We are back today with the best returning forwards in the Central Lakes conference. The Central Lakes conference contains Alexandria, Windom, Brainerd, Fergus Falls, River Lakes, St. Cloud, Sartell- St. Stephen, Sauk Rapids-Rice, Willmar. This conference has some very solid returning forwards, and a couple that are in our Prep Hockey class rankings! In this article, we take a look at the top returning forwards in this conference, and there are three players that I think are worthy of recognition of the best returning. Let us break it down below highlighting the players and saying why they are the best.
1. Isaac Johnson Isaac Johnson 5'10" | Forward Fergus Falls | 2023 State MN | Forward | Class of 2023 | Fergus Falls High School
The top returning forward in the conference is the leading player in points from last year. Johnson had a very solid sophomore season where he finished with 21 goals, 15 assists for 36 points. Johnson also averaged an astonishing 1.89 points per game, and he was a big factor in why his team was so successful last season. Johnson is currently ranked as the number 17 player in our class of 2023 class, we have some pretty high expectations for this really solid player. Another player on this Fergus Falls team that is among the top returning players is incoming senior Michael DeBrito Michael DeBrito 5'9" | Forward Fergus Falls | 2022 State MN . DeBrito (Is technically #2 on this list) had 36 points last year with 19 goals and 17 assists. He is also our 29th best player according to our class of 2022 rankings. He only gets a mention in Johnsons paragraph because we want to cover other players from other teams. FF could have all 3 players on this list with Johnson, DeBritio and Zierden, but that is no fun for other players as Prep Hockey has given all 3 of those players love in our rankings. This Fergus Falls team is loaded this year.
2. Tory Lund Tory Lund 5'10" | Forward Sartell | 2023 State MN | Forward | Class of 2023 | Sartell St. Stephen High School
Tory Lund Tory Lund 5'10" | Forward Sartell | 2023 State MN is the second best player not on Fergus Falls returning to this conference this season. Lund finished his junior season with 10 goals and 17 assists for 27 points. Lund is one of the top playmaking forwards in the state as he finished with an assist in 12/19 of his games last season. He averaged 1.46 points last season, and should do even better this year. I expect to see him have around the same assists this season maybe more, but I would love to see his goal scoring go up. In two games last year against the conference champ Fergus Falls.. Lund had a very impressive 6 points (4 A, 2 G). Definitely the top playmaking forward in this conference this year.
3. Josiah Gronholz | Forward | Class of 2022 | Alexandria
Not a for sure if he will be back for his senior season, but if so he automatically is a top 3 candidate. Right now Gronholz is on the Alexandria Blizzard NA3HL team, and we do not have any insight if he will be back. It makes sense that he comes back, but nowadays you just never know. Gronholz will hold this 3 spot if he comes back, because of his scoring ability. Last season in just 18 games he had 17 goals- almost a goal every game. With that he also had 11 assists, making him total 28 points last season. We hope he comes back this season, as he is a very fun player to cover and he will make his Alexandria squad a lot better, We will find out in a month.