The rankings are out, and the queen of the Class 2A girls' hockey mountain is a team that didn't even advance to the state tournament last winter.

Target, meet the backs of the Minnetonka Skippers.

"A bit surprised," Minnetonka coach Eric Johnson said last week after Let's Play Hockey magazine released its preseason poll and put the Skippers at No. 1. "But we know we have some good senior leadership and some great talent. So we anticipated being somewhere in the top 10. It sounds cliché, but we want to focus on the ranking at the end of the year, not the one now."

Fair enough. And while a ranking is just a number written on paper, it does come with some prestige.

But does it matter?

"The rankings do not come up in the [section tournament] seeding meetings," Johnson said. "It doesn't matter if it's this publication or that publication. What is brought up -- and what we care about -- is wins and losses and head-to-head competition. All a ranking does is give motivation to the underdog."

While the Skippers have that top spot right now, they also have a little unfinished business of their own.

Hopkins, a natural rival anyway, knocked Minnetonka out of the Class 2A, Section 6 tournament, winning 1-0 in the championship game. The teams split a pair of regular-season matchups.

That game is in the past, but with a bona fide Ms. Hockey candidate in defenseman Rachel Ramsey and one of the state's best goaltenders in Julie Friend, the Skippers' plan is to roll through this season.

"We're coming out to win," said Ramsey, a future Gopher who is already Minnetonka's career scoring leader with 130 points (64 goals, 66 assists), mostly as a defenseman. "Everybody wanted that state tournament -- that state championship -- last year. We have a lot of seniors now that don't want to go out without that. This year is the year for us."

In the section final loss last year, Minnetonka pressed the entire game and wound up with 40 shots on goal. Hopkins was the only team to fit one through, though, winning 1-0 on Mari Mankey's sixth goal of the year.

Friend made 16 saves in that game and finished the season with a .954 saves percentage and a 1.10 goals-against average. She had seven shutouts.

Those numbers are top notch, and they helped Friend earn a scholarship to St. Cloud State University. But there is a clear mission to get something special done in the coming months before she and the four other seniors call it a high school career.

In anticipation of the start of this season, Friend helped establish a countdown calendar on the locker room door at the beginning of the school year.

"You can see an excitement level for all of us," Friend said. "It's important for us to come out right away and just fly."

The season starts Friday, where that No. 1 ranking will be put to the test in a home game against No. 4 Hill-Murray.

"All of us are looking forward to seeing what we can do," Friend said. "We know what we're capable of. The rest of it? We only worry about what we can control."

In the section final loss last year, Minnetonka pressed the entire game and wound up with 40 shots on goal. Hopkins was the only team to fit one through, though, winning 1-0 on Mari Mankey's sixth goal of the year.

Friend made 16 saves in that game and finished the season with a .954 saves percentage and a 1.10 goals-against average. She had seven shutouts.

Those numbers are top notch, and they helped Friend earn a scholarship to St. Cloud State University. But there is a clear mission to get something special done in the coming months before she and the four other seniors call it a high school career.

In anticipation of the start of this season, Friend helped establish a countdown calendar on the locker room door at the beginning of the school year.

"You can see an excitement level for all of us," Friend said. "It's important for us to come out right away and just fly."

The season starts Friday, where that No. 1 ranking will be put to the test in a home game against No. 4 Hill-Murray.

"All of us are looking forward to seeing what we can do," Friend said. "We know what we're capable of. The rest of it? We only worry about what we can control."