Unforced errors

Luc Brown was named the Dukes player for September. The Napanee native had 13 points in nine games. including three power play goals, two game-winning goals and two short-handed assists as he has been utilized in all phases of the game. On September 20, he played in his 150th career OJHL game and assisted on both goals in his team’s 2-1 win over the Lindsay Muskies.

Mistakes prove costly in loss to St. Mikes

After 10 games in this new season, the Wellington Dukes remain a puzzle. They’ve won five games, lost five. No overtime decisions. Five hundred hockey. They deserve better. But this Dukes squad is an unpredictable lot. Winning games they shouldn’t. Losing others they really should have won. Friday night’s loss to St. Michael’s is a pointy ended example of a game the Dukes really, really shouldn’t have lost.

St. Michael’s is a middle-of-the-pack group of grinders toiling in a weaker division. They are a thin shadow of the team that was perennially among the league’s elite. Still, St. Mikes uniquely enjoys the beneficenct oversight of their own team chaplain. For 13 years, Father Michael Lehman has travelled with the team, offering his blessing and observing the game from the far corner of the rink.

The Buzzers don’t score a lot of goals. It’s why they are in third place in the South division. Yet, most teams, even low scoring teams, will beat you if you make a habit of giving them the puck in your own end.

Three times. The Dukes defence handed over the puck three times in their own zone. None were remarkable takeaways. None were stunning deceptions victimizing a still-green freshman. None were earned. Three times the puck was on the Dukes’ defenceman’s stick—and then it wasn’t. And seconds later it was behind Olivier Lafreniere, left to twist in the wind.

Three errors, each one likely the spawn of the last, became three goals against. That is how the Dukes lost a game they should have won.

ROAD WINS
It should have been a great win in front of a hometown fans. The Dukes, improbably, had won both games in the Governor’s Showcase tournament in Buffalo earlier in the week. They dumped South division’s North York on Tuesday, on the strength of a pair of goals from forward Luc Brown. The next night, Wellington edged Oakville 3-2. Dylan Mascarin had a pair of assists. Colin Doyle’s first goal as a Duke, scored in the second period, proved to be the gamewinner.

On the back of two road wins, Dukes fans had reason to expect a tidy win at home on Friday. Mostly the Dukes delivered.

Wellington Duke Ben Sokay opened the scoring in Friday’s 5-3 loss to St. Mike’s in Wellington. The goal gave the second-year Dukes’ forward his 10th point in 10 games.

‘MOVE THE PUCK’
Chase St. Aubin took a clean breakout pass from Brown. The hard-nosed winger bulled his way deep into the St. Mikes zone with Ben Sokay trailing. Once the defenceman made his choice about which one to cover, St.Aubin dropped the puck back to his linemate. Sokay gathered the puck and rattled it off the inside of the far post. The Dukes had the lead. More importantly, they had controlled the play through much of the period.

But a few moments later, disaster. In his own end, the Dukes’ defender saw a way to skate out with the puck. It wasn’t there. Worse, the bench recommendation to ‘move the puck’ echoed loudly through the rink.

The St. Mikes player took away the puck, dished it to his undefended linemate. Goal.

In the second period, St. Michaels emerged with a bit more energy—the Dukes a little less. But it was the Dukes’ St. Aubin who found the net—scoring on a sharp angle. No such thing as a bad shot on net.

Sixty-one seconds later however the Dukes’ lead was erased. A bad pass, intercepted. Another gift.

Midway through the third period Wellington was on the power play. The Dukes were faster. St. Mikes took a tripping penalty.

The Dukes first power play unit moved the puck well, but failed to retake the lead. The second unit had difficulty getting organized. The second time they had to retrieve the puck from their own zone, a split second of indecision proved costly.

It is a play they have practised thousand and thousands of times. Breaking out from behind their own net. It has a couple of variations, but mostly the routine is burned into their young brains. The wingers flare around the face-off circle and head up ice. The centre swings behind the net, either as deception or as puck carrier. Two quick passes and you are out of your zone.

This time, the play didn’t even get launched. Uncertain who would take the puck, the Dukes’ defender let it out of his reach. Just for a second. Maybe less. That was all the St. Mike’s forechecker needed. He took the third gift. Seconds later the Buzzers had the lead on a sour short-handed goal.

Brown did his best to rally his squad, tying the game with smart shot just under the bar just 17 seconds later. And for a while it seemed the Dukes might snatch one from the fates. But with time running out in the third, St. Mikes won a puck battle along the wall in the Dukes’ end. A good pass, cross crease to a waiting winger. Goal.

It was the first earned goal of the game for the visiting Buzzers. But it was enough.

Not so much a win for St. Mikes than a loss by the Dukes.

UP NEXT: NEWMARKET AND WHITBY
The Dukes will try to shed the foul taste of this loss as it hosts Newmarket on Friday night in Wellington. The Hurricanes currently sit in second position in the North division.

On Sunday, Wellington travels to Whitby for an afternoon game against their East division rivals.