Last February, when Hill-Murray players raised the program’s third Class 2A state championship trophy, a quick skim down their tournament roster might have made opposing teams wary.

The Pioneers were only graduating four seniors, and their forward line of sophomores Emily Pohl, Jaycee Chatleain and Elliana Engelhardt — dubbed “the green line” — scored 10 of the 15 goals the Pioneers put up against Andover, Rosemount and Edina in last year’s state tourney.

Hill-Murray had two more seasons with one of the state’s most formidable lines before its players went on to play in college: Chatleain to the Gophers, Engelhardt to Minnesota State Mankato and Pohl to Wisconsin.

Early in the 2025-26 season, however, the Pioneers coaches split them up.

Ahead of the playoffs, though, the trio were reunited. Coach John Pohl estimates his green line, which started playing together as freshmen, has only played together in eight of this season’s 27 games.

Chatleain, Engelhardt and Emily Pohl said that they, and the Pioneers, are more dangerous because of their time apart on the ice. They’re 23-3-1 and the No. 1 seed in this year’s Class 2A tournament. Hill-Murray plays No. 8 seed Lakeville North in the 2A quarterfinals at 11 a.m. Feb. 19.

“They split us up until basically Christmas,” Emily Pohl said. Pohl has 46 points this season, Chatleain 48, and Engelhardt 35. “They put us back together. And if it works, it works, and if other line combinations work better, then we go with those.”

Some of the retooling was out of necessity. Sophomore forward Gwynn Skoogman was out with a knee injury for all but eight games of the regular season, and once she returned, Emily was missing from the forward group for four games, away winning gold with the U-18 U.S. national team alongside teammate and junior defender Addy McLay.

Some of the mix-and-match was luxury, too. The Pioneers have the depth to interchange lines of forwards for the sake of folding younger forwards into the team, developing new skills for veteran skaters and finding new combinations of scoring options.

Senior Sophie Olson is a St. Cloud State commit. Freshmen Hannah Rychley, who played at Forest Lake last season, and Anna Pohl — Emily’s younger sister — lead the team in points.

“We’re all high-level players,” Chatleain said. “We use that to our advantage, and we build that with the other lines that we play throughout the season.”

John Pohl, a former Gopher and NHL player who serves as the Pioneers’ co-head coach alongside wife, former Gopher and two-time U.S. Olympian Krissy Wendell-Pohl, said that the practice of dismantling a team’s top-scoring line isn’t “all that common in high school hockey.”

But “in all defense, it’s easy for us to do it because we have a lot of very, very talented players,” John said.

“I mean this with all due respect, the regular season is skill development and getting kids better, and then towards the end of the regular season is when we really gear up,” he added.

In mid-January, the Pioneers tied against Warroad and lost to Breck, two of the best teams in Class 1A. John said this year’s team wasn’t firing on all its cylinders until a 5-3 win over Holy Family on Jan. 24.

Their trio of juniors opened the scoring in their 5-1 Section 4 championship win over Woodbury with Engelhardt dropping a no-look pass to Chatleain, who buried the first-period goal.

“Even when we’re not necessarily calling for it, we all know how we each play,” said Engelhardt.

The puzzle the Pioneers faced may have seemed to have an obvious answer, but they hope the time spent patiently tinkering with it will pay off in the state tournament.

“Every year since we’ve been coaching here,” John Pohl said, “if you would ask me what our lineup is going to be in the beginning of the year, what is it at the end of the year, I would always get it wrong.”