The Raider boys hockey team had a busy week last week with three games and a section placement meeting. The Raiders finished the regular season with a three-game win streak and a record of 15-9-1. Hastings played East Ridge (12-12-1), South St. Paul (4-20-1) and Tartan (619-0) winning all three games by a combined score of 15-5.

Against East Ridge, Hastings jumped out to an early lead on Brody Carlson’s first varsity goal. Carlson was assisted by Blake Vandehoef and Joseph Iovino. In the second period, Mark DeNoyer found Jon Harris for goal number two. East Ridge scored in the second to cut the lead to 2-1 before the intermission. Brody Larsen scored the final goal of the game, a powerplay, to give the Raiders the 3-1 win. DeNoyer and Eddie Peine earned the assist points for that goal.

The troubling part of the game was the penalties. Hastings had six of their eight minutes of penalties on four infractions occur in the third period. East Ridge had six minutes on three infractions. One set of penalties called were incidental minors, so the stats show one less powerplay for both teams. Hastings was successful on one of their two powerplay chances and they killed all three penalties they had.

Niederkorn was solid in net facing 33 shots, stopping 32 for a .970 save percentage. Hastings converted on three of their 26 shots for the 3-1 win.

The game at home against South St. Paul was a bit on the strange side. The Packers have had a tough year on the ice at 4-20-1, so the first period was not much of a surprise for Raider fans. Hastings scored five times in the first, and the Packers scored once.

Goals went to Vandehoef, Harris, Carlson, Vandehoef and Harris. Assists went to Peine, Roman McNamara, DeNoyer -twice, Danny Millner, Connor Zgoda and Larsen.

After the high scoring first, fans expected more of the same the rest of the game, but that was not the case. The Packers stepped up their offensive pressure and made some changes on defense to slow the Raiders down. Larsen scored the lone goal in the second for Hastings with assists going to Iovino and Harris. SSP scored one in the second to make it 6-2 at the second intermission.

Halfway through the third, Zgoda set up a great shot for Vandehoef on a powerplay and ‘Vandy’ had the “hatty’. Vandehoef’s third goal for the hat trick came at 7:35 in the third and was the final goal of the game to give the Raiders the 7-2 win over conference rival South St. Paul.

The Packers started slow for shots on goal but actually finished with 33 to Hastings 28. Niederkorn stopped 31 of the 33 shots he faced for a .939 save percentage. Both teams had 10 penalty minutes on five infractions. One pair of penalties was a coincidental minor that made Hastings 2-for-4 on powerplays, and they shut down all four penalties they faced.

Against Tartan, the Raiders scored five goals to Tartan’s one. Scoring for Hastings was Harris, Millner, Zgoda, Vandehoef and Harris. Assists went to DeNoyer -twice, Larsen, Iovino, Sawyer Zaruba, Vandehoef, Johnny Teigland -twice and Carlson.

Hastings was once again outshot, this time 26-22, but they were again, far more efficient scoring. Niederkorn kept 25 of the 26 shots he faced out of the net for a .962 save percentage.

Hastings had 10 penalty minutes on five infractions and Tartan had 23 minutes on six infractions. The 10-minute misconduct for Tartan came with two minutes left in the game, so realistically, Hastings only had 15 minutes of power play time. According to the stats, Hastings stopped one of the two powerplays the faced and they were unable to score on their three powerplays.

For the regular season, Niederkorn finished with 1244 minutes played facing 798 shots, stopping 728 for a 2.87 goals against average and a .912 save percentage and two shutouts.

Offensively, Vandehoef led the team in goals with 16, Larsen was second with 15. Harris led the team in assists with 17. DeNoyer, Vandehoef and Peine all finished second with 16 assists. Vandehoef led with 32 total points, Harris had 26, DeNoyer 25 and Larsen 24.

The section committee met Sunday to rank each of the teams for the section tournament. The rankings went as expected and Hastings ended up with the fourth seed. Here is the tournament breakdown.

Left side of the bracket #1 Lakeville South (18-6-1) vs #8 Farmington (3-22-0) #4 Hastings (15-9-1) vs Rochester Century (15-10) Right side of the bracket #2 Rochester Mayo (18-5-2) vs Rochester John Marshall (14-10-1) #3 Lakeville North (11-14) vs #6 Owatonna (11-12-2) The first round is on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. and the high seed hosts. The winners of each side of the bracket will play each other in Rochester at the Rec Center on Sat, Feb. 25. That means the Raiders side of the bracket will play at 5:30 p.m. and the other side at 8 p.m.

Lakeville South has played Farmington twice this season winning 6-1 and 9-1.

Hastings defeated Century 3-0 earlier in the season and the team’s records are almost identical, which means the game Thursday night could be a very good one for fans to watch and could go either way. Hastings has been shooting very well the last week of the season and the puck luck has been on their side.

Given the timing of game two, we have to make a little assumption for the second preview of the week. If it is #1 Lakeville South vs #4 Hastings, the Raiders will have a tough time against the Cougars. Historically, both the Lakeville teams, North and South, tend to be bigger, faster and stronger than the Hastings teams and Hastings struggles against bigger teams. The defense will have to do a great job clogging shooting lanes and our shooters will have to make quick passes and even quicker shots in the offensive zone to have a chance to upset the sections number one team.