‘Non-goal-scorer’ Mike Connolly hits UMD record
By John Gilbert
It was one of those magical games that goal-scorers seem to have — except that Mike Connolly doesn’t consider himself a goal-scorer. The puck kept coming to him, and every time he shot, the puck seemed to go into the net. The only instance where his timing was off came after the game, right after he scored five goals to lead Minnesota-Duluth to a 6-4 victory over Minnesota and into first place in the WCHA. At that point, Connolly stressed that he isn’t a goal-scorer.
Mike Connolly earned the spotlight by tying a UMD record with 5 goals in a 6-4 victory over Minnesota.
Connolly, who is no relation to Jack Connolly, his centerman, scored twice in the first period, and again early in the second for 3-0 UMD lead, and in the face of a stirring Minnesota rally, he scored again in the third period to restore a two-goal lead at 5-3, and when it got close at the finish, he hit an empty net, sending the second straight capacity crowd of 6,764 into a frenzy at the new AMSOIL Arena in Duluth.
“I’m not a goal-scorer,” said Connolly. “I’ve never scored five goals in a game before. When I got three, I was pretty impressed, because I never even had a hat trick before.” He must have meant, never before in his three seasons at UMD, right? “No, I mean ever. I never had a hat trick here, or in junior hockey, or even back in midgets.”
The quick, little winger from Calgary is listed at 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds. That may be true, although he appears to be about the same height as the 5-8 Jack Connolly, and the two not only fit together like a hand in a glove, but they play much bigger than their height with quick precision and boundless tenacity. While UMD fans have always known that Mike Connolly is a vital part of UMD’s big first line, with Jack Connolly centering Mike Connolly and Justin Fontaine, Mike is going to have to reboot his personal memory bank.
His previous doubts about his goal-scoring ability might have been valid. But as of Saturday, February 5, 2011, his status has forever been changed. Connolly’s five goals in that 6-4 victory will forever engrave his name as an explosive goal-scorer. Historians in future years will look it up whenever somebody scores a bunch of goals, and they’ll prove that Mike Connolly holds the UMD record for the most goals ever scored in one game.
For sure, he is the most prolific scorer at AMSOIL Arena, which has a history running back only a half-dozen or so games since the shiny new arena opened at the end of December. But 20 years from now — or maybe 38 years from now — his 5-goal performance may still be standing. It was 38 years ago when another UMD player became the only Bulldog to ever score five goals in a game, across the parking lot at the just-abandoned DECC. That was Pokey Trachsel, a rangy and skilled defenseman from Duluth Cathedral who went on to UMD in the early 1970s. He was good enough with the puck that the Bulldogs moved him up front for a brief try to add some force to the forward lines, and Trachsel astounded everyone by pumping in five goals, on November 17, 1972 against Lake Superior State.
That was the record the stat folks found when they scurried for the record books to look up the perspective of Connolly’s amazing show as it developed Saturday night.
David Grun congratulates Mike Connolly during his scoring spree, as Gopher goalie Kent Patterson reacts.
The extra significance, of course, came because of the opponent. The University of Minnesota was making its first visit to AMSOIL Arena, and the Gophers-UMD series — as usual — stands as the biggest sports attraction in Duluth, for 2011, or any year. It was that for several reasons this time around, and it was a role reversal of sorts. Many times in their long-standing rivalry had the Golden Gophers been going for a title and a struggling UMD team played its best to upset them. but this time UMD is making a concerted bid for the WCHA championship, and the Gophers have struggled to hit the .500 mark all season. The Bulldogs were No. 1 in the nation and in the WCHA when they went to Minnesota early in the season, and the sputtering Gophers snapped into focus and played their best series of the season to win 3-2 and then hold on for a 2-2 tie. Taking three of the four points from UMD meant the Gophers knocked the Bulldogs out of first place in the WCHA and out of the No. 1 ranking in the nation.
Turnabout was more than fair play. The Bulldogs had been consistent enough to stay up with North Dakota and Denver in a three-team race for the MacNaughton Cup, but the Gophers were battling for one of the top six places and home-ice for the playoffs. And nobody needed to tell Bulldog fans how dangerous Minnesota could be. It was proven when the teams sped, slammed and compreted for a 2-2 tie on Friday night, with Connolly — who else? — scoring the tying goal, which was his 14th goal of the season. It was the perfect lead-up to Super Bowl weekend, as both games drew 6,764 fans, AMSOIL’s capacity, with many thousand more watching on My9 and Fox Sports North.
Coach Scott Sandelin, a month earlier, had experimented with breaking up the big line. Kyle Schmidt, another key element to UMD’s offense, was out with an injury, so Sandelin moved Fontaine to the second line with Travis Oleksuk centering J.T. Brown. The team had done well, with David Grun adding some power-wing play with the Fontaines, and partly because Sandelin could reunite Fontaine with his previous linemates on power plays. But after the 2-2 tie, Sandelin consulted his assistant coaches. “I thought about putting that line back together, and it seemed like the time to do it,” he said.
With Schmidt returning to left wing with Oleksuk and Brown, Sandelin put Fontaine back at right wing with the Connolly-Connolly goal-dust twins, on what many insist is the most creative line in college hockey, and all three help their linemates to lofty spots in WCHA scoring.
“I guess you could say it worked pretty well to put our line back together,” laughed Connolly. “Fonzie is a great sniper and Jack is a great playmaker.”
As it turned out, UMD needed all five of Connolly’s goals for the Saturday triumph, because the Bulldogs let up on the throttle at 3-0, and Minnesota closed in to 3-2, and later to 4-3, and still later to 5-4. Travis Oleksuk got the only non-Connolly goal, after his apparent goal was waved off when he was tripped into goaltender Kent Patterson to send the puck and goalie into the net, so Oleksuk came back and scored off the right pipe and off Patterson, with 3:01 left to restore the 2-goal edge at 6-4. Yet again Minnesota came back, as Nate Condon cut it to 5-4 on a 6-skater attack with 1:35 to go. so it wasn’t until Connolly’s empty-netter that the big and rocking crowd could breathe easily.
Jack Connolly (left) and Justin Fontaine congratulate Mike Connolly at the end of his 5-goal performance.
UMD’s top-line members all fit together remarkably well, with each fulfilling whatver chore is needed. All three are smart and clever puck-handlers who seem to sense when any linemate gets open, and all three are quick to capitalize and make the best play when the puck arrives. In that Saturday game, the roles became clear: Jack Connolly was amazing on faceoffs, winning 20 and losing 7 while no other player on either team was more than a plus-1, and he fed Mike Connolly for four of his five goals; Fontaine, usually the sniper, made some fantastic passes, and joined Jack Connolly in assisting on Connolly’s first three goals.
“It’s nice to be playing with Fonzie again,” said Jack Connolly, “and it was a spectacular night for Mike. When he’s got the hot hand like that, we might as well keep feeding him.”
Mike Connolly preferred to give credit all around. “We had a big night, but getting Kyle Schmidt back on the second line meant we could get back together, and the third and fourth lines played well, too,” said Mike Connolly, who is as soft-spoken off the ice as he is feisty on the rink. “Our D played huge, too. And Aaron Crandall did a great job in goal, although we left him hanging out to dry too many times. The whole team did a great job, and when you get going early, your legs feel great, and we got the crowd excited. But getting up 3-0 was no time to sit back.”
The goals, in a cluster, would make a great highlight video by themselves.
In a capsule, here’s how they went:Â 1. Mike Connolly went to the goal-mouth and Jack Connolly, sweeping out of the right corner, spotted him and and zipped a pass for a quick redirection goal at 8:04 of the first period; 2. On the power play, Jack Connolly was in the right circle as the defense worked the puck in to him, and he sent a hard pass across the slot to Fontaine in the left circle. Fontaine one-timed a pass to the slot, where Mike Connolly one-timed his shot past Patterson at 15:49 for a 2-0 first period; 3. In the second period, Fontaine was on the left side and slid a perfect pass to the right edge, where Mike Connolly scored for a 3-0 lead at 1:22; 4. With the score suddenly 3-2 and the Gophers taking the momentum toward the second-intermission break, Mike Connolly got loose at the far blue line, as defenseman Mike Montgomery sent him a 100-foot pass. Connolly had to go down on one knee, like a stretching first baseman, and put his stick flat on the ice to corral the pass as it crossed the blue line, then he bounced up, took two strides, and cut loose with a slap shot from the right circle that snared the upper left edge of the goal at 18:43 to make it Mike Connolly 4, Minnesota 2; 5. With Minnesota’s net empty the Gophers scored to narrow the game to a nerve-wrackiing 5-4, and Mike Connolly rushed across center ice, beating defenseman Cade Fairchild with a great deke to clear his path for a 60-foot empty netter and the 6-4 clincher.
Aaron Crandall couldn't recover to stop Patrick White's rebound from the far left, but Minnesota's Nico Sacchetti slammed into Crandall in the crease, nullifying a game-tying goal.
In the closing seconds, Sandelin sent the first line out mainly for Jack Connolly’s hot hand at faceoffs, and sure enough, they cleared the puck in the Minnesota end. Mike Connolly got to it first, in the right corner, but he looked up and tried to force a pass–when he might have skated around behind the net and gotten No. 6 on a wraparound into an empty net.
“I would gladly give up a couple of these goals for assists,” said Connolly — obviously still lacking his own sense of drama. “The big thing was that it was pretty exciting to get this win. It was really great to see the crowd go so crazy.”
Sandelin said: “He picked a good night to do it. He was so good for two nights, and after the first game I decided it was time to put that line back together.”
Connolly’s five-goal record game, and his six for the weekend, meant UMD took three of the four points from the Gophers and boosted the Bulldogs back into first place in the WCHA, tied with Denver, going into this weekend’s series against St. Cloud State at AMSOIL. Everybody on the big line stresses that individual accomplishments mean nothing compared to team success, but the statistics bear examining nonetheless.
In WCHA league games only, Jason Zucker of Denver (17-9–26) has tied Jack Connolly (8-18–26) for the scoring lead, followed by Mike Connolly (15-9–24) and Fontaine (10-13–23). For all WCHA scorers in all games, Jack Connolly is the top scorer with 12-28–40, while Wisconsin defenseman Justin Schultz is second at 15-24–39, followed by Fontaine in third at 16-21–37, and Mike Connolly fourth at 19-16–35.
That means that with 19 goals, Mike Connolly is second only to the 22 goals of North Dakota’s Matt Frattin in goals for all games among all WCHA players. Not bad for a guy who still thinks he’s not a goal-scorer.
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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.
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