Fontaine's Four-goal Outburst Lifts Minnesota Duluth
Justin Fontaine Scored Four Goals in UMD's Win on Nov. 14 |
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Nov. 19, 2009
by John Gilbert, for WCHA.com
What a difference one night can make. In the series opener against Michigan Tech last Friday night the University of Minnesota Duluth hockey team threw a free-wheeling attack but found virtually nothing would go into the net, and Tech snatched victory out from under UMD's nose. One night later, UMD junior Justin Fontaine had one of those magical nights that even the most gifted goal-scorers can only imagine and the Bulldogs not only returned but exceeded their previous high-flying form.
Fontaine had four of UMD's 50 shots in the first game against Michigan Tech, but a freshman goaltender named Kevin Genoe made 48 saves and Tech ambushed the Bulldogs with two third-period goals, winning a 3-2 victory despite having been outshot 50-19 at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center. Jack Connolly and Mike Seidel got the UMD goals, but it was a game that will be remembered for UMD’s missed chances, rather than the two power-play goals that got through. It also was Tech’s first victory at Duluth in four seasons.
In the rematch, Fontaine traded in his no-goals-on-4-shots ledger for one that read four goals and one assist, and 8 shots, and the Bulldogs overpowered the Huskies 8-1. Not that it started out that way. After one period, only Brady Lamb’s slapshot from the top of the left circle beat Genoe for UMD’s third power-play goal of the weekend and a slim 1-0 lead.
In the second period, Fontaine got untracked, scoring at 2:43 to make it 2-0. Lamb scored again on a partially-screened shot inside the left point, and Tech coach Jamie Russell, perhaps unused to seeing as many as three get past Genoe, pulled the freshman for Josh Robinson. It didn’t lessen UMD’s intensity, as the Bulldogs outshot Tech 20-3 in the middle period, and Fontaine notched his second of the game on a power-play.
“We got the bounces we needed,” Fontaine said afterward. “It was harder last night than tonight. Knowing the good feeling of burying a few, we also knew we had to keep going.”
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Those first two were both good goals, although they were the kind of goals that almost any WCHA player might have scored. The same cannot be said for what happened after that, except that Fontaine kept rolling with the sort of goals almost no other WCHA sniper could hope to score without the word “fluke” being attached.
Before the second period ended, Fontaine grabbed the puck and pulled it free near the left corner, then skated across the slot, 15 feet out front, where he met the usual resistance. He held possession as he was hooked and hassled, finally toppling to the ice near the right circle. But as he went down, had got a shot off back across the goal, beating the surprised Robinson to snare the net just inside the left post.
That was one of the season’s neatest goals, and it made the score a comfortable 5-0. Fontaine added an assist on Mike Connolly’s power-play goal in the first minute of the third period, and at the 11:12 mark, Fontaine again got the puck, this time from Rob Bordson, and cut left-to-right across the slot. Again he lost his footing, and again he threw the puck back, hard, as he sprawled. And, once again it caught the far left edge of the net.
“I just kind of pushed it ahead and shot it back,” said Fontaine, a junior from Bonnyville, Alberta. He was asked if he was describing his second or third goals of the night, because they were about identical. He laughed, because he hadn’t thought about how similar they were.
The four-goal splurge made it 7-0, and Tech finally broke Brady Hjelle’s shutout in the closing minutes, after it had gotten to 8-0. They also gave Fontaine 11 goals for the season – best in the country – and puts him in perfect position for this week’s UMD invasion of Minnesota’s Mariucci Arena.
Yes, it would have been nice to use one or two of those goals the previous night, but goal-scorers score when the opportunity presents itself, and sometimes everything goes in.
“I’ve never scored four goals in a game before,” he said. “Not even at the junior level. When I got the first one, I said we had to keep it going. Then I got the power-play goal on a back-door play. We definitely didn’t give them as much in the second game, and we kept it on them.”
When MacGregor Sharp had a career senior season and led Minnesota Duluth to a late surge that included a WCHA Final Five championship last season, a run that ended one game shy of the Frozen Four, the big question was, who would score for the Bulldogs this season?
Sophomore Jack Connolly and Fontaine were first to accept the challenge, and they stood 1-2 in NCAA scoring going into the Tech series. Jack Connolly’s seventh goal erased a 1-0 Tech lead in the first game, and he had two assists in the second game. But Fontaine’s five-point outburst pushed him past his teammate, as well as the best of the rest of the country.
UMD coach Scott Sandelin, who said his team played with great intensity in the first game, but only for 50 minutes before a lapse allowed Tech to steal the victory with two goals, switched goaltenders, going with Brady Hjelle Saturday.
“It was nice to get the early lead,” Sandelin said of the second game. “We started slow, but Mr. Fontaine got going, and even after it got to 5-0, we did a lot of good things.”
Fontaine has 11 goals and seven assists for 18 points, while Mike Connolly, who assisted on the first three goals and scored the sixth for a five-point weekend, stands at 8-9=17. Jack Connolly – who had seven shots in the game but less luck – has 7-9=16, and Rob Bordson’s four-assist second game pushed him up to 3-14=17.
The question of who would lift their scoring touch to replace MacGregor Sharp seems to have been answered by committee, so far.
“I would say,” Sandelin said, after UMD outshot Tech 98-37 for the weekend, “these were two of our better games in a row all year.”
But Sandelin had to cut short his conversation. He knows that with Minnesota next up, bigger and better things could be on the horizon. Besides, he was headed out to go deer-hunting. Sandelin, being from Hibbing, is quite the outdoorsman. But if he was thinking, he might have taken Justin Fontaine along with him into the North Woods. You just never know when you could be aided by a sharpshooter.
