Northfield boys hockey finishes 6th in Class A

The Northfield High School boys hockey team finished its run at the 2024 MSHSL Class A tournament with a sixth-place finish.

After a 5-1 loss in the quarterfinals against St. Cloud Cathedral, Northfield battled back in the consolation bracket with a 4-3 win over New Ulm on March 7 at Aldrich Arena in Maplewood.

Northfield earned a 2-0 lead in the first period, thanks to a shorthanded goal by Michael Steward at 4:13 of the first and a power play marker by Kam Kaiser at 10:22 with assists from Ty Frank and Cayden Monson.

New Ulm battled back with two goals in the second period to tie the contest at 2-2 before Monson netted a goal at 15:46 of the second to make it 3-2. Kaiser had the solo assist on Monson’s goal.

In the third period, Frank posted the eventual game winner at 5:31 with an even strength goal on assists from Christian Whiteman and Griffin Kennelly. To end the scoring, New Ulm’s Talan Helget scored at 10:07 of the third to make the final 4-3.

Northfield outshot New Ulm in the contest 30-19 as Trey Shimota had 16 saves and the win in goal for the Raiders.

Loss to Orono

In the consolation bracket championship game, Northfield faced Orono for the second consecutive season at the MSHSL tournament. Last year, Orono defeated Northfield in the MSHSL quarterfinals by a 2-1 score in OT at the Xcel Energy Center.

Much like last year’s contest, the game between Northfield and Orono was a defensive showpiece, as the Spartans edged the Raiders 1-0 in the game at Aldrich Arena on Saturday, March 9.

The lone goal in the game was posted by Orono’s Trey Land at 8:44 of the second period, which proved to be the winning edge.

The Raiders owned a 26-23 lead in shots on goal in the game as both teams were 0-of-6 on the power play in the game. Northfield’s Max Frank was the goalie of record with 22 saves and just one goal allowed in the contest.

The trip to the state tournament capped another successful season for Raider hockey as Northfield finishes the year with a 23-6-2 overall record. The Raiders won the 2023-24 Big 9 championship with a 14-1-0 record and along claimed its second consecutive Section 1A championship in 2024.

Northfield has now advanced to the Class A tournament in 2022 and 2023 and this year also marked the third time in team history that the Raiders have played in the state tournament up in St. Paul. Of note, Northfield also advanced to the Class A finals in 2017.

Statistically speaking, senior Jake Geiger led Northfield this season with 64 points and 38 assists. Senior Kam Kaiser led the Raiders with 37 goals and also had 57 points, while senior Cayden Monson ranked second on the team with 60 points and 37 assists. As a team, Northfield outscored its opponents 152-59 in 2023-24.

In goal, Northfield junior Max Frank had four shutouts and a 1.72 goals against average with a 14-5-1 record while senior Trey Shimota had a 2.06 GAA and a 9-1-1 record.

As the Raiders look ahead to next year, they will face the task of replacing departed seniors Geiger, Kaiser, Monson, Shimota, Andrew Winter, Barrett Bradley, Ty Frank, Cooper Rand and Sam Boardman. The senior accounted for five of the team’s top 10 point producers this winter but the Raiders will have strong potential in 2024-25 with return of key players Will Cashin (11g/22a), Michael Steward (7g/17), Ben Geiger (2g/21a), Bridger Riley (1g/18a) and Griffin Kennelly (11g/7a) along with Max Frank in goal.

Loss to St. Cloud Cathedral

Wednesday afternoon officially marked the Northfield boys hockey team’s second straight appearance on the ice inside the Xcel Energy Center for the Class A boys hockey state tournament.

The Raiders have had some recent history against St. Cloud Cathedral and the two Class A top 10 ranked teams clashed in the quarterfinal round. Despite a game-tying goal in the first period, the Crusaders pulled away with a 5-1 victory over Northfield.

Prior to the two squads meeting on the Xcel Energy Center ice for the Class A quarterfinals, they met at the Bloomington Ice Garden earlier in the season, which ended with a 4-2 victory for the Crusaders.

On top of that, St. Cloud Cathedral ended Northfield’s season last year after the Crusaders beat the Raiders 3-1 during the Class A consolation semifinals. St. Cloud Cathedral went on to win the consolation championship.

“We’ve had a couple past good battles with them,” said senior forward Kam Kaiser. “I think when we drew them, we were pretty excited to get one more shot. You don’t really get multiple shots at a team. They’re a great team and we’ve had some good battles in recent years.”

The two teams had an idea of what they were going to see in the first round of the state tournament, but things didn’t get off to the start that Northfield was hoping for.

Just under 20 seconds into the game, the puck got chipped down into Northfield territory and junior goaltender Max Frank attempted to clear the puck. However, St. Cloud’s point leader John Hirschfeld was the one that immediately got the puck and scored for a quick St. Cloud Cathedral lead.

It didn’t take very long for the Raiders to get over St. Cloud’s quick goal as senior forward and Northfield’s second-leading point scorer Cayden Monson tied things up a few minutes later.

Monson got the puck along the boards, wrapped around the goal, got the puck around a defender and rifled a shot past St. Cloud’s standout goaltender Nick Hansen for an unassisted, game-tying goal.

The Raiders had a chance to take control of things late in the first period with a power play opportunity following a hooking minor on the Crusaders. St. Cloud’s aggressive penalty kill wiped off nearly a minute and a half of the power play before Northfield found a couple of chances.

“Obviously it’s not where we wanted to end,” Monson said. “But I’m very proud of all the guys that I’ve been able to play with over the past couple of years. Not where we wanted to end up, but I’m very happy we got here in the first place. It’s pretty cool to end here even if it’s not where we wanted to be at the end of the day.”

No power play goal went in and they remained tied up until the halfway point of the second period. Landon Swenson scored an even-strength goal for the Crusaders and the snowball started rolling downhill against Northfield.

St. Cloud Cathedral got its first chance at a power play and scored just over a minute later thanks to its leading goal scorer Joey Gillespie. A second power play chance for the Crusaders resulted in a second power play goal early into the third period.

“Competitive through the mid-second period and I thought we had some decent jump at the end of the first period,” said Northfield head coach Mike Luckraft. “They started getting some momentum and scored two power play goals that kind of put a dent in a little bit of the momentum.”

Gillespie sealed St. Cloud Cathedral’s win over Northfield with one last goal later into the period as the Raiders drop into the Class A consolation semifinals for the second straight year.

Although the Raiders are still looking to take that next step towards getting past the Class A quarterfinals and inching closer to a state title, their second consecutive appearance in the state tournament has only added to the optimism with the Northfield hockey community.

Prior to the boys winning the Section 1A title and reaching the Class A tournament, the Northfield girl’s team won the Section 1AA title and recently competed in the Class AA girls state tournament.

And while the Raiders’ high school teams step onto the ice for the pinnacle of high school hockey, the youth hockey players sit front-and-centered to cheer them on as the future of Northfield hockey.

“It’s great just seeing the success that Northfield hockey in all has been having,” Kaiser said. “We obviously play for the guys in the room, but I think we play for the community too. Just having success and having the younger kids see this. The girls programs, the guys programs, it’s just something we want to keep on having.”

“Our bantam team was a game away from state this year, our PeeWee team was ranked in the top five all year long,” Luckraft added. “There’s some youth players feeding off the same success of our high school program, the leadership and they’re here (at the game) today.”