Grand Rapids beats Cloquet-Carlton-Esko 5 to 0 in High School Hockey-Dec 8,2015
There’s dominating a high school hockey game, and then there’s what Grand Rapids did to Section 7AA rival Cloquet-Esko-Carlton on Tuesday night. The Thunderhawks defended home ice with a 5-0 victory that saw 11 different players earn points. The Lumberjacks went a stretch of 25 minutes without a shot on goal in the contest.
The defense of Grand Rapids, maybe the biggest question mark coming into the season, absolutely suffocated the opposing offense all night long. After picking up seven shots on goal in the first period, the Jacks had none in the second and just two in the third.
Grand Rapids dominated from puck drop to final buzzer. Sophomore goaltender Gabe Holum picked up his first career shutout with a nine save shutout. The Thunderhawks had a 43-9 shot edge in the game.
The penalty kill, which was a weakness through the first six games of the season, was a booming strength in the victory. Grand Rapids killed off three penalties in the first 12 minutes of the game, and netted their third shorthanded marker of the season.
Micah Miller, who has been red hot in recent games, slid a picture perfect pass to future North Dakota Fighting Hawk Mitchell Mattson who fired a shot into the net to make it 1-0. The play came on a 2-on-1 down low in front of Cloquet-Esko-Carlton netminder Eric Newman.
For the second straight game, Grand Rapids thoroughly dominated the middle period to all but put away an opponent. They outshot Warroad 21-2 and outscored them 3-0 in the second period on Saturday. In this one, the goal edge was just 1-0, but the shot edge was an incredible 19-0. Rapids has outshot opponents 40-2 and outscored opponents 4-0 in the last two second periods.
Jason Koehn won an offensive zone faceoff and did the rest himself to score the loan goal of the second period. The Thunderhawks led 2-0 after two, despite holding a 32-7 shot edge.
All this talk about second period domination. Well, Grand Rapids is actually a third period team. Coming into the game, the team had outscored opponents 11-3 in the third period. It was all Thunderhawks in the third once again.
Sophomore sensation Gavin Hain scored his fifth goal of the season to make it 3-0 early in the final frame. Minnesota commit and fellow sophomore Blake McLaughlin had the primary assist and Gunnar Harris added the secondary.
John Stampohar ripped home his fourth goal of the season with assists to Mattson and Jonah Bischoff to make it 4-0. Finally, Drake Anderson capped the scoring with a goal of his own. Connor Stefan and Brendan Mark picked up assists on the play.
Grand Rapids, ranked seventh in AA, showed off its depth once again. The team has scored at least five goals in four straight games, all wins, despite not having a senior leader in Alex Adams for the last couple. The defense has played steady, allowing just seven goals over the course of the four game winning streak.
The Thunderhawks have outscored opponents 32-14 en route to a 5-1-1 start.
Next up, the team travels to Lakeville to take on the defending state champion Lakeville North Panthers. The Panthers didn’t lose a single game last season on their way to a state title. They did, however, lose the season opener to Stillwater this year, and are ranked eighth in Class AA.
3. Drake Anderson (GR) 1 goal
2. John Stampohar (GR) 1 goal
1. Mitchell Mattson (GR) 1 goal, 1 assist
by Tim How-GRHS Hockey
