Lakeville North beat Duluth East Saturday 3-2 as part of the tenth annual Hockey Day Minnesota in Duluth at Bayfront Park. The Panthers’ junior forward Ryan Poehling had a goal and two assists to his team to the win.

Much was made about how the Duluth players grew up in the only outdoor youth hockey program in the country prior to the game. The choppy ice, the bad bounces and the unpredictable sun were factors the polished suburban players weren’t likely use to. After watching the first 16 minutes of the game, you would have believed the pundits.

The Hounds jumped on North right out of the gate, out shooting the defending state champs 11-0 at one point - one of those 11 was a quick release shot by Ryan Peterson who scored two minutes in. The Hounds, playing their best hockey of the year winners of eight straight games were in complete control of the game. Late in the first period while on the power play, Poehling picked the pocket of junior defenseman Reid Hill and banked the puck off of East goalie Kirk Meierhoff to tie the game at the end of one.

From that point on, North was in control of the game. The Panthers would add two more goals in the second, two minutes apart. The first was a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play from Poehling to Max Johnson. Johnson, the Bowling Green commit, buried it past Meierhoff and the Duluth crowd was silenced. On the next shift, the Panthers got out their sandpaper and scored again. This time it was junior wrecking ball Henry Enebak who scored on a "one timer" to beat Meierhoff. Poehling fed Enebak who only got a piece of the shot and the puck acted like a change up and found the five hole. It's not how pretty, it's how many.

The Hounds would apply pressure in the third when Peterson would get his second of the day. Luke Dow collected a puck deep in the North zone and found Peterson wide open and he tickled the nylon to cut the score to 3-2. Both teams had their chances after that, but no goals were materialized.

The Panthers showed why they are one of the top five teams in the state late in the game. They controlled the play the last four minutes giving the Hounds only a few chances and limited zone time with Meierhoff pulled as an extra attacker.