Sports

Connolly's first Aces hat trick sparks 6-2 win

A three-inch scar, shaded red and purple, runs along the outside of Brendan Connolly's left wrist and a half-inch scar traces the top of the wrist, remnants of surgeries each of the last two summers.

Connolly shoots a puck left-handed, so his left side is dominant and has principally, along with a high hockey IQ, made him a consistent, dangerous goal scorer through six full professional seasons. When he began this ECHL campaign, though, his left wrist wasn't fully healed, but he figured it was enough to go – that's the way hockey players operate. Still, Connolly was reluctant to shoot the puck, and he did not score a goal in the first nine games, an eternity for a guy coming off three consecutive seasons of 22 or more goals.

The wrist likely will never be quite 100 percent – some range of motion is lacking, Connolly said – but Saturday night it proved plenty strong enough to help generate Connolly's first hat trick in an Alaska Aces sweater and deliver a critical 6-2 win over the Colorado Eagles.

Connolly's three goals and an assist give him a career high-tying 24 goals and a career-high 64 points in just 50 games.

Connolly and linemates Chris Francis (one goal, one assist) and Dean Chelios, making his Aces debut after being acquired in a trade Thursday, all checked in at plus-5 in the closing game of a three-game set in which Alaska bagged five of a possible six points.

Alaska's victory before an announced crowd of 5,261 at Sullivan Arena, combined with Utah's 2-1 loss at Ontario, drew the Aces within three points of fourth-place Utah for the final playoff spot in the Pacific Division. The Aces, who have two games in hand on the Grizzlies and 13 games left in the regular season, have a difficult road to journey – they embark this week on a 10-game road trip to California, Idaho and Utah.

Given the Aces' dearth of healthy bodies, Connolly's return to the lineup in Friday's 2-1 win over Colorado, following a nine-game absence with an upper-body injury (not his wrist), was terrific timing. He scored a goal Friday, and Saturday's four-point effort marked fourth game this season with four points or more.

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Defenseman Corey Syvret, who furnished two assists and a plus-3 rating Saturday, returned to the lineup Friday after missing 22 games with a lower-body injury. Those reinforcements were pivotal because Aces winger Curt Gogol (lower-body injury) and defenseman Felix Poulin (upper-body injury) were injured Friday and did not play Saturday. Also, dynamic rookie center Greg Wolfe was out of the lineup, suspended by the league, pending a review, for his major cross-checking penalty Friday.

Yet the Aces, who are also missing scoring center Tim Coffman (upper-body injury) and rookie center Ryan Tesink (upper-body injury), prospered. They also received goals from Erik Higby and defenseman Evan Renwick, and 37 saves from rookie goaltender Niklas Lundstrom after he stopped 39 shots Friday.

The Aces are a banged-up bunch, but they are making a go of their push for a playoff berth.

"It's just a will,'' Connolly said. "I think we feel we're a good enough team to be there, and if we get there, we're scary. We can do some damage.''

With Gogol out, Chelios stepped into a first-line role on right wing with left wing Connolly and center Francis. He learned about his role when he arrived at the rink hours before the game.

"I figured the first line is an offensive line, so I was pumped about it right away,'' Chelios said.

Connolly credited coach Rob Murray with superb match-making – inserting an eager newcomer into a position where he could succeed.

"You get the new guy, and you know he's going to have jam, he's going to have energy,'' Connolly said.

At season's start, when Connolly endured that nine-game goal drought, he said he didn't trust his wrist and deferred to his linemates by passing the puck too much. Even his dad, he said, called him to tell him to shoot the puck more.

"All of a sudden, you think your shot's not good enough to score, so you pass too much,'' he said.

Finally, Connolly said he decided to shoot the puck as often as he had in the past. He's now scored 24 goals in his last 41 games, and leads the Aces in both goals and points. He's filling his job description.

"I've got to go out every night and put goals on the board,'' Connolly said.

After the Aces bolted to a 3-0 lead in a first-period span of just 1 minute, 41 seconds – that's the fastest they've racked three goals all season – Colorado bolted back with two goals inside the opening eight minutes of the second period. Chris Knowlton, back from a scary collision into the boards Friday from Wolfe's hit, and Kyle Kraemer scored the Eagles' goals.

But Connolly restored some cushion four minutes after Kraemer's strike when he collected a rebound of his own blocked shot and beat former Aces goalie Aaron Crandall (24 saves). Renwick scored his first goal as an Ace two minutes later in the second period and Connolly's slapper over Crandall's glove just 21 seconds into the third period earned him his first Aces hat trick in 101 regular-season games with the club.

The hat trick was Connolly's fourth in the ECHL. One of those was a four-goal game for Greensville.

He's back to what he does best, scarring opposing goalies.

Shuffling the deck

When Connolly delivers points, they usually come in multiples. He's scored at least one point in 33 of his 50 games, and he's scored multiple points in 19 of those 33 matches. And seven times this season he has scored three or more points in a game, with a season-best of five points (one goal, four helpers).

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Francis' goal was his 20th in 56 games this season, leaving him one shy of matching his career high. He scored 21 goals in 69 games for Las Vegas in 2012-13. Francis' 49 points are a career high, one more than he scored for the Wranglers in 2012-13.

The one glaring deficiency in the Aces lately has been power-play production. They went 0 for 5 Saturday, are 0 for 17 in the last four games and just 1 for 36 in the last nine games.

That illustrates the vagaries of power plays, which can be streaky. Shortly before Alaska's current funk, it reeled off a seven-game stretch in which it converted on 13 of 34 power plays for 38.2-percent efficiency.

Eagles winger Scott Allen, the former UAA skater playing in his second pro game, earned his first pro point with a secondary assist on Knowlton's goal.

With 76 saves on 79 shots (.962 save percentage) Friday and Saturday, Lundstrom raised his season save percentage to .893 from .886.

Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockey-blog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr

Doyle Woody

Doyle Woody covered hockey and other sports for the Anchorage Daily News for 34 years.

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