Tech’s unlikely duo derails explosive Bulldog offense
It’s never to late to become a “scoring machine,” and it’s never too early to become a standout goaltender. Both theories were proven by Michigan Tech’s resilient young Huskies, when senior center Eli Vlaisavljevich and freshman goaltender Kevin Genoe collaborated to hand Minnesota-Duluth its most surprising loss of a strong first half.
The Huskies had a weekend off before resuming their quest to move up in the WCHA standings on Thanksgiving weekend, but they Genoe and Vlaisavljevich were reason enough for Tech to be thankful, upsetting Minnesota-Duluth for a split of their series in Duluth.
Not that it was easy. Nothing has come easy to the Huskies, whose lineup includes eight freshmen as coach Jamie Russell continues to shuffle and make up for gaps here and there. The first game at Duluth was a perfect ambush, put together mainly by Genoe, who was supurb to backstop a 3-2 Tech victory, even while UMD outshot the Huskies 50-19.
Genoe, who is from Qualicum Beach, a town on scenic Vancouver Island, 30 minutes from Nanaimo, is a youthful 19 after playing two years of junior hockey in Prince George, British Columbia. “I played both games against North Dakota, and had 40-some shots the first game,” Genoe said. “But this was the most shots I’ve faced. I don’t know if I ever had this many shots, anywhere. This is definitely one of the best games I’ve ever played.
“Our team did a fabulous job of blocking shots, and a couple of times I didn’t even see the shot. They had my back, and I had theirs.”
The DECC crowd, same as all WCHA arenas, can be tough on visiting players, especially goaltenders. And they were giving Genoe the usual heckles. But over in the corner, at the lower level, a cluster of Michigan Tech fans were seated together at the end where Genoe tended goal in the first and third periods. Genoe has a little ritual when time is out. He skated over to the left corner, circles, and comes back across the crease, careful to slide the back of his catching glove along the goal’s crossbar as he passes, then he skates to the right corner, circles and returns, sliding his goal stick along the crossbar as he heads back to the left corner — where the Tech fans were — in a long and loopy figure-8.
“It’s just something I do to keep relaxed,” said Genoe. “Having our fans right there was fantastic. They made me feel right at home.”
If being relaxed is responsible for his 48 saves and the 3-2 victory, Russell and the Huskies will take it.
Tech led 1-0 after one period, as senior Malcolm Gwilliam notched his sixth goal of the season on a power play. UMD gained a 1-1 tie on Jack Connolly’s goal in the second period, also on a power play, and Mike Seidel lifted UMD to a 2-1 lead in the third period, and it appeared Genoe’s gymnastics would go for naught.
However, Steven Seigo, a freshman defenseman who had been chipping in assists in recent weeks, connected for his first goal to tie the game 2-2. Then, with only 5:03 remaining, Vlaisavljevich scored a goal of opportunity after a dazzling 3-on-0 rush, and Tech had claimed its 3-2 lead. Genoe and the scrambling Tech defenders took over then and weathered UMD’s charge to the finish of the first victory for Michigan Tech in Duluth in four years.
Tech’s inability to generate much offense at Duluth didn’t matter, as long as Genoe kept the explosive Bulldogs harnessed. After Seigo’s goal tied it 2-2, the Huskies still held their discipline and didn’t mount any pressure. With six minutes left, the puck went back to the UMD defensemen, who backed into their zone as they prepared to attack against Tech’s fourth line.
Brady Lamb, a solid sophomore, suddenly fell as he backed up with the puck. He landed with a thud, and as the puck squirted loose, Vlaisavljevich hopped over him and gained possession. “I was coming up the ice and I saw the bobble,” Vlaisavljevich said. “I jumped over him and as I moved in, I heard Ryan Bunger calling, so I gave the puck back to him and went for the net. He made a great pass up ahead to Seth Soley.”
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Soley, deep on the right side, one-timed a relay across the goal-mouth, and Vlaisavljevich had an easy tap in at the left edge for the winning goal. Vlaisavljevich, who could visit a daytime TV game show to buy a couple of vowels, grew up in suburban Shoreview, Minn., the son of a hockey-playing dad from Eveleth’s Iron Range hotbed of decades past. Eli, as his teammates are quick to call him, played at Lincoln in the USHL before coming to Tech.
He got a kick out of being accused of turning into a scoring machine. When he came to Tech, he scored a goal at Vermont on the Huskies first road trip. During the ensuing three years, he had remained a steady, consistent worker who didn’t score, but was a valuable worker-bee at Tech. As a senior, he scored a goal against North Dakota on November 6, and Tech’s next series was in Duluth, when he scored undoubtedly the biggest goal of his college career.
“A scoring machine?” he laughed. Well, it was explained, it may have taken four years, but that goal meant he had scored at a goal-per-weekend clip. And, all humor aside, for having not gotten a shot for what seemed like hours, the fourth line executed that 3-on-0 with perfect precision and three tic-tac-toe passes. The shots at that moment were 47-18, but Tech led 3-2. The final shots read 50-19, but Tech held on for the 3-2 victory, thanks to Genoe. “On the smaller rinks, you’ve got to be able to make plays in close quarters,” said Vlaisavljevich. “When our goalie is playing that well, you’ve got to find a way to win.”
The next night, things didn’t go Tech’s way. Lamb made up for his inadvertent turnover the night before by scoring a pair of goals, the second of which made it 3-0 for UMD early in the second period, and Russell pulled Genoe, who had been nicked for three goals on 19 shots, for Josh Robinson, who didn’t fare much better, giving up the last five goals on 29 shots. Justin Fontaine scored four goals himself for UMD to take over the national scoring lead with 11. UMD outshot the Huskies 48-18 in that one and UMD had all eight on the board before Brett Olson, a sophomore from across the bay in Superior, Wis., scored to make it 8-1. .
“We played a game that really showed our youth,” Russell said after the second game. “We lost Bunger with a concussion on what I thought was a hit from behind.”
There was no call on Cody Danberg’s heavy hit, but when Tech’s Ricky Doriott slammed into Danberg a few minutes later, Doriott was calledfor a major and DQ for a hit from behind. Russell wasn’t complaining about the officiating, but as it happened, he lost two regulars, and already had three defensemen skating at forward.
“Our goaltending wasn’t as stellar [in the second game],” Russell said. “But I really liked our first period tonight. We’re young and making progress each week. A split on the road is good for us, but obviously when you win Friday, you know you could be going home with a sweep.”
“Vlaisavljevich does a lot of things for us, and we were able to roll four lines against a good team that plays an aggressive style.”
As the rebuilding process continues, freshmen like Genoe and Seigo give hope for the future, and seniors like Gwilliam and Vlaisavljevich offer some veteran stability.
Besides, Vlaisavljevich not only is a good influence on his teammates, but the “scoring machine” just needs one more goal to get up to an average of a goal per year. As hot hands go, it’s better to be late than never.
Even upturn for Gophers has a downside as well
E-mail messages, Tweets and Twitters were buzzing. Nobody wanted to say anything too loudly, and University of Minnesota hockey coach Don Lucia wasn’t hitting any panic button, but after they had started 0-3-1, everyone was wondering: “What’s wrong with the Gophers?”
The biggest part of the problem was North Dakota and Denver, the teams rated the top two in the WCHA this season, and the teams Minnesota just happened to open against. An opening loss followed by a tie at Grand Forks wasn’t too bad, but then the Gophers came home to Mariucci Arena to face Denver, and the Pioneers posted a pair of stinging 3-0 shutouts on Minnesota, leaving the Golden Gophers 0-3-1, with all three losses by shutout.
The most stalwart Gopher boosters were overlooking the power of those first two opponents, but the Gophers themselves might have been looking ahead more than behind. Alaska-Anchorage came to Mariucci Arena, and while the Seawolves played well enough, the Gophers rallied from a 1-0 deficit to claim a 5-1 victory.
However, even when there was good news it wasn’t all good news. In the first Anchorage game, Minnesota freshman Nick Leddy, a No. 1 draft choice of the Minnesota Wild, was caught after shooting from center ice, and the shoulder-to-chin contact point of the bodycheck broke Leddy’s jaw. He should be back by mid-December.
The Gophers kept it together for a 3-1 Sunday victory and a much-needed sweep, but again the good news was offset by more bad news.
On the Tuesday after that series, Gopher senior winger Jay Barriball collided during a drill and suffered a knee injury that will require surgery on Friday — the day when the Gophers take the Kohl Center ice in Madison to face Wisconsin. Barriball, who scored his 100th career point against Anchorage, will yield his first-line positon and miss the rest of the season. He has been granted a medical red-shirt and could return to play next year.
Lucia has seen it all before, and knows that suffering over the past can’t help preparing for the future, and preparing to face the Badgers in Madison is always a compelling task.
“We have a lot of good players, and we have to have some of them step forward,” said Lucia. “I think we will. We opened 0-3-1, but look who we played. We have some nonconference commitments to play on Thanksgiving weekend and at Christmas time, so we couldn’t schedule any nonconference opponent before we went up to North Dakota. We didn’t play well in the first game up there, but we came back and got a tie the next night.
“Against Denver, our scoring chances against them were pretty even, but Denver played really well and Cheverie was very good. Our problem was that we didn’t score on the power play, and in this league, when teams average 2 or fewer even-strength goals a game, you have to get goals on your power play to win.
“The biggest thing is that we’ve made progress each week, but it hadn’t transferred to the games.”
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Although they have impressive manpower throughout the lineup, there have been a couple of focal points for the Gophers this season. One is junior goaltender Alex Kangas, while the scoring would have to come from Jordan Schroeder, a sophomore who became the team’s go-to gunner as a freshman last season, and Barriball, who is by far the top scorer in the Gopher program. After reaching 100 points on 38 goals and 62 assists, Barriball stands far ahead of the No. 2 career scorer on the roster, captain and coach’s son Tony Lucia, who has 26-33–59.
With Barriball out, the focus more clearly is on Schroeder, who was the preseason choice to be player of the year, but who started off slowly, much like his team. Last year, Schroeder centered Ryan Stoa and scored 13-32–45 for his rookie year.
“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Jordan Schroeder just turned 19,” said Don Lucia. “Ryan Stoa was a heck of a complement for him last year, and we know Jordan is the kind of player who likes to pass. We just have to find people to put with him who can score goals. Jordan got four assists last weekend, so we think he’s ready to go.”
In goal, Kangas was solid last season, but maybe a cut short of the exceptional level he had shown a year earlier, as a freshman. Despite the shaky 2-3-1 record, the coach says the goalie has played well, even when he alternated with sophomore Kent Patterson a couple weekends.
“Kangas has been terrific so far,” said Lucia, saying he played well enough last Friday to earn the Sunday start as well.
The question is, can the Gophers keep their momentum going and move up among the league leaders?
“All I know now is we lead the league in knee injuries,” Lucia said.
Minnesota’s ‘First Finn’ shuts down UMD women
Goaltending is not a shortcoming for the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team in this Olympic-depleted WCHA season, with returning sophomore Alyssa Grogan and junior Jenny Lura back and ready to go, So when coach Brad Frost decided to go with freshman Noora Raty in the Gophers big intrastate series against Minnesota-Duluth, it seemed curious at the outset.
It didn’t seem curious for long, as Raty allowed only one goal in a 3-1, 3-0 sweep over the Bulldogs at Ridder Arena — a sesries that might prove pivotal if the Gophers are to ultimately win the WCHA championship this season. Raty’s instant stardom at Minnesota emerged from two factors: Frost’s decision to go overseas to recruit for the first time, plus Finland’s decision to not centralize its 2010 Olympic team.
Minnesota, UMD, and perennial contender Wisconsin all lost key players to the standing national teams of the U.S., Canada, and Sweden, when the hockey federations from those three nations decided to gather their players for season-long training. Interestingly, the only previous time any women’s team was centralized was when the U.S. won the first-ever Olympic competition in 1998 at Nagano, Japan, and the U.S. cloistered its players at Lake Placid. After a long season that glowed with victory after victory, including repeated triumphs over Canada’s occasionally-assembled team, the U.S. brought its undefeated team to Mariucci Arena for the 1999 World Championships, where it lost to Canada in the gold medal game. So Team USA won every game it played, except the one it played the whole season to win.
This, then, is only the second time Team USA chose to spend the whole season together, and Canada and Sweden decided to do the same. Finland, however, chose to not centralize its players. After upsetting Sweden to win the bronze behind the traditional 1-2 of the U.S. and Canada last spring, Finnish officials realized that at this stage of women’s hockey, any national team would be hard-pressed to find regular competition that could match the intensity of WCHA games week after week.
Finland hockey officials were eager to have Raty and defenseman Mira Jalosuo come to Minnesota as freshmen, and Mariia Posa, another freshman defenseman, joined junior captain Saara Tuominen at UMD. They are not alone. Raty earned WCHA defensive player of the week honors for her play against UMD, and MSU-Mankato sophomore Emmi Leinonen was offensive player of the week with three goals and an assist last weekend, while freshman Minttu Tuominen of Ohio State was rookie of the week. So while Team USA took a well-deserved week off, three of Team Finland’s players were sweeping the weekly WCHA awards with exceptional performances.
Incidentally, Gopher sports information specialist Michelle Traen may also deserve all-WCHA status this season, because after dutifully putting out pronunciation guides for such names as Wendell, Darwitz, Curtin, Brodt, and Marvin over the last decade, she now must convince the media that Noora is “NEW-rah,” but Raty is actually pronounced “RAH-too.”
Until this season, the pronunciation challenge has mostly gone to UMD, because of coach Shannon Miller’s decade-long skill at recruiting elite European players to Duluth. This is Minnesota’s first venture “across the pond.” Along with Posa from Finland, Miller brought in Jennifer Harss, a skilled German freshman goaltender, and she also knew all about Raty, having tried to recruit her before Raty chose Minnesota over UMD and Ohio State.
The Bulldogs don’t need a pronunciation guide to remember Raty. The image of her, positioned low, with her glove held high, and the puck ensnared within, should be indelibly burned into their memories, at least until their rematch series in early February in Duluth.
Raty gloved all of the toughest UMD shots, and got her pads in the way of almost all the rest, making 22 saves in the first game and blocking all 29 in the second. She was beaten only when UMD senior Emmanuelle Blais knocked in a loose puck during a scramble in the first game, and that came with only 0 minutes left, and with Minnesota having three goals on the board. Raty wound up with 51 saves on 52 shots against the team most consider the Gophers top challenger this season.
Minnesota dominated the first two periods of the first game, but after rallying in the third period the first night, UMD played the Gophers evenly through two periods in the second game. “They started the way they finished the first game…and so did we,” said Frost. “Fortunately, when we were at our worst, Noora was at her best.”
Tuominen, UMD’s smart, hard-working center, is also the captain of Finland’s national team, and she was victimized by her future teammate on two first-game bullets high into Raty’s glove.
“I know Saara very well because she is captain of our national team,” said Raty, after the first game. “I’m enjoying playing college hockey, because I love playing when there is pressure. They started getting some shots in the last 10 minutes. Saara always tries to score on me in national team practice, and usually she tries to beat me high to the glove side. So I was anticipating that she’d shoot there.”
She couldn’t have anticipated that almost all the Bulldogs, while playing much for forcefully in the second game to trail only 1-0 after two periods, all seemed stubbornly determined to also shoot high to the glove side. UMD coach Miller knew all about Raty’s glove, and specifically provided video-enhanced evidence before the second game to indicate why the Bulldogs shouldn’t shoot high on Raty’s glove side. It didn’t work.
“The Gophers have the best talent in the league, and they’re much bigger and stronger than our players,” said Miller. “After the [second] game, our team was exhausted, but I told our players I was proud of how hard they played, and I thought we were the better team for the first two periods. But I also asked how many had followed the plan to shoot low, and only one player said, ‘I did, once.’ ”
In past years, the scenario of UMD’s success against the Gophers, and the propulsion for the Bulldogs’ unsurpassed four NCAA championships, has been the ability of Miller to recruit sensational goaltenders from across the Atlantic. The UMD goalie record book shows students from Finland (Tuula Puputti), Switzerland (Patricia Sautter and school victory and save record-holder Riitta Schaublin), and Sweden (Kim Martin) — each of whom led UMD to national championships while also starring for their homeland national teams. This season, with Martin gone to the gathered Swedish team, Miller landed Harss, a very skilled goaltender from Germany, who played well while being thoroughly challenged by 75 shots for the two games at Minnesota, and it might have been worthy of a weekly award if Raty hadn’t completely shut down the Bulldogs offense.
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The Gopher attack was alive in the first game. Anne Schleper’s first-period goal, Terra Rasmussen’s in the second, and a power-play goal by Sarah Erickson in the third — which gave her a nation-leading 6 goals at the time — was a minimal reward for Minnesota’s dominance. In the second game, the Bulldogs played much more assertively, but were done in by their inability to get past Raty, and also by their own power play. Emily West scored the game’s first goal on a shorthanded breakaway midway through the second period, and, after Kelli Blankenship found a rare opening in goal-mouth congestion to score early in the third, Chelsey Jones scored on another shorthanded breakaway to seal the 3-0 verdict,
Frost tried to brush aside any talk of his Gophers zooming into the favorite’s role, with Wisconsin having lost early games to both North Dakota and Bemidji State, and now UMD harnessed with two losses too, while the Gophers stand 4-0 atop the league.
“It’s still early,” Frost said. “The thing I love about us is that we’re a great TEAM. We have players like Sarah Erickson, who have been put into a role she didn’t need to play before, and has scored so well. But we expect everyone to contribute, and we’re going with three lines and six defensemen, and letting the game dictate.
“Our goaltending situation is interesting, and we’ll continue to evaluate it. Grogan played early, and Noora looked good, and then Noora played so well in practice, I decided to start her against UMD. I’m really happy for her to get a shutout. Not because a shutout was so important to her, but she doesn’t like to get scored on.”
Raabe comes home, makes Grandma’s his 1st win
DULUTH, MINN.—Christopher Raabe didn’t plan to break out in front of the field at Grandma’s Marathon Saturday, because setting a fast early tempo along Highway 61’s North Shore Drive invariably leads to a fade later in the race. It would be especially faulty this year, because it was too hot, and far too humid.
And yet, Raabe had to smile at the irony, because he did exactly what he didn’t intend to do, and won his first marathon because of it.
Raabe only intended to keep pace with a couple of African runners who broke ahead near the halfway point, he said, adding that he was surprised when he noticed a gap to the rest of over six thousand runners. More surprising, he somehow steadily extended his lead, and by the time he ran smoothly to the Canal Park finish line, Chris Raabe had won by a margin of three minutes and 23 seconds.
His time was 2 hours, 15 minutes, 13 seconds — a personal best — and he became the first Minnesotan to win Grandma’s since Dick Beardsley set the all-time Grandma’s record in 1982.
Charles Kanyao was second, leading the crew of hired-in African runners who normally dominate Grandma’s. As the temperature rose toward the 80s, catching a humidity figure already that high, the biggest news of the day was that a Minnesota native enjoyed the sweltering heat while some of Kenya’s top distance runners faded and faltered from weather better suited to the crowd that lined the 26.2-mile course starting at Two Harbors.
The weather also affected the women. Mary Akor collapsed into a wheelchair as soon as she staggered a bit after the finish line, but she won her third consecutive women’s title in 2 hours, 36 minutes and 52 seconds. Akor, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria, said she loves to run in hot weather, but she held on to win by six seconds — the second-closest women’s finish — because she knew “they’d have to revive me anyway.”
By winning, Akor duplicated the three-straight women’s titles of Lorraine Moller, an Olympian from New Zealand who ran — and won — her first marathon at Grandma’s in 1979, setting a record of 2:37:37. Moller went on to win seven consecutive marathons, returning to dominate Grandma’s. Akor was inspired to match Moller by dedicating her run to her father, who died unexpectedly in Nigeria last week.
While exhaustion slowed most of the runners, Raabe, who was born in Tyler, Minnesota, seems to have a lasting appreciation for the heat. “I’m always cold,” said Raabe, wearing what may have been the only knit cap in Canal Park over his close-shaved head after the run. That was a tip to his comfort level, possibly traceable to his chilly springs running track at Sauk Rapids High School, and later at North Dakota State University.
The Raabe family moved to Washington, D.C., where Chris is a patent examiner. He runs the streets of the nation’s capitol, including the monument-lined area near the White House. He insists he’s too old, at 30, to think about becoming a professional runner, and he’s quick to claim he was never a top track athlete, even though he reached the state track meet once. He said he decided to try marathons because “I couldn’t keep running 5K or 10K…I was too slow.”
Raabe’s first victory came in only his sixth marathon — half of which have been Grandma’s. Two years ago he was 12th, last year he was sixth, but he had no illusions of winning in his third try, over the course he used to visit while watching his dad run. In a role reversal, Bill Raabe ran the preliminary Garry Bjorklund Half-Marathon before witnessing his son’s fantastic feat. But as for his winning “strategy?” Forget it.
Chris Raabe said that when two African runners broke away, just before the halfway mark, he decided to go with them. After he edged ahead, he said, “I looked around, expecting to find one or both of them within 10 yards or so. When I noticed there was a gap, I thought I’d try to see how long I could maintain it.”
Kanyeo said he noticed when Raabe and the others moved ahead but chose to stay conservative. “I stayed with the pack,” Kanyeo said, “because they were going too fast. I was sure they couldn’t keep up that pace.”
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Raabe said staying in the pack was the better strategy. “That makes sense, to stay in the group that early in the race,” said Raabe. “You can be up by a few minutes and come back quickly. But when I saw I was alone, I thought, ‘Why not?’ I figured I might start slowing up, but I hoped I’d have enough of a gap. I kept waiting for the push to come.”
But he never heard the footsteps he anticipated, because the push from the lean, swift group of African runners never materialized. Not that Raabe knew how large a lead he had as he ran through downtown Duluth.
“You don’t want to look back too much,” he said. “It gives the guys behind you the idea that you might be having trouble. I was hoping that if anyone caught up to me, it would only be two or three. When I got to the Radisson, and turned down the hill, I looked back.”
And he saw — nothing. By then his lead had gone from a minute, to two minutes, to two and a half minutes. As he made the turn at the Radisson to head down Fifth Avenue West toward the harbor, Raabe said, “All I thought was that it was nice I only had a mile to go.”
Raabe didn’t falter. When he made the final turn and headed for Canal Park, many in the crowd chanted “USA…USA…” as the slim, 5-foot-11, 125-pound Raabe headed for the finish to become the first U.S. native winner since Mark Curp claimed Grandma’s in 1985.
Akor said she almost bypassed Grandma’s when her father died unexpectedly in Nigeria. Instead, she dedicated her try for her third consecutive Grandma’s title to her father, and the oldest of nine children was scheduled to fly to Nigeria for the funeral.
Akor battled Janet Cherobon of Kenya as her prime challenger, and said she told herself she had to stay ahead of her. As Akor led the way toward the finish, she saw Alina Ivanova was closing in. “I said, ‘Oh, no!’ ” But again she summoned all her strength, veering slightly as she hit the finish line six seconds ahead of her Russian pursuer. She said she had trouble locating the finish line, and asked where Cherobon had finished. Cherebon had collapsed on the course about 100 yards from the end and had to be brought to the finish by wheelchair.
Bulldogs blank Denver for Final Five championship
SAINT PAUL, MN. — Never in the 17-year history of the WCHA Final Five playoff format had any team survived the “play-in†game then also won the semifinal and final to claim the championship. Until Saturday, when the University of Minnesota-Duluth continued one of the most stirring playoff runs in league history by not only beating but blanking Denver 4-0 to capture the Broadmoor Trophy.
Not only did the Bulldogs win, they stifled the powerful Pioneers by allowing just one shot at star goaltender Alex Stalock in the third period, when they made Denver look like the fatigued team, rather than themselves.
MacGregor Sharp scored a hat trick, and freshman Mike Connolly assisted on all three, while Jack Connolly, another freshman and a hometown Duluthian who is not related to Mike, scored the third UMD goal. Stalock, Sharp, Connolly and defenseman Josh Meyers all made the all-tournament team, and Stalock was most valuable player.
“That was definitely one of the toughest games we’ve had all year,†said Denver winger Rhett Rakhshani. “All around the rink, on the boards, in the neutral zone, behind the net – everywhere, we were always physically confronted by them. Do I think we played our best? No, but even when we were putting forward our best play, they weathered it.Ââ€
UMD (21-12-8), which hadn’t won a league playoff since 1985, had finished the regular season in a winless five-game skid that dropped it to seventh in the WCHA, rose up to become the only road-winner to win in the first round of league playoffs, beating Colorado College 4-1, 3-1. Still, the Bulldogs were distinct underdogs at the Xcel Energy Center, before beating Minnesota 2-1 Thursday, then stunning league champion North Dakota 3-0 Friday, and finishing the job with the 4-0 job on Denver (23-11-5).
Consistent in that playoff run is that goaltender Alex Stalock went from being close to unbeatable to totally unbeatable against North Dakota and Denver – the WCHA’s top two seeds, and two teams secured in their NCAA tournament berths. Stalock, after giving up only three goals in five playoff games – a goals-against mark of 0.60 and a save percentage of .981 – has guided the upstart Bulldogs into a third secure slot in the NCAA pairings.
UMD will return to the Twin Cities as the West Regional No. 2 seed against Princeton Friday night at Mariucci Arena. Denver is the No. 1 seed, and faces Miami in the afternoon game. The only other WCHA team to make it was league champ North Dakota, which was sent to Manchester, N.H., to face host New Hampshire, with Boston University facing Ohio State in the other semifinal.
In the first two Final Five victories, senior MacGregor Sharp scored the first goal and Stalock was superb, causing Scott Sandelin to stress that it was a good formula. Sharp did it again Saturday night, dazzling 16,749 fans by scoring a power-play goal midway through the first period, finishing off a spectacular goal-mouth play for another goal midway through the second period, then hitting an empty net with 2:32 remaining in the third to clinch it.
The hat trick boosts Sharp to 26 goals for the season, after he scored seven last season.It was suggested he must have lost confidence in his goalie to score more than the first one.
“The way Alex has been playing, one should do the trick,†laughed Sharp. “But I thought I should get a couple more tonight.Ââ€
Denver coach George Gwozdecky admired UMD’s amazing run. “We were hoping to get that first one to see how they’d react,†said Gwozdecky, “but we couldn’t. They took away pretty much everything we had.
“The more I watched them tonight, the more I thought about some teams we’ve had – a big, strong, physical team, physically and mentally strong. Alex Stalock is playing as good as any goaltender can. I was very impressed with Duluth, and they get full credit for doing what was thought to be impossible, and what nobody has ever done before by winning three games in three days.
“If they keep playing the way they are now, they could go a long way in the national tournament.Ââ€
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The Bulldogs, who spent much of the season scratching and clawing for goals, scored some outstanding goals against Denver. On Sharp’s first goal, freshman Mike Connolly fed him rushing into the zone and Sharp passed hard to Justin Fontaine in the right circle. Fontaine had a good opening for a shot, but instead passed back across the slot, and Sharp one-timed it past goaltender Marc Cheverie.
In the second period, Mike Connolly burst up the right side as Sharp went hard for the net on the left. Connolly sent a hard pass across the goal-mouth. “All I had to do was get my stick down, and it went right off the tape,†said Sharp.
Less than three minutes later, UMD killed a penalty to Jack Connolly when Rhett Rakhshani was penalized for Denver. When Connolly came out of the box, he hustled into the offensive zone and wound up with the puck in the left corner. He considered feeding the point, but saw a lane open up and darted for the goal, throwing a deke at Cheverie and then hoisting his shot up and in on the short side for a 3-0 lead.
Highlight film stuff, these goals. And the big crowd was clearly behind the Cinderella Bulldogs. But through the third period, the Denver response was awaited, and then seemingly ignored by the Bulldogs, who played with an ever-increasing confidence. When Gwozdecky pulled Cheverie for an extra skater with plenty of time left, the Bulldogs struck almost immediately.
Mike Connolly, who had a huge weekend, fed Sharp in the neutral zone, and Sharp carried to near the blue line before rifling his shot into the empty net.
“I’m extremely proud of our team and happy for our seniors,†said UMD coach Scott Sandelin. “They were here as freshmen, and since then we’ve endured some hardships. But we had good composure, and stayed focused. To hold that team to one shot in the third period…
“This ranks right at the top,†said Sandelin, among his coaching highlights.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:
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