Edina won the Class AA title. The Breck School, as expected, is bringing the small school Class A title back to their sleepy little town of Minneapolis.
Here's a few final thoughts on the end of the season...
-If you were to compare Class A-sized schools, who should feel prouder of their accomplishment: Breck for winning their second straight title, or Hill-Murray for their epic overtime loss against Minnetonka?
-For all the complaints about how bad the first two days of the tournament were, the MSHSL got what they wanted when they decided to start seeding teams, with some fantastic semifinals on Friday. I feel like all I've done is complain about tournament so far, but the Mahtomedi-Hermantown game and Minnetonka-Hill-Murray were everything that's great about high school hockey.
-I'm not surprised Edina won the state tournament this year. I maybe underestimated them to start the season, as a lot of people did, but they were extremely impressive every time I saw them this year. It's high school hockey, so you can't really pick the types of players you have available--hold your private school recruiting jokes, please--but Edina changed from being a one-line, fairly soft team last year, to a team with three or four solid lines that came out and played tough, in-your-face style of hockey.
-Minnetonka was a ridiculously talented team, but I felt like they were never able to make the whole better than the sum of their parts. They had a lot of kids that could skate and shoot better than anybody, but they had very few puck movers, and that luck of puck movement caught up to them in the tournament.
-Breck didn't quite have a cakewalk through the tournament. I felt like they really kept the semifinal game against Warroad closer than it should have been by putting some mini-breakaways right into the Warroad goalie's stomach, and taking some dumb penalties to keep the game close. The final against Hermantown was legitimately close--Hermantown is an extremely well-coached team--but it was only a matter of time for a team like Breck with that type of depth before they were able to break through.
-The state of Minnesota got their first chance to meet Apple Valley freshman Hudson Fasching. I have a feeling that won't be the last time we're hearing from him. He could be a special player.
-I don't know that the state tournament did a lot to move anyone's draft stock. Some might say the opening day loss might hurt Bjugstad a little, but I doubt it. I was impressed with Adam Krause's play. I thought he was borderline to get drafted, and this probably helped. Maybe Hill-Murray's Chris Casto will get a longer look too.