Thursday’s Pool Summaries

New Year’s Day, the Edina Invitational Peewee AA tourney opened playing their first round of pool games at BIG.  With football officially over (yes the Gophers lost in the Citrus Bowl) hockey takes the front page for the next two plus months and some of the best peewee hockey is being played in the Edina Invitational.  In the opening game Thursday, Centennial battled Edina for half of a game trailing 2-1, before the Hornets broke loose to win 10-2.  In the second Green Pool game, Wayzata came to skate and earned a mild upset over White Bear Lake 3-2.  After round one, Edina and Wayzata each have 2 points and in the important tie breaker that is used to in the seeding process, goal differential, Edina is +5 and Wayzata is +1. White Bear Lake and Centennial need to win their Saturday games to keep their championship hopes alive.

Rosemount edged Chaska 2-1 in their first Gold Pool game.  The win was a repeat of the Irish’s 4-3 win over Chaska/Chanhassen in the Eden Prairie Thanksgiving Day tourney.  OMG and Andover game final score has been reported at the time of this post.  Rosemount has two points and is likely tied with OMG.  Rosemount is a +1 in the seeding tiebreak, goal differential.  Minneapolis rolled past Eastview 6-0 in their first White Pool game.  Blaine beat a tough Stillwater team 5-2.  Minneapolis and Blaine each have 2 points.  Minneapolis is a +5 tying Edina for the #1 seed and Blaine is +2.

Gold Pool Thursday game summaries

Rosemount and Chaska/Chanhassen were locked up in a tough, scoreless battle for two periods.  The Irish came out fast and used passing skills combined with smart play in close quarters to generate offensive rushes in the first period that got the puck close to the Chaska net, but got no goals.  Rosemount tended to control the puck in the first part of the game.  Chaska proved dangerous on the rushes off counter attacks originating in their zone.  For the first two periods, the Hawk wings were close to beating the Irish defense to the outside ending up sending the puck to the end boards, but then could not connect on passes down low.  Nineteen seconds into the third period, Jake Ratzlaff scored the tie breaker putting the Irish up 1-0.  Mitch Kohner got the assist.  Five minutes later, Rosemount’s big defenseman Kyle Heffron scored the game winner giving Rosemount a 2-0 lead.  Ratzlaff got the assist.  Chaska’s Bishop Schugel scored a minute later to make the last nine minutes of the game exciting.  The Irish held on to the 2-1 win.

Green Pool Thursday game summaries

In the Green Pool, Edina scored twice in the first two minutes of the opening period of their game with Centennial to take a 2-0 lead.  Edina then went on cruise control in the first period outshooting Centennial 9-1, but not scoring.  Jack Sabre scored the first goal, Mark Overman and Jake Boltman got the assists.  Ben Dexheimer scored the second Hornet goal with Sabre getting the assist.  In the opening minutes of the second period, Tevis Linser scored for Centennial to cut the Hornets lead to 2-1.  The Cougars worked hard generating some offense over the next few minutes of play until they got pinned in their zone while Edina changed lines.  With eight minutes left in the second period, Edina scored and followed that score with another 15 seconds later to take a 4-1 lead.  That broke the game open.  Edina added another second period score and scored five times in the third period to win 10-2.

Dexheimer had a hat trick plus scoring four goals in the game for Edina; Emmett Wurst scored twice; Sabre ended the game with four points (three assists to go with his goal).  Benjamin Knight scored the second Centennial goal.  Both Cougar goals were unassisted.  Edina outshot Centennial 34-7 for the game.

Wayzata came out of the locker room ready to play and played a sharp first period.  They moved the puck well and their forwards were beating the Bear defense to the outside attacking the Bears net.  Goalie Wyatt Vint had a good game making some tough stops for the Bears.  White Bear Lake scored first.  With seven minutes left on the clock, a Bear defenseman hit the ice as the puck can sliding to him just inside the Wayzata blue line.  He one-timed the puck low and the puck was deflected twice with the last deflection beating Wayzata’s goalie leg save attempt.  Luke Ahles got the goal; Grant Hofeld and Sam Verkerke got the assists.  The Bears led 1-0 after one period.  Wayzata struck back to tie the score two minutes into the second period.  The Trojans’ Charlie Bischel pick up the puck coming down the slot to beat Vint on a high shot right.  The goal tied the game 1-1.  Evan Spadafora got the assist.  The second period ended in a 1-1 tie.  Both teams scored in the opening minutes of the second period.  Billy Rose scored for the Bears in the first 20 seconds to put White Bear Lake up 2-1.  Sam Newpower got the assist.  Wayzata’s Preston Thelemann scored four minutes later to tie the score 2-2. Joe Tomczik got the assist.

The game winner came with five minutes left on the clock.  Wayzata’s Ryan Mulrenin picked up a loose puck in the White Bear Lake zone and beat Vint on a hard shot from the left faceoff circle to put the Trojans up 3-2.  The goal was the game winner and it was an unassisted score.  Then things got tense.  With 3:30 left on the clock, Wayzata drew a slashing penalty on a Bear attack in the Wayzata zone.  The Trojans played the penalty kill well, clearing the puck and keeping the Bears out of their power play until they drew a second penalty.  White Bear Lake put pressure on in the last minute of play, but missed the tying goal by inches.  Wayzata outshot the Bears 41-26 in the game.

White Pool Thursday game summaries

Eastview plays a tough defensive game, Minneapolis skates an aggressive offense and in both teams first game in the White Pool, the Storm beat the Lightning’s defense with an quick, rugged, style of play.  They jumped to a three goal lead in the first period, added two goals in the second and one more in the third to win 6-0.  The Storm outshot the Lightning 34-3 for the game, but after the first period, to the Lightning’s credit, they stayed in the game playing hard.  The Storm’s first goal came with five minutes gone in the first period.  Minneapolis’ Will Svenddal picked up a loose puck in the slot and beat Lightning goalie Bennett Weestrand through the 5-hole to put Minneapolis up 1-0.  Landon Peterson and Axel Toft got the assists.  Late in the period, the Storm added two more scores.  Will Mortenson scored beating Weestrand on a right side on a breakaway.  Joe Miller got the assist.  Peterson scored the third goal with Toft and Lachen Reid getting the assists.  Mortenson and Svenddal each scored again.  Svenddal got an assist to finish the game with three points.  Ben Murray scored the fourth goal for the Storm.

Blaine and Stillwater were in a tight battle for most of the game.  The Bengals took a 2-0 lead at the end of the first period, added a single goal in the second period, and then matched Stillwater’s two third period goals to win 5-2.  Both teams have grown since the early November and are on a path to develop a power game using their size and strength.  It made for some great hockey.  After taking a three goal lead into the third period on two goals by Zach Buzick and a single goal by Chas Lucius, the Bengals gave up two goals in the first half of the third period to see their lead cut to 3-2.  Stillwater’s Cooper Wylie and Nick Dario each scored to narrow the Bengals’ lead 3-2. Blaine came back to add two insurance scores for the 5-2 win.  Zach Shaffer and Cam Shoberg got the goals.

What is next?

In Friday’s game in the Gold Pool, Rosemount plays Andover and Chaska/Chanhassen plays OMG.  Rosemount should beat Andover and are on their way to win the pool championship.  Chaska/Chanhassen should beat OMG, but they need a wide margin to go after the wildcard seed.   Wayzata and Centennial meet in the Green Pool and like Chaska/Chanhassen, the Trojans need to build some goal differential points and should do that against Centennial.  If Wayzata beats Centennial and if Edina gets by White Bear Lake, Edina and Wayzata will meet for the pool championship Saturday with the loser in position to pick up the wild card seed.  Minneapolis is favored to beat Stillwater in the White Pool Friday and Blaine should beat Eastview.  Stillwater looked tough against Blaine, but Minneapolis should beat the Ponies setting up a Minneapolis/Blaine showdown for the White Pool championship.