Daily Dish 4.14
Going to try and get recap posts after each night of games. Might not happen every day but hopefully can provide some quick hitters on games that we were able to see.
Last night was the first night of the season - beautiful weather and a lot of awesome matchups.
Jefferson and Shakopee played a low scoring game. Reports of the game was that offenses were generating chances but just not able to finish. Both goalies played well. Marquee matchup between Graff (Jefferson Att) and Bachelor (Shakopee Def) was a good one with Bachelor getting the better of it in this matchup. These two teams will be section foes starting next year so we could see a nice rivalry continue to develop between these two programs. I expect both teams to be strong for the foreseeable future. A bit concerned about Jefferson only scoring 2 goals - Not sure if that says more about Shakopee’s defense or Jefferson’s offense. We will see
Hill Murray vs The Valley was another game that I really was interested to see. The Valley returned nearly everyone on their team from a year ago. Hill Murray has been getting a lot of hype in the pre-season. Was able to watch the replay of the live stream. I thought Hill Murray looked athletic and physical on defense - they were flying around. Goalie looked young (I think only an 8th grader?). Offensively, they had some skill but looked a bit undersized and struggled to win matchups against Valley’s defense.
The Valley looked “flashy” on offense. There is a lot of skill there and they certainly try to make the highlight reel play. It was backfiring quite a bit and kept HM in the game. When the valley made the simple play, it seemed to click. Their face-off guy, Gilmore, looked quick on the clamp - not sure if they HM guy was an experienced FO/S or not but valley definitely had the advantage at the X. Defensively they looked as good as anyone thus far. Lots of athleticism at pole and a solid goalie. Hill Murray struggled to get any good looks. I would assume The valley should hover around the top 10 most of the year
The game of the night was Centennial v Maple Grove - mainly with the conference implications. The report from Coach B is as follows:
MG got off to a slow start as they are trying to find a faceoff guy that can replace Luke Margenau (64% in ‘22) who left to play junior hockey. Their offense had the ball for just a few minutes in the first quarter and it showed when centennial’s Brol Scherman scored, scored, and scored again.
After going in the hole 4-1 early, MG started to get solid defense from Heisler, Rask, and the goalie Farniok. They transitioned well up the field and their offense started to click. Scanlon, Steinkopf, Peterson, and Brendon all played well. Scanlon makes some great reads, shoots and shoots the ball well. Steinkopf is going to be even better than his older brother.
Centennial started and inexperienced group on the back end and it showed in their slide package. A bright spot was the play of Trenton Kramar in goal. Robbed MG at least 6 or 7 times of “should have been” goals. On the other side of the field, no one could stop Scherman. Started the year off with a 15yard BTB goal, ended with 6 in the game. Krumweide, Goerlitz, Case, and Robinson had strong games. Adams assisted on a few and scored a couple to round it out.
As many have said, this would have been a much better game in mid May, but a one goal game to start the year was exciting.
It looks like Centennial has the pieces but is adjusting to a new coach and replacing a bunch of top end talent lost to graduation. I think they will be just fine. Maple Grove just seems to keep trending in the right direction. Could they maybe, just maybe, provide a real obstacle to BSM in section 5?
