On Wednesday, a season of almost daily battles paid off for East Grand Forks.

The Green Wave were a sub-.500 team during the regular season. Not because they weren’t talented. Their schedule was just that difficult.

Their bumpy regular-season road — they finished the season going 2-7-1 over their final 10 games — began to pay dividends in the postseason.

They won three in a row to win Section 8, including a 3-2 overtime victory over Warroad in the finals.

They carried that momentum into Wednesday night, playing disciplined defensive hockey and excelling on special teams, to earn a 3-0 victory over Northern Lakes and its living legend coach, Mike Randolph.

“ There was times when personally I was questioning putting that schedule together,” said head coach Tyler Palmiscno. “But I think you're seeing the fruits of that a little bit.  We were never able to take a night off, through 25 regular-season games.”

The Green Wave used superior special teams play to earn the victory. They got power-play goals from Jace Van Eps and Jace Panzer and successfully killed off every man advantage the Lightning had.

“When you look at the boxscore, we were 2-for-2 on the power play and they were 0-for-4 on theirs,” Palmiscno said. “That was the difference right there.”

Randolph, in his first year at Northern Lakes, admitted the Lightning power play lacked electricity. 

“Our special teams weren’t good tonight,” he said. “Normally, were a 31 percent power play. But for some reason, we didn’t have it.”

East Grand Forks relied on its special teams to defeat Northern Lakes 3-0 in the final Class 1A quarterfinal of the day.

After a scoreless and evenly played first period, East Grand Forks took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Jace Van Eps in the second period. The Green Wave built the lead to 2-0 when Jace Panzer converted on another power play in the third period.

They also killed off all three penalties they took, including a five-minute boarding call in the third period.

East Grand Forks sealed the victory with an empty-net goal by Tucker Lovejoy at 15:29 of the final period.

Sophomore goalie Noah Schindele made 24 saves to earn the shutout for East Grand Forks, which improved to 14-13-2.

East Grand Forks killed off the five-minute disadvantage. It took Northern Lakes a while to get going, but the Lighting were buzzing by the end of the penalty.

Another power-play goal for East Grand Forks. Sophomore forward Panzer knocked in a pass across the crease for a 2-0 Green Wave lead.

Northern Lakes is on a power play after a five-minute boarding penalty by East Grand Forks' Cooper Hills

Hockey is a way of life on the Iron Range, with the ultimate goal being a trip to St. Paul and a state tournament berth.
So, when Hibbing/Chisholm ended a 15-year tourney drought with back-to-back victories over Hermantown and Cloquet/Esko/Carlton, both ranked ahead of the Bluejackets, to win the Section 7 championship, the response from the community was beyond excited.

The Bluejackets players and coaches spent the week soaking in plaudits from the thrilled community.

Bluejackets forward Ben Galli, who was credited with a goal in the Bluejackets' 7-0 victory over Luverne, said the response from the Hibbing fans and supporters was “absolutely huge."

"All week has just been everyone just bonding together,” Galli said. “I know a bunch of local businesses supported with kind of a fan bus to bring other students down here. A couple of local businesses served us dinner during the week.”

Hibbing/Chisholm coach Aaron Jamnick said the victories over two top teams to get to the tournament paid dividends for a team that hadn’t been there in more than decade.

“All year we played a lot of great teams,” Jamnick said. “When these guys play together, we're rolling three lines. Everyone's going for each other. Our best game of the year was against Hermantown. And when we play like that, we’re tough to beat.”

After two periods, East Grand Forks leads 1-0. Northern Lakes put on a lot of pressure in the latter stages of the second period.

East Grand Forks is on the board first on a power-play goal by Van Eps. He swept the puck into the net on a rebound of a shot by Cole Schmiedberg at 13:13.

A pair of sophomore goalies are standing tall tonight. Both Northern Lakes' Sam Suja and East Grand Forks' Noah Schindele have looked confident and sharp.

No score after an evenly played first period between Northern Lakes and East Grand Forks. The Lightning outshot the Green Wave 10-8.

Northern Lakes has a familiar name behind the bench: Mike Randolph, famed longtime coach at Duluth East. He's the winningest coach in Minnesota high school hockey history with 725 career victories.