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The Raiders boy’s hockey team has six games remaining in the season and currently sits at 12-5-1. With that record, they are currently fifth in the conference, but they are only one conference win away from being tied for first. They are third in the section with only Lakeville South and Rochester Mayo ahead of them in the section. Hastings will not face Lakeville South (11-5-1) in the regular season and the Raiders tied Mayo (in the first game of the year 3-3.

Monday, Hastings made the trip to Farmington to take on the now 3-15 Tigers. Blake Vandehoef gave the Raiders the 1-0 lead at 8:22 in the first on a power play goal with assists going to Eddie Peine and Danny Millner. Sawyer Zaruba logged his first varsity goal with 32 seconds left in the first to put the Raiders up 2-0. Peine and Jon Harris helped setup Zaruba.

The game pace was a bit deceptive with quick back and forth exchanges and despite the Raiders 2-0 lead, Farmington outshot the Raiders in every period. Kody Neiderkorn did everything he could to keep the Raiders ahead, stopping 24 shots in the first two periods. With the help of Joseph Iovino and Harris, Charlie Williams helped take the pressure off Niederkorn scoring the Raiders third goal at 11:47 of the second.

Farmington finally figured out how to hit the back of the net to make the Raider’s fans nervous, scoring two in the third, but that was all they could muster and Hastings won 3-2. Niederkorn stopped 33 of 35 shots for a .943 save percentage. Hastings had 22 shots on goal total. Hastings successfully killed all three penalties they had and scored on one of their two power plays. Hastings had three infractions for six minutes and Farmington had two infractions for four minutes.

Tuesday, the Raiders faced their toughest challenge yet, the second place in the conference, St. Thomas Academy Cadets. STA has consistently had high end skaters in their program that consistently stand out as the proverbial man among boys, and the last few years, that has been Tommy Cronin. Cronin is someone your eyes naturally gravitate too when he is on the ice. A quick and accurate shot and smooth skating skills make him difficult to miss.

Hastings took the lead 1-0 at 5:46 in the first when Iovino connected with Harris for the goal, and things were looking to be in favor of the Raiders. Hastings maintained their cool, stayed with their game plan and the Cadets did not look to be as Goliath like as the Cadets often do. The game was shaping up to be a fairly evenly matched game. Until Hastings gave St. Thomas five straight minutes of 5-on-4 hockey.

It was made very clear, very early that the referees were not going to allow the hatred between the two teams to get out of control. In all, 11 penalties were called in the game, unfortunately for Hastings, the overly aggressive and foolish penalties they took cost them the game. Hastings ended up with not one, but two five-minute major penalties. The worst part about a major penalty is the player stays in the box no matter how many times the opponent scores in those five minutes. Two-minute minor penalties end once a goal is scored by the opponent.

On the first major, Cronin scored, tying the game 1-1. A few minutes later, STA was penalized for holding and 45 seconds into the penalty, Cronin scored a shorthanded goal giving the Cadets the 21 lead. With 33 seconds left in the first, the second fiveminute major was called against Hastings. STA had more penalties than Hastings in the first 17 minutes of play with four penalties called on them to Hastings two, but Hastings sat in the box much longer than the Cadets did.

With the man advantage for 4:27 to start the second period, STA scored twice within the first minute and 14 seconds to make the lead 4-1. By the time the game was over, STA won 7-1. Five of those goals were scored on the power play, one short handed and one even strength. Cronin was involved in all seven goals, he earned the hat trick with a third goal in the third period and he earned an assist on the rest of the goals.

The Cadets had 51 shots on goal to Hastings’ 19. Niederkorn stopped 44 of those shots for a .863 save percentage. Penalties were the story of the game. It is really difficult to defeat a team like St. Thomas when you give them 10 minutes of an extra player on the ice and the worst part is, many of the penalties were bad mental mistakes on the Raiders part. You can play aggressive and physical and still play smart, Tuesday, the Raiders played aggressive, physical and frustrated, and that lead to bad decisions. The Cadets were a perfect 5-for-5 for scoring on the power play and Hastings was 0-for-5 on their man advantages. Hastings had a player in the box for nearly one full period, 16 minutes on five infractions to the Cadets 12 minutes on six infractions.

Hastings rebounded well against another conference foe, the Two Rivers Warriors. Two Rivers came to town on Thursday and Hastings came out with a purpose. The first period was a lot of back and forth with each team taking calculated shots, other than that, there was not a ton of excitement in the first. That is until Brody Carlson and Vandehoef connected with Brody Larsen for the first goal of the game with three seconds left in the period.

Two Rivers answered the goal less than three game minutes later, scoring 2:35 into the second period. Eleven seconds later, Austin Shanks took the pass from Vandehoef and John Teigland to give the Raiders the lead back for good. Hastings added an empty net goal at 16:07 of the third to finish the game 3-1.

Penalties did not factor into the scoring even though there were nine total called. Hastings had four infractions for eight minutes and Two Rivers had five for 10. Two sets of penalties were coincidental, so Hastings only had three power plays and Two Rivers only had two. Neither team scored with a man advantage.

Kody Niederkorn was in goal again for Hastings and he stopped .963 of the shots he faced. For the season, he has a .920 save percentage and a goals against average of 2.54.

Blake Vandehoef leads the Raiders in points with 22 and he leads the team in goals with 11. Jon Harris leads the team in assists with 15.

The boys have six games left in the regular season. Feb. 2nd they will host Mounds View at 7:00 p.m. and then Feb. 7th they travel to Park of Cottage Grove for the Highway 61 rivalry at 7:30 p.m. The final game of the regular season is scheduled for February 18th, so things do slow down a little for the boys to catch their breath, but they still have a series of tough games ahead of them.