save.  The goal rejuvenated the Tiger offense and tied the game 1-1.

The Tiger fans celebration didn’t last long.  North struck 20 seconds after the Farmington score.  Taking the ensuing faceoff after the Farmington goal, Nick Poehling beat the defense at the Tiger blue line, skated across the slot from left to right and beat Overby on a quick, high, hard shot to put North up 2-1 with three minutes to go in the period.  North continued to pressure the Tigers for the remainder of the period, but couldn’t score.  Overby ended up stopping 15 of 17 Panther shots in opening period; North’s goalie Edquist stopped 7 of 8 Tiger shots.  The period ended with North leading 2-1.

Period 2: Can Farmington get its offense going?

Trying to play more defensively in their zone had cost the Tigers in the first period.  They opened the period with a couple of good score opportunities in the first minute but couldn’t beat Edquist.  However, their aggressive play drew a Panther tripping penalty.  But the North penalty kill would not let the Tigers set up and move the puck in the Panthers' zone.  North killed the penalty and Farmington returned to a defensive mind set.  The play became ragged and Farmington was tending to backup on North’s attacks.  With just under 10 minutes to go in the second period, Farmington drew penalty.  Farmington set up in a box on the penalty kill while North moved the puck around the perimeter.

A minute into their power play, North worked the puck to the lower right side and a quick pass found the Panthers’ Max Johnson alone in the right slot.  Johnson buried the puck for a 3-1 North lead.  The goal took the wind out of the fans’ roar.  For the next two minutes, North attacked the Tiger’s net.  Then the Panthers' defense men became aggressive leaving the blue line and skating lower into the Farmington zone.  It cost them.

With just under seven minutes to play, a Farmington defender came up with the puck on the right boards in the Tiger’s zone and hit Austin Martinsen breaking on the left boards in the neutral zone.  Martinsen’s move had caught the North defense playing in off the blue line.  He took the pass, beat the North defense to the slot in the Panthers’ zone and buried the puck with a hard shot into the upper right corner that almost tore the netting loose.  Martinsen’s goal cut North’s lead to 3-2 and got the crowd back into the game.  When the Panthers drew a penalty a minute later, the crowd roared in anticipation.

A minute later the crowd was rewarded.  The Tigers’ Jake Trippel came down the slot on the power play and beat Equist with a hard shot through his left side to tie the game 3-3.  Now the crowd was really on its feet.  Five minutes to go in the second period and the game was tied 3-3.  But an opponent can’t give the Panthers any leeway.  The Tigers did by drawing a holding penalty 30 seconds later.  The Panthers scored a minute into the power play.  The goal set up with a pass off the left side near the end boards.  This pass made it to the weak side on the right to Jack Poehling.  Poehling scored to put the Panthers ahead 4-3.  The second period ended with no further change in the scoring.  Each team had 9 shots on goal.

Period 3: The Crowd goes for a roller coaster ride

The crowd was into the game at the start of the third period.  The Panthers were loudly jeered at the start of the final period.  Lakeville North started the third period bent on protecting their one goal lead.  They slowed the play and tended to work the puck deep into the Tiger’s zone and were content to turn the puck in the neutral zone.  Farmington was out to tie the game; they had lost that respect they had given to North at the start of the game.  Their aggressive play challenged the Panther defense in the neutral ice.

Four minutes into the third period, Farmington’s John Siebenaler got the North’s defense to cough the puck up at the North blue line.  Knocking the puck forward into the Panthers’ zone, Siebenaler soloed into Edquist in the Panther’s net, beating a diving Panther defenseman, and scoring by driving the puck through the 5-hole.  The crowd roared and the game was tied 4-4.  For the next eight minutes the two teams battled, but at a slower pace.  Farmington had tired.  And it showed with a North score with five minutes to go in the game.

Farmington’s defense had started to collapse more to their net on the Panther attack.  With five minutes left in the game, the Panthers were controlling the puck low in the Tiger’s zone when then switched lines bringing the Poehlings on the ice.  It was a simple goal, Nick Poehling came off the bench, skated uncontested to the right slot and took a pass from the left corner.  Still uncontested, he buried the puck in the upper left corner to put the Panthers back into the lead 5-4.  The goal silenced the crowd.  But not for long.

A minute later, Grady Hauswirth made a play identical to Siebenaler on his goal.  He caught the North defense men mishandling the puck at the Panther blue line and barreled in on Edquist in the nets.  Hauswirth, unlike Siebenaler who went left with a six footer low, Hauswirth made a tremendous cut left to right at the top of the crease and beat Edquist’s skate save attempt to send the game into overtime with the score tied 5-5.  North outshot Farmington 8-4 in the third period.

Overtime is Poehling time

North opened the overtime with a simple plan, get the puck deep and let the Poehlings do the rest.  One minute into the OT, that is exactly what happened.  A shot from the left blue line area trickled through Overby’s pads wide left of the net with Ryan and Jack Poehling camped like a goal posts, one on each side of the crease.  Jack had the left side and uncontested reached for the puck that had rolled to the end line, drew it back and punched the puck through Overby’s attempted stick save.  North won one great opening game of the season 6-5.

What is next?

Farmington is off for the Thanksgiving Holidays.  Next Tuesday, December 2nd, they host Rochester Mayo at Schmitz-Maki and play Rochester Century in Rochester on Thursday.  The following Saturday, December 6th, the Tigers will host an top ranked team, Eden Prairie, in a game that should draw another packed crowd at Schmitz-Maki.  The Thursday after the Thanksgiving, Lakeville North hosts Edina at Ames Arena in a game that will fill Ames.  If the North high school band attends, hold on to your eardrums.  They feature as much brass (including tubas) in their prep band as they can get in their area of the stands.  They play loud music to march to and they play it well.  The game matches what most people believe will be the two teams playing for the Class AA title at the Xcel in March.  Next Thursday will be fun day at Ames, but show up early.