ND High School Hockey 2017-18

[OgieOgilthorpe]

2017-2018 Preseason Predictions (with limited research)

East:

1. Red River

2. Central

3. Davies

4. Devils Lake

5. West Fargo Sheyenne 

6. Grafton

7. West Fargo 

8. Fargo North

9. Fargo South/Shanley

I think Red River will turn the tables on Central this season. Both teams lost a lot of their top end talent, but it's no secret that both teams will reload, but RR will come out ahead. I'm sure they'll exchange loses throughout the season but ultimately RR will take back the top spot. Davies might be the only other team that will be able to skate with those 2 teams this season and they might even steal a game from one of them. Spots 4-6 will be a log jam with DL coming through with the #4 spot, but obviously Sheyenne is a big question mark at this point and could easily surprise. Maybe they'll be more in the Davies caliber. The rest of the Fargo teams and Grafton look to be in the hurt bag pretty bad this season unless they have a bunch of outstanding freshman coming in and stepping up. With the 2 GF teams rebuilding pretty heavily and 3 stronger than normal west teams coming back this season, I would expect the west to be able to push their weight around a little more again. If things develop well we could probably see a Minot or a Bismarck team in the championship game again.

 

West:

1. Bismarck High

2. Century

3. Minot

4. Mandan

5. Jamestown

6. Dickinson

7. Bott

8. Williston

9. Hazen/Beulah (50/50 chance they play every scheduled game of the season) 

It's hard not to put BHS on top where they live day in and day out in the west, but this year I wouldn't be surprised if Century or Minot take it away from them. That is unless both of them lost a lot of guys early to Jr's that I don't know about? Either way, it's a safe bet having BHS on top with those unknowns. It looks to me like there will be a pack of 3 on top (minot, century and high) and a pack of 3 in the middle (mandan, jamestown and dickinson) with Bott and Williston stuck on bottom (H/B isn't relevant). I see another season with Williston and Bott only getting a handful of wins with the majority of their scoring coming against H/B.

How in the hell will H/B even finish out this season? They only had 7-8 skaters last season and lost half of them to graduation. Looks like a long disaster of a season again to me, unless they cut it short. But overall I see the West being a little stronger this season and the east being down a little bit which could make for a more evenly matched state tournament like we saw 2011-2014. 

[gfhockey]

Gfc is way down this year. Lot of playas who made team are young

[OgieOgilthorpe]

1 minute ago, gfhockey said:

Gfc is way down this year. Lot of playas who made team are young

GFC being way down from an undefeated season should still land them in the top 3. And it's not like they're struggling to find enough players to fill out a roster. 

[sioux rube]

37 minutes ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

2017-2018 Preseason Predictions (with limited research)

East:

1. Red River

2. Central

3. Davies

4. Devils Lake

5. West Fargo Sheyenne 

6. Grafton

7. West Fargo 

8. Fargo North

9. Fargo South/Shanley

I think Red River will turn the tables on Central this season. Both teams lost a lot of their top end talent, but it's no secret that both teams will reload, but RR will come out ahead. I'm sure they'll exchange loses throughout the season but ultimately RR will take back the top spot. Davies might be the only other team that will be able to skate with those 2 teams this season and they might even steal a game from one of them. Spots 4-6 will be a log jam with DL coming through with the #4 spot, but obviously Sheyenne is a big question mark at this point and could easily surprise. Maybe they'll be more in the Davies caliber. The rest of the Fargo teams and Grafton look to be in the hurt bag pretty bad this season unless they have a bunch of outstanding freshman coming in and stepping up. With the 2 GF teams rebuilding pretty heavily and 3 stronger than normal west teams coming back this season, I would expect the west to be able to push their weight around a little more again. If things develop well we could probably see a Minot or a Bismarck team in the championship game again.

 

West:

1. Bismarck High

2. Century

3. Minot

4. Mandan

5. Jamestown

6. Dickinson

7. Bott

8. Williston

9. Hazen/Beulah (50/50 chance they play every scheduled game of the season) 

It's hard not to put BHS on top where they live day in and day out in the west, but this year I wouldn't be surprised if Century or Minot take it away from them. That is unless both of them lost a lot of guys early to Jr's that I don't know about? Either way, it's a safe bet having BHS on top with those unknowns. It looks to me like there will be a pack of 3 on top (minot, century and high) and a pack of 3 in the middle (mandan, jamestown and dickinson) with Bott and Williston stuck on bottom (H/B isn't relevant). I see another season with Williston and Bott only getting a handful of wins with the majority of their scoring coming against H/B.

How in the hell will H/B even finish out this season? They only had 7-8 skaters last season and lost half of them to graduation. Looks like a long disaster of a season again to me, unless they cut it short. But overall I see the West being a little stronger this season and the east being down a little bit which could make for a more evenly matched state tournament like we saw 2011-2014. 

HB have good numbers at the youth level from bantams down. Now the key obviously is retaining those players in high school. This year will be another bad year much like last year. 

[gfhockey]

Hb has trouble losing to recruitment from other teams

[OgieOgilthorpe]

16 hours ago, gfhockey said:

Hb has trouble losing to recruitment from other teams

Like who? One player moved to bismarck and played for BHS last season, but I've never heard anything other than that. 

[sioux rube]

2 hours ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

Like who? One player moved to bismarck and played for BHS last season, but I've never heard anything other than that. 

I think there were 2 players that defected but nothing prior to that to my knowledge 

[SiouxVolley]

Haven't seen Mayport-Northwood-Hatton-Finley-Hilllsboro on ND school schedules but they are listed twice on Breckenridge-Wahpeton schedule.  Maybe they included Norman County West in that co-op so they could be a Minnesota team too like Wahpeton.  A schedule with Bagley/Fosston, Kittson County, Morris Area, and Red Lake Falls suits Wahpeton and MayPort better.

MnHSHL schedules are shown at http://followthepuck.com, and May-Port has at 10 games.

[MoSiouxFan]

On 11/16/2017 at 4:25 PM, OgieOgilthorpe said:

2017-2018 Preseason Predictions (with limited research)

East:

1. Red River

2. Central

3. Davies

4. Devils Lake

5. West Fargo Sheyenne 

6. Grafton

7. West Fargo 

8. Fargo North

9. Fargo South/Shanley

I think Red River will turn the tables on Central this season. Both teams lost a lot of their top end talent, but it's no secret that both teams will reload, but RR will come out ahead. I'm sure they'll exchange loses throughout the season but ultimately RR will take back the top spot. Davies might be the only other team that will be able to skate with those 2 teams this season and they might even steal a game from one of them. Spots 4-6 will be a log jam with DL coming through with the #4 spot, but obviously Sheyenne is a big question mark at this point and could easily surprise. Maybe they'll be more in the Davies caliber. The rest of the Fargo teams and Grafton look to be in the hurt bag pretty bad this season unless they have a bunch of outstanding freshman coming in and stepping up. With the 2 GF teams rebuilding pretty heavily and 3 stronger than normal west teams coming back this season, I would expect the west to be able to push their weight around a little more again. If things develop well we could probably see a Minot or a Bismarck team in the championship game again.

 

West:

1. Bismarck High

2. Century

3. Minot

4. Mandan

5. Jamestown

6. Dickinson

7. Bott

8. Williston

9. Hazen/Beulah (50/50 chance they play every scheduled game of the season) 

It's hard not to put BHS on top where they live day in and day out in the west, but this year I wouldn't be surprised if Century or Minot take it away from them. That is unless both of them lost a lot of guys early to Jr's that I don't know about? Either way, it's a safe bet having BHS on top with those unknowns. It looks to me like there will be a pack of 3 on top (minot, century and high) and a pack of 3 in the middle (mandan, jamestown and dickinson) with Bott and Williston stuck on bottom (H/B isn't relevant). I see another season with Williston and Bott only getting a handful of wins with the majority of their scoring coming against H/B.

How in the hell will H/B even finish out this season? They only had 7-8 skaters last season and lost half of them to graduation. Looks like a long disaster of a season again to me, unless they cut it short. But overall I see the West being a little stronger this season and the east being down a little bit which could make for a more evenly matched state tournament like we saw 2011-2014. 

Hope you're right about Devils Lake, but 4 of their 6 defensemen being freshmen (and one an 8th grader) is pretty scary.  Fortunately, their first three games are nonconference.  I could see them finishing as low as 6-8.

[OgieOgilthorpe]

9 hours ago, MoSiouxFan said:

Hope you're right about Devils Lake, but 4 of their 6 defensemen being freshmen (and one an 8th grader) is pretty scary.  Fortunately, their first three games are nonconference.  I could see them finishing as low as 6-8.

I completely agree about that being scary and their D core being way down this season...but just take a quick look at what south/shanley and other Fargo teams lost. And that's when they were already worse off last year. I see DL being down yes, but I see 4-5 teams being even worse off than last year too. I'm anxious to see what the new WF school will have to offer. They'll be a wildcard 

[sioux rube]

9 hours ago, MoSiouxFan said:

Hope you're right about Devils Lake, but 4 of their 6 defensemen being freshmen (and one an 8th grader) is pretty scary.  Fortunately, their first three games are nonconference.  I could see them finishing as low as 6-8.

Jamestown’s D core is really down. Aside from senior Fuchs they are very inexperienced on the blue line. Their all state goalie Schneider is going to see a lot of pucks when playing the better teams in the West. Considering they have only made state twice since 99’ I don’t see a third time this year. Hope I’m wrong. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

8 minutes ago, sioux rube said:

Jamestown’s D core is really down. Aside from senior Fuchs they are very inexperienced on the blue line. Their all state goalie Schneider is going to see a lot of pucks when playing the better teams in the West. Considering they have only made state twice since 99’ I don’t see a third time this year. Hope I’m wrong. 

I have high hopes for them this year. I hope to see them win that fight for the #4 spot in the west. I didn't realize they had only made state 2 times since 99?!? What were the 2 years? 

[sioux rube]

1 minute ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

I have high hopes for them this year. I hope to see them win that fight for the #4 spot in the west. I didn't realize they had only made state 2 times since 99?!? What were the 2 years? 

2011 and 2013. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

56 minutes ago, sioux rube said:

2011 and 2013. 

Were they In the east region for a portion of that time span? I know they've been in the west since at least 06 correct? Surprising that they haven't made it more often while being in the west. Do they get many players from valley city? 

[sioux rube]

4 hours ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

Were they In the east region for a portion of that time span? I know they've been in the west since at least 06 correct? Surprising that they haven't made it more often while being in the west. Do they get many players from valley city? 

Got a handful or so from VC. They have been in the West for quite sometime now. If they were in the east they would never go to state. 

Just watched DL and Jamestown play in the West Fargo jamboree. Pretty even but the D for DL will be their weak spot much like Jamestown. 

[ChadR]

What happened to Rob Aasand? Odd timing for a resignation.

[OgieOgilthorpe]

37 minutes ago, ChadR said:

What happened to Rob Aasand? Odd timing for a resignation.

North's coach correct? I haven't heard anything about that yet. 

[ChadR]

8 hours ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

North's coach correct? I haven't heard anything about that yet. 

Yes. "Resigned" this week. 

[andtheHomeoftheSIOUX!!]

I didn't realize WF Sheyenne was fielding a team this year.  Good to see.  

[The Sicatoka]

3 minutes ago, andtheHomeoftheSIOUX!! said:

I didn't realize WF Sheyenne was fielding a team this year.  Good to see.  

Shiny new home: http://jlgarchitects.com/article/110817/new-school-owned-ice-arena-opens-in-west-fargo 

It's a mile south of I-94 at the Sheyenne Street interchange. 

[sioux rube]

21 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

Shiny new home: http://jlgarchitects.com/article/110817/new-school-owned-ice-arena-opens-in-west-fargo 

It's a mile south of I-94 at the Sheyenne Street interchange. 

Nice facility much like the facility in GF. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

1 hour ago, The Sicatoka said:

Shiny new home: http://jlgarchitects.com/article/110817/new-school-owned-ice-arena-opens-in-west-fargo 

It's a mile south of I-94 at the Sheyenne Street interchange. 

Wow, nice. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

Glad to hear HB is playing a JV schedule for the entire season. That was what needed to be done. 

Also, it looks like I probably underestimated  Fargo North in my predictions, as they placed 4th in the east region coaches poll. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

Anyone have scores from tonight's games? 

[sioux rube]

1 hour ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

Anyone have scores from tonight's games? 

Jamestown beat Grafton. I believe it ended 5-2 with Jays goalie with 39 saves