Boys’ hockey had a busy week with a trip to Hopkins on Jan. 21 for a 4-2 win, then a 10-1 thumping of Simley at home on Jan. 23 before a heartbreaker of a loss at Two Rivers 3-2. Hastings has just six games left in the regular season, and they sit in the middle of the Metro East Conference (MEC) standings at 9-9-1 overall and 4-3 in the conference. The win for Two Rivers vaulted them to the top of the MEC at 6-2-1. St. Thomas Academy is right behind them at 6-0 and Hill-Murray is just ahead of Hastings at 6-1.
At Hopkins
The first game of the week started with Hastings taking the lead and never letting go. Brody Geib scored the first goal of the game 11:50 into the first period, assisted by Braden Krauth and Lukas Niederkorn.
The second period had the most action. Hopkins managed to log 16 shots on goal to Hastings 9, but the Raiders found the back of the net twice to Hopkins once. Jon Harris scored at 9:15 to extend the Raider lead with the help of Geib. Hopkins scored on a power play opportunity to cut the lead in half at 13:50, but Hastings kept the pressure on scoring at 15:52. Rylan Krauth tallied that goal with the help of Luke Wahlstrom.
Hastings held the 3-1 lead at the second intermission and Hopkins fought hard to earn their second goal which came just 48 seconds into the third, their second power play goal of the night. The game remained 3-2 until two seconds remained on the clock when Harris and Carter Hanson connected with Geib for the empty net goal and the Raiders 4-2 win.
Hopkins out shot Hastings 40-29, but the Raiders Charlie Stoffel kept 38 of those 40 shots out of the net for a .950 save percentage. Hastings had eight penalty minutes on four infractions and Hopkins only gave the Raiders two power play chances for four minutes. Hastings succeeded at stopping two of the four penalties and were unable to convert any man advantage.
Against Simley
The game against Simley was a full-on dismantling by Hastings. The odd piece to this matchup is Simley at the end of the week, was still 9-9 overall, but 1-6 in the MEC. Looking at their games, they were coming to Hastings off a 9-1 win over Bloomington Kennedy and the game before that was an 18-0 loss at Hill-Murray where the Pioneers scored 12 goals in 14 minutes of the first period, outshooting the Spartans 60-9.
The Raiders did not quite pull a Hill-Murray on the Spartans, but 10-1 is still a thumping. Hastings scored three goals in the first and second periods each, then four more in the third period. Jon Harris joined the rare 100-point club assisting Geib on his short handed goal in the second period.
Overall, 13 Raiders earned points in this game. Brayden Krauth had a true hat trick scoring three goals in a row, two at the end of the first period and one to start the second period, Jonas Schauer wanted to spread his hat trick out some scoring the first goal of the game and then two in the third period. Carter Strong logged his first varsity goal in the third.
Points on the night went: B. Krauth – 4, Harris and Schauer – 3, Will Savage, Jackson Dohman and Carter Hanson – 2, Matt Sherry, Brody Carlson, Geib, Gavin Burns, Jack Woodwick, Strong and Brecken Fullerton each with one point.
Hastings outshot the Spartans 43-15 and Nick Smelser stopped 14 of the 15 shots he faced for a .933 save percentage. Overall, the game was a clean one with Simley having six penalty minutes on three infractions and Hastings having four on two. Hastings did convert on one power play while negating all penalties they faced.
At Two Rivers
The game started slow with both teams calculating their offensive moves more than just playing the game. The defenses held strong with minimal scoring chances. Hastings finally broke through with Will Savage scoring an unassisted goal at 14:24 of the first to give Hastings the lead.
The second period was the complete opposite, both teams came out firing and Two Rivers scored three unanswered goals in the first seven minutes to go up 3-1. The Raiders finally had one find the white lace to cut the lead 3-2 off the stick of Harris at 7:23 with an assist going to Woodwick.
When asked about the second period, head coach Matt Klein had this to say, “We had some lapses in our defensive zone and a misplayed face off in our own end. But we answered back with a great finish by Jon Harris, and we found ourselves in a one-shot game.”
The game went to the second intermission with Two Rivers up 3-2. Neither team scored in the third and Hastings fell 3-2.
Hastings had eight penalty minutes on four infractions to the Warriors two minutes on one infraction. Neither team scored on their man advantages. The Warriors doubled Hastings shots on goal 34-17 and Stoffel once again stepped up big stopping 31 of the 34 shots faced for a .912 save percentage.
The Raiders have had a couple games this season where they won big and then turned around and faced a tougher opponent losing those games. We asked Coach Klein if those big wins have any effect on the next game.
“No, not at all. We came out hard and earned a first period lead on a great goal from Will Savage late. We knew Two Rivers would respond. We limited their transition which was the difference in our 4-0 loss earlier this season and shut out a power play 0/4 which was 51% coming into our game. Our boys were prepared, played well, just came up a goal short,” explained Klein
The Conference and Section, how it looks for Hastings
The game against Two Rivers had seeding implications for the MEC, if nothing else, it definitely threw in a monkey wrench just to make the seeding conversations interesting. The Warriors win vaulted them to the top of the MEC by total points for now. Each win earns a point for the teams and the teams are ranked on total points and here are those standings.
1 – Two Rivers 13
2 – St. Thomas 12
3 – Hill Murray 12
4 – Hastings 8
5 – Mahtomedi 5
6 – South St. Paul 2
7 – Simley 2
8 – Tartan 2
First a look at the current state rankings both by the Quality Results Formula from Minnesota-Scores.net (QRF) for Class AA and the coach’s poll. First, the QRF rank with the number one overall team included for reference:
1 – Moorhead 134.3
2 - St. Thomas Academy 125
3 - Hill-Murray 122.5
29 - Two Rivers 79.2
46 - Hastings 61.6
Mahtomedi 55.8 (28 in Class A)
Simley 42.9 (46 in Class A)
South St. Paul 38.6 (53 in Class A)
66 - Tartan 37.3
The Star Tribune Hockey Hub has a weekly coach’s poll for the top three for Class AA are the same there, Moorhead, St. Thomas Academy and Hill-Murray.
The MEC Standings as of Sunday had Hastings solidly in fourth with eight points. Mahtomedi was behind them with five points and Hill-Murray is ahead of them with 12 points.
Hastings has three conference games left in the season: St. Thomas, Mahtomedi and South St. Paul.
Mahtomedi has four conference games left against St. Thomas, Simley, Hill-Murray and Hastings.
Hill-Murray has two conference games left against St. Thomas and Mahtomedi.
For both Hastings and Mahtomedi, it is mathematically impossible to catch Hill-Murray at 12 points even if the unlikely happened and the Pioneers lost both of their remaining games, the best Hastings can do is 11 points and the best Mahtomedi can do is eight.
In all likelihood, Hastings should finish the season as the fourth-place team in the conference. All the Raiders need to do to lock that down is win one of the last three conference games or if Mahtomedi loses one game. For Hastings, St. Thomas will be difficult, but not impossible, Mahtomedi versus Hastings is always a coin flip with both teams showing up big for that one and Hastings already dismantled South St. Paul this year 7-1. For the Zephyrs, they likely lose to St. Thomas and a loss to Hill-Murray is almost certain with how good the Pioneers have been lately, so the middle game against Hastings may be simply a pride game for Mahtomedi.
Conference wins are important, but so are section wins. Unfortunately for Hastings, they are in a section that features three of the top ten teams in the state (QRF rank/Coaches Poll rank), St. Thomas Academy (2/2), Cretin-Derham Hall (5/4) and Rosemount (9/7).
Hastings is currently seventh in the section with only Apple Valley/Burnsville and Eagan behind them. Those that know the history of the section voting, Hastings will have a tough time staying in seventh. A win over Apple Valley/Burnsville should play a part in keeping Hastings as the seventh seed in the section, but with six games left, two of which are section games, anything can happen to change the seeding.
Up Next
Hastings has two games left in January, first Rochester Mayo comes to town on Jan. 29 and then they take on the Apple Valley/Burnsville co-op at United Heroes League on Jan. 31. That game is technically an away game for Hastings and both games are scheduled for 7:00 p.m.