Hastings boys hockey entered the week at 2-2 with games against New Prague, Farmington and Hill Murray. The week started with two home games, Tuesday against New Prague and Thursday against Farmington. Hastings won both by a margin of 4-2. On Saturday, the boys took a trip to Aldrich Arena to face Hill-Murray and fell 4-0.

Against New Prague, Hastings took the lead late in the first period when Jon Harris and Connor Zgoda connected with Blake Vandehoef. After the first intermission, Will Savage scored his first varsity goal 5:35 into the second thanks to an assist by Lukas Niederkorn.

Hastings took the two-goal lead into the third period. New Prague did not give up, scoring 26 seconds into the third. A Raider penalty gave the Trojans a power play and just forty seconds later, the game was tied at two. The game remained tied late into the third when Brody Carlson connected with Brayden Krauth for an even-strength goal to take the lead 3-2. The lads were not finished yet. With 27 seconds left in the game, Vandehoef scored thanks to a Raider power play and a little help from his friends Johnny Teigland and Zgoda. The final was 4-2 in favor of Hastings.

Brooks Smyrski faced 43 shots, stopping 41 for a save percentage of .953. Hastings made 30 shots on goal, and the Trojan goalie had a save percentage of .867. New Prague had three penalties for six minutes while Hastings had 12 minutes on six infractions. Each team scored once on the power play.

Against Farmington, Hastings took a two-goal lead into the first intermission. Vandehoef scored the first two Raider goals, the first at 7:04 assisted again by Harris and Zgoda. The second goal came at 16:16 of the first period, unassisted.

4:27 into the second period, Farmington cut the lead in half and Hastings responded. Mason Boeff scored his first varsity goal at 6:44, extending the Raider lead to 3-1. In Vandehoef fashion, Blake scored with just 32 seconds left in the second period, a power play goal assisted by Teigland and Harris. How the goal made it in is a bit of a mystery. Vandehoef earned his second hat trick of the season with a goal that he scored either while being checked, or after he was laying on the ice from the check.

Hastings had the 4-1 lead until 10:25 into the third when Farmington scored, but that was all the Tigers could muster and Hastings won 4-2.

Farmington had 21 penalty minutes on five infractions, one of which was a five-minute major with a game misconduct for checking from behind. Hastings went to the box for three infractions that left them short-handed for six minutes.

Shots on goal were very unbalanced. Farmington did not produce a true shot until nearly the end of the first period. In fact, the Tigers were outshot 13-3 in the first period and outshot 43-21 for the game. Ryan Clemens earned the win with a .905 save percentage.

In the 4-0 loss to Hill-Murray, the script was flipped a bit on Hastings. Hastings only managed to get 14 shots on goal while the Pioneers fired off 35. Smyrski stopped 31 of 35 shots for a .886 save percentage but the Raiders could not get any past the Pioneer keeper.

Hastings had two penalties for four minutes while Hill-Murray had six minutes on three infractions. Both keeps successfully stopped all the man advantages they faced.

Anoka will come to town on Dec. 21 at 7:00 p.m. for the final game before the Christmas break. Then, the Raiders head to South St. Paul for the SSP Premier Tournament. The first game of that is scheduled for Dec. 26 at 7:00 p.m. Once the tournament concludes, they are off until Jan. 9.

Metro East Conference

Boys Hockey Standings

Team   W L T PTS Overall

Hill-Murray  3 0 0 6 4-1-1

St. Thomas Academy 2 0 0 4 3-3-1

Two Rivers  2 1 0 4 6-2-0

South St. Paul  1 1 0 2 3-3-0

Hastings  1 2 0 2 4-3-0

Mahtomedi  1 2 0 2 3-6-0

Tartan   1 2 0 2 2-5-1

Simley   0 3 0 0 2-5-1