Forecheck one guy and leave the rest to cause mayhem in neutral ice. View purple and gold jerseys as a raging bull would a red flag — attack, attack, attack. Bump, jostle and grind, block shots then grind some more.

If there was a book on beating Cretin-Derham Hall, it would include all of those tenets. It would also come with a “Results Not Guaranteed” disclaimer.

White Bear Lake plays as gritty a game as any team in the state, features top-notch athletes at every position, all of them well-drilled on the importance of a defense-first approach.

Problem is, as much as you can’t teach speed, it can be impossibly difficult to neutralize it, too.

“They’re just fast,” longtime White Bear Lake assistant coach Chris Anderson said after Cretin-Derham Hall beat the Bears 4-1 on Saturday in the Suburban East Conference championship game at St. Paul’s Highland Arena. “They’re fast and they’ve got depth. If you’re gonna look at every championship team, what do they have? Speed and depth.”

While Saturday’s victory marked the third straight Suburban East Conference title for the Raiders, the plaque they received is a mere appetizer to their ultimate — and highly realistic — goal of winning a state Class 2A championship.

“I think we came to this game looking at it as kind of a building block,” junior defenseman Simon Hogue said. “I mean we got the trophy at the end of the game, but everyone was saying we’ve got bigger goals after this.”

The victory was the 15th straight for the Raiders, who have scored four or more goals in all but two of those wins and allowed more than two goals just twice during the streak. They started the week at No. 2 in Class 2A in Legacy’ Hockey’s Power Rankings, but two losses suffered last week by No. 1-2A Andover (one of two teams to beat the Raiders this season) coupled with Cretin-Derham Hall’s three-win week pushes the Raiders to No. 1 entering the final week of the regular season.

“We were super hyped before the game,” said Cretin-Derham Hall’s Drew Fisher, the team’s leading scorer and a prime candidate for the Mr. Hockey Award that goes to the state’s top senior skater, about playing for the conference title. “This isn't the main goal, but it's a big deal.”

Fisher is one of 12 Cretin-Derham Hall seniors, most of whom have been playing on the varsity for three seasons. He had a goal and an assist Saturday to push his season totals to 24 goals and 29 assists, both team highs. 

Fisher said playing White Bear Lake to end the regular season was an ideal primer for the playoffs (the Raiders end the regular season with a 21-3-0 record). White Bear Lake (13-8-0) won the Suburban East’s North Division. 

“Most of our top-10 competition was in the beginning of the year,” he said. “But then down the stretch here we've had Eden Prairie, Stillwater and White Bear Lake, which is definitely really good for setting us up for the playoffs.”

Cretin-Derham Hall coach Matt Funk reminded his players during Saturday’s game that the physical, unrelenting style of play deployed by White Bear Lake is what the Raiders are sure to see in the playoffs.

“He told us to just get used to it,” Fisher said. 

And the best way to beat such suffocating game plans?

“I think definitely our speed,” Fisher said. “I think we're arguably the fastest team in the state. And we can be gritty if we want to. We can be physical if we want to. But I think our speed and getting up and down the boards and getting shots on net is is definitely the key.”

Any discussion involving the playoffs and Cretin-Derham Hall needs to include the last few seasons, when the Raiders have had similarly impressive records (20-6-1 in 2019-20 and 18-2-0 last season) but have stalled in the semifinals of Section 6AA.

This year Cretin-Derham Hall, now in Section 3AA, played fewer conference games, in part because of the way the Suburban East was restructured with two divisions, and bolstered its schedule with several traditional top-20 programs. 

“I think we're really ready,” Hogue said. “We've been really battle tested this year and we've kind of shown that we can beat those good teams when we need to.”