Non-competitive games: There are more one-sided games in high-school hockey than in the Olympic women's tournament. The very best players are likely to sit out the third period of a slaughter of an out-matched school.

Wide disparity of talent on teams: You're likely to see a prospect a year from Division I on the ice with a petrified freshman team-mate. Often, the best prospects play down to the level of their team-mates.

Short season: With Canadian juniors you have 60-plus games to view players. With high-schoolers you're looking at little more than a third of that. When you weed out the non-competitive games, all of a sudden you're looking at only five or six opportunities to get a decent read of a talented kid.

Scheduling: Scouts know that if there are two games worth seeing on a given day, their games are going to be scheduled at the same time 50 miles apart.

You'll have to forgive me for walking out in the third period of one game, a blow-out. That said, I left only after seeing a dozen scouts speed-walking to the exits in the second intermission.

You'll have to forgive me for not seeing all the top Minnesotans listed by NHL Central Scouting Service. I didn't see Warroad center Brock Nelson (CSS's No. 17). Driving out to catch him would have taken up a day by itself and would have meant missing several other prospects. And I didn't get out to Faribault to see Shattuck's prep and its top prospect, forward Joe Basaraba. Again, a scheduling issue.

Thursday night: Minnetonka 9, Minneapolis West 0

Section 6AA Quarter-final

This was opening-round game could have been 15-0 very easily if not for a Mpls West goaltender who was kept his finger in the dike. Mpls West was a ragtag assortment of underclassmen. I counted a dozen NHL scouts in attendance but they beat it after two periods, knowing that they'd have another chance to see Max Gardiner in the second-round on the weekend. It wasn't a good game to measure Gardiner (No. 36 on CSS's mid-term list of North American skaters). Do you really need to see him line up against kids in Grade 9 or 10? This was Exhibit One in the case you'd make for high school being the toughest category for scouts. You couldn't fault Gardiner for not playing with any sort of physical edge -- being a head taller and 30 pounds heavier than a lot of the other kids, he had to be careful not to hurt anyone.

The dope on Gardiner from one scout in attendance: "He looks like a good athlete and he looks fast out there -- thing is, he's not a strong skater. Herky jerky. A bag of toys. Some puck skills but I don't see him as a center ... he projects as a winger."

I bailed out in the third period.

Gardiner's game grade: INC

Gardiner's prospect grade: INC

Friday night: Denver University 3, Minnesota State 1 at Mankato, Minn.

The player of interest here is Tyler Pitlick, a freshman center from Centerville, Minn. No. 21 on CSS's mid-term list of North American skaters, Pitlick played at Centennial last year, racking up 31 goals and 33 assists in 25 games. This year he's by far the best thing that a sub-.500 Minnesota State team has to offer. Pro-sized at 6-foot-1 .5 and 194 pounds, Pitlick is a pretty dynamic kid. As a skater he's an A or A-minus. This is remarkable because his uncle is former NHL defenseman Lance Pitlick, one of the ugliest skaters that you would find outside a beer league.

Denver had a bunch of NHL draftees in their line-up, led by Boston's 2008 first-rounder Joe Colborne. ('Broons GM Pete Chiarelli was in attendance.) Maybe the Mavericks looked at this as a moral victory but, truth be told, DU didn't play that well and didn't have to. Pitlick's game isn't helped by the over-sized ice surface at the home arena. In fact, he does his best work in traffic -- along the boards on the cycle, weaving through bodies in front of the net. In contrast, Colbourne hung out on the perimeter rather than going hard to the net to impose himself on play. It's easy to project Pitlick being a more effective player in major-junior or NHL-sized rinks than he is on the big sheet at MSU's barn. I gave him points for play without the puck -- he was aware and responsible on the backcheck. I also had a sense that he was reined in a bit by the team system --not that he was jittery or tentative, just that, on at least one opportunity to break out he headed to the bench to end a very short shift. I suspect a little freelance in his game wouldn't hurt.

More scouts made it out to this game -- more than 20. One gave this thumbnail on Pitlick: "He makes good decisions out there and sees the ice really well. A playmaking center with a heavy shot. He's showing a well-rounded game and is playing a level way up from the high school kids [in the draft class."

I was inclined to give Pitlick's full marks after the first game of the two-game set -- reports from the second game (complete with a shout-out to the blog) only confirmed my first impression.

Pitlick's game grade: A-

Pitlick's prospect grade: A

Saturday noon: Blaine 9, Coon Rapids 0

The top pro prospect in the Minnesota high school ranks is Blaine's Nick Bjugstad (No. 12 on CSS's mid-term list), a center who's almost 6-foot-4 and just under 190 pounds. Even in a lousy game like this, Bjugstad's talent is hard to miss. He picked up a couple of goals including a highlight-reel special in the second period -- he was practically carrying a defenseman on his back while crashing the net and dekeing the netminder. In contrast to Gardiner, Bjugstad is an A-plus skater. The Blaine coach called off the dogs in the third period and sat Bjugstad, which didn't matter a whole lot to the scouts in attendance. They had seen an eyeful in the first 34 minutes.

"He projects as a winger," said a scout who was seeing Bjugstad for the third time this winter. "He has an all-around game ... does pretty well everything at a high level. The question for me is why would he want to come back and play here rather than move to the USHL or to major junior or Ann Arbor [the USDT]."

I asked Bjugstad just that after the game. He said that he wanted to "come back to Blaine and play with my buddies and become a leader on the team." Scouts would prefer that he made his hockey decisions based on development rather than sentiment but they also understand that the pull of playing for your school -- and your father's school, etc. -- and going to the state tournament is ingrained in the hockey culture of Minnesota. For Bjugstad, he was thinking more about Minnesota's Mr. Hockey title rather than the NHL draft. The scouts can shrug that off with a kid who'll play at 6-feet-5 and 220 pounds. (They might have a harder time shrugging off the idea that he's planning to enroll at the University of Minnesota in 2011.)

Bjugstad's name might sound familiar -- his uncle was a NHLer. (The story on Nick and Blaine teammates is found in this Star-Tribune story.)

Bjugstad was interviewed by one of the lottery teams last week and their scouting director compared him to Ryan Getzlaf. Imagine Ryan Getzlaf playing in a loop where some kids are so skinny that you think they forgot their shin pads -- that will give you an idea of the havoc that Bjugstad wreaks at this level. It will be interesting to see how he fares if USA Hockey taps him for the under-18 team that will defend the world title in Minsk in April--it's a huge jump in class from most of the high school games that he plays. A good showing there might move him into the top ten. It will certainly give scouts a clearer read on him.

Bjugstad's game grade: A-minus

Bjugstad's prospect grade: A

Saturday 3:30 p.m.: Minnetonka 3, Benilde-St Maragret's 1

OK, let's try this again, Max Gardiner once more. B-SM put up a heckuva fight in this one. And though he scored the third goal late in the game, Gardiner did not have a huge impact through the first 40 minutes or so. He was flattened in the open ice by B-SM defenceman Ryan Palm late in the first period and that seemed to wake him up for a while -- on the next shift Gardiner leveled an unfortunate freshman to set up a two-on-one. Still, Gardiner didn't figure in the first two goals and B-SM did a nice job nullifying him. I wouldn't be shocked if another Minnetonka player, defenseman Justin Holl (CCS's No. 54), ends up going ahead of Gardiner on draft Saturday. Check that -- based on this game, I'd be shocked if Holl didn't go ahead of Gardiner. The tight and tense game was a better showcase for the neat and tidy Holl than his more heralded teammate. Scouts were a little twitchy when asked about Holl -- a fair indicator of what they hope is stealth interest.

"Holl has looked better as the season goes along," a Minnesota-based scout said. "He's a nice skater and has a nice feel for the game. You couldn't tell so much today because he didn't take off and go, but he has really good speed."

Both Gardiner and Holl are headed to the University of Minnesota next fall. I suspect that the learning curve for Gardiner will be tougher for him to negotiate than Holl's step up.

Gardiner's game grade: B-minus

Gardiner's prospect grade: B

Holl's game grade: B-plus

Holl's prospect grade: B-plus

Saturday 8 p.m.: Woodbury 2, Cretin-Derham 1

Mark Alt is an interesting story and a big-time projection for NHL scouts. CSS has Alt No. 37 in North America but I guarantee that the 36 players ahead of him and virtually everyone below him have played more hockey than him. "It's going to be interesting to see what he can do down the line because he has never played more than four or five months of hockey in any year growing up," says his coach Jim O'Neill.

Alt has always split his attention between hockey and football. The last two autumns he has quarterbacked Cretin-Derham to state championship games, winning the title as a senior. His father is former Pro Bowl offensive lineman with Kansas City. Even after the younger Alt committed to the University of Minnesota for hockey next fall he was looking at his college football options. He has given off different signals at different times -- saying that his decision will ride on how early he's selected in the NHL entry draft this June. Not exactly what scouts want to hear. Saturday night, though, Alt said the matter is settled and that he was heading to Minnesota. "It's just good to have that out of the way," he said. Well, maybe for him. He's going to face some tough questions at the combine about his intention -- no team is going to want to invest a pick in a kid who's the least bit uncertain about dedicating himself to the game.

Alt's hockey seasons have been short but this one was the shortest. He managed to break his collarbone (his non-throwing shouder) in October, rushed back to lead the team to the state title and re-broke his shoulder once more, cutting weeks off his hockey season. Given all his background and bloodlines, you'd expect Alt to be big and raw. That would only be half right. He's big, pro-sized at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds. He's also surprisingly skilled and possesses a great shot. "He's all upside but he's difficult to project," one scout said. "You can look and see top four D upside, powerplay skill. Or maybe this is all there is and he doesn't like the game enough."

I managed to catch what turned out to be the final game of Alt's high-school hockey career, a loss to a Woodbury team that C-D soundly beat a couple of weeks before. It wasn't a glorious game for Alt -- a dozen or so NHL scouts made it out to the State Fair Coliseum to see the second-round contest. Twice in the first 10 minutes he went to sleep on dangling wingers and was beaten with 100-foot stretch passes to set up breaks. Woodbury must have spotted something in game video. Alt struggles didn't end there. The game was still scoreless midway through the second period when Alt took a hooking penalty -- he was a little lazy and a step behind marking a forward who shouldn't have bothered him at all. Cretin-Derham had dominated play to that point but when Woodbury scored with Alt in the box, the game turned around. Woodbury added another to carry a 2-0 lead in the third period. Alt's game was a mixed bag -- there were a few flashes of puck skill, tape-to-tape passes, textbook skating, but there was also a blown tire on a rush and a reluctance to jump up and take charge. Alt picked up an assist on a goal in that late going that offered some hope for C-D but that was the only breach of Woodbury's disciplined defense.

After the game Alt said that he was planning to join the Chicago Steel of the USHL for the last ten games of the season and hoped to make a better impression with scouts leading up to the combine. Alt will go to the draft combine and have his collarbone checked. It shouldn't be an issue. The bigger questions loom. How committed is he? How do we know that you won't change your mind.

Alt's game grade: C

Alt's prospect grade: B-plus