Hastings was unable to repeat as last year’s South St. Paul Premier Tournament winners. The boys opened the tournament against South St. Paul, dominating the Packers 7-1, then they were thumped 9-0 by Farmington and lost a close one to St. Louis Park 3-2.
Versus South St. Paul
The tournament kicked off earlier in the day, but the marquee matchup on day one was the final game of the evening, Packers versus Raiders. The pomp and circumstance that South St. Paul did before the game seemed to have worked for a short time with Hastings coming out of the gate very slow and somewhat discombobulated. The boys were simply off in a game that they should have handled from start to finish.
Hastings outshot the Packers 10-7 in the first period, but South St. Paul had the lead where it mattered, scoring one controversial looking goal in the first. The Packer player that scored looked to be in the goal crease well before the puck entered the crease, but the officials saw it a different way and the Packers took a 1-0 lead into the break.
It is not clear what was said to the players in the first intermission, but whatever it was it lit a fire under their rear ends. The rest of the game, the Raiders looked like the Raiders that fans like to see. They were aggressive but smart, they were precise, and they scored… a lot.
14 seconds into the second, Jon Harris lit the lamp to start things for the Raiders. Matt Sherry and Brayden Krauth earned assists on the powerplay goal. 1:02, just 48 seconds later, it was 2-1 Hastings. Harris and Krauth connected with Aden Cavness for the goal. 2:45, Jonas Schauer scored the Raiders third goal of the period with the assist going to Rylan Krauth. Harris was not yet done for the period, at 5:09, the Packers were on the power play and Harris found an opportunity to use his speed on an unassisted short-handed goal to put Hastings up 4-0. Things settled down and the period ended with Hastings outshooting the Packers 10-6 for the period and the Raiders took the 4-1 lead to the second intermission.
The third period started with Brody Carlson lighting the lamp at 1:49 on another powerplay goal. Lukas Niederkorn earned the assist and Hastings was up 5-1. The Harris show continued and at 10:43, he earned the hat trick with assists going to Brayden Krauth and Carlson. Hastings hit the back of the net one more time when Brecken Fullerton scored at 15:18, assisted by Rylan Krauth and Gavin Burns.
Hastings went 2-for-2 on their powerplay opportunities, and they killed all three man advantages that the Packers had. There were a lot of penalties called in the game, but several were coincidental, so they never truly resulted in powerplays. Hastings had 10 penalty minutes on five infractions, South St. Paul had eight minutes on four infractions.
Hastings outshot the Packers 33-22. Of the 22 shots Nick Smelser faced, he stopped 21 for a .955 save percentage. With the Raiders seven goals, the Packers finished with a .788 save percentage.
Versus Farmington
With the 7-1 dominating win, Hastings looked poised to repeat as the tournament champion, but Farmington had other plans. The Tigers first round game was also a thumping, Farmington dominated Bloomington Jefferson 8-1 so would this game be a shootout? A thumping? A close contest? Well, as it turned out, it was a thumping, and not for the Raiders.
Farmington took a three-goal lead in the first, outshooting the Raiders 13-4. The second period, they scored four and led again in the shots category 15-6. The final period was all run time, and the Tigers still put two more on the scoreboard to win 9-0.
This was by far the ugliest game of the season for Hastings. There were 39 penalty minutes between the two teams. Farmington had 18 minutes on five infractions and Hastings had 21, also on five infractions. The difference in time was Jackson Dohman earned a five-minute major plus a ten-minute misconduct for boarding in the third period while Farmington’s Nick Marsh earned a two-minute minor plus a ten-minute misconduct for unsportsmanlike conduct. Farmington scored on three of the five man advantages.
Farmington outshot the Raiders 34-14. Both Raider goalies spent time between the pipes for this game. Charlie Stoffel had the start facing 22 shots in 26 minutes and 26 seconds where he stopped 17 shots for a .773 save percentage. Smelser took over for the remaining 24:34 of the game where he faced 12 shots stopping eight for a .667 save percentage.
Versus St. Louis Park
The game against St. Louis Park looks to be the most subdued game of the tournament for Hastings based on the 3-2 score, but the details tell a much different story.
Stoffel returned to the crease for Hastings and over the course of 51 minutes he faced 55 shots on goal. That is an average of one shot every 55 seconds. Stoffel had one of the busiest games of the year in net and he was outstanding for Hastings.
Harris gave Hastings the lead at 5:00 in the first period with assists going to Carlson and Brayden Krauth. The Raiders took the 1-0 lead to the first intermission even being outshot 18-7 in the first period.
St. Louis Park took the lead in the second with two goals, one at 3:46 and the other at 6:57. Harris and Brody Geib connected with Brayden Krauth to tie the game at 14:31. Stoffel mostly withstood the 17-4 shots barrage and gave the Raiders a chance to steal a win in the third period.
The Raiders only managed to tally three shots on goal in the third period and the defense allowed 20 shots by St. Louis Park. The Orioles took the lead one last time at 11:26 of the third to win 3-2.
The shots finished 55-14 in favor of the Orioles, with Stoffel stopping 52 of them for a .945 save percentage. Hastings was unable to produce much in the offensive zone, tallying only 14 shots on goal which gave the Orioles goalie a .857 save percentage.
Both teams had eight penalty minutes on four infractions and both teams killed all of the penalties they faced.
Up Next
Hastings will travel to Aldrich Arena on Jan. 11 for a 1:00 p.m. puck drop against Hill-Murray then they complete the three-game road trip when they travel to Anoka on Jan. 14 for a 6:30 p.m. start. They return home to host Tartan on Jan. 18 at 2:00 p.m.