Mason Kraft and Leo Gabriel were rocking the orange and black colors of their respective programs, Moorhead and White Bear Lake, Sunday at the St. Paul RiverCentre.
They were the colors of champions as both received the most coveted award in Minnesota for their respective positions: Kraft became the 41st Mr. Hockey recipient, while Gabriel took home the Frank Brimsek Award for the senior goalie of the year.
New this year were commemorative hockey sticks provided by HKY IQ, complete with the players’ senior season stats. For Kraft, his near-record state tournament performance required a HKY IQ representative to wake up a little early Sunday to add five points to Kraft’s total of 95.
Kraft scored one for continuity following Saturday’s first Class 2A state tournament victory for long-suffering Moorhead, a community that endured losing all previous eight state championship games it played in, a slump that started in 1992 and most recently continued in 2017.
Kraft, without prompting, told the assembled media, “If you ever have the option to stay or leave [before senior year], I think you should always come back and play high school hockey and play one more year with your buddies. You never get this time back. There’s not a better place in the country to play than Minnesota.”
The other nine Mr. Hockey semifinalists were Nolen Geerdes (Rogers) Star Tribune All-Minnesota Player of the Year John Hirschfeld (St. Cloud Cathedral), Mason Jensen (Rogers), Henry Lechner (Holy Angels), Jackson Rudh (St. Thomas Academy), Boden Sampair (Hill-Murray), Cooper Simpson (Shakopee), Brent Solomon (Champlin Park) and Josh Toll (Rosemount).
The other two Frank Brimsek Award finalists were Luke Marsalek (Holy Angels) and Charlie Stenehjem (Moorhead).
“During my high school career, I always had the idea of being one of the top guys,” Gabriel said. “But there was a point earlier this season where I gave up 12 goals in four games (from Jan. 30 through Feb. 4) and all hell kind of broke loose.”
