Guillaume Naud is second among Dukes scorers, second behind only Darcy Murphy.

A pair of wins moves the Dukes in the right direction

The Wellington Dukes are a difficult team to understand this season. Just when they appear to have pulled their act together, they do something that causes their fans to shake their heads.

Up 3-0 on Sunday night, on goals from Jeff Stanton, Braden Kavaratzis and Darcy Murphy, the Dukes appeared to be cruising to a relatively easy Thanksgiving weekend win against the Toronto Junior Canadians. But early in the second period the Dukes learned a messy lesson as the deceptively potent Toronto squad turned up the pace, scoring three goals in four minutes to tie the game.

This has too often been the story of the Dukes this season. On too many occasions the Dukes have given up goals in bunches— and erasing comfortable leads along the way.

On Sunday, however, they managed to pull ahead and knock back the pesky Junior Canadians to salvage an important win.

A pair of power-play goals, from Cam Yuill and Guillaume Naud, restored a two-goal lead. Having been burned by the fast Toronto forwards already, the Dukes tried to button down the win. A too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty taken by the Dukes, however, provided just the opportunity the crafty Toronto squad needed—scoring on the power play to narrow the Dukes’ lead to one goal.

Just over a minute later the Dukes’ Naud scored his second goal of the game. The Dukes had yet another two-goal lead. Still they couldn’t hold it. Toronto scored again with just four and a half minutes to go in the game, narrowing the lead to just a single marker. The Junior Canadians had all the momentum and the Dukes were back on their heels.

When Toronto pulled their netminder the Dukes points leader Darcy Murphy forced a turnover at centre ice—banked a pass off the boards to Jeff Stanton streaking in on the wing. Stanton deposited the puck into the empty net scoring his second goal of the game. A wild and woolly game was finally in the bag for the Dukes.

The Dukes had to have felt a bit lucky to skate off the ice with the 7-5 win.

Wellington’s own Cam Yuill earned seven points, including two goals, in a pair games on Thanksgiving weekend.

DUKES 9- MISSISSAUGA 1
On Friday, any enthusiasm on the part of the visiting Chargers about playing in the storied hockey town of Wellington for the first time in their young hockey lives likely dissipated at the end of the first period. Mississauga had pushed out to a one-goal lead and were looking for more on the power play when wiry Dukes forward Anthony Taylor lifted the puck from the Charger defence—skated to the net unfettered— and fired a shot over the glove of the Junior Canadian netminder.

In the second the Dukes blew the game wide open, scoring nine unanswered goals over the next two periods. Craig Campbell started the blitz, serving up a perfect back pass into the slot—where Kyle Paat had slipped in from the point—slapping the puck into the wide open net. Then Darcy Murphy slid a backhand shot into the net while skating away from the netminder—scoring as almost an afterthought.

Then Jeff Stanton got all jiggy with the puck, sliding it through the Misssauga netminder in close quarters. Campbell added his own marker off the backhand. Then captain Simon Bessette buried a pair of goals—this first a work of art. As Jeff Stanton, with perhaps the best two games in his young career, skated toward the net he dropped a pass to Bessette who unloaded his shotgun that chased light into the top corner of net. Cam Yuill and Darcy Murphy, with his second marker in the game, rounded out the scoring in the game.

The final score was 9-1 for the hometown squad. Charlie Graham played both games for the Dukes on the weekend, with Andrew Pearson on the bench as backup. The 16-year-old Graham was brilliant at times, but it seems unlikely he will be able to manage the load through an entire season. Defenceman Will Healey has returned to the practice line up for the Dukes, but has yet to see action in the regular season. Mitch McNeill has been sidelined with an upper body injury from an blind hit in Friday’s game against a frustrated Charger team.

Darcy Murphy is averaging two points per game this season. He scored three times in two games on the weekend and added four helpers.

UP NEXT: KINGSTON AND PICKERING
Kingston has only managed to win three games in this young season—but one of these wins came at the expense of the Dukes in a shootout decision. Since then the Voyageurs have managed just a single win—a sloppy 10-6 affair against the woeful Pickering Panthers.

Despite the wobbly start—few expect Kingston to languish near the bottom end of the standings all season long. The Vees will have the added incentive of the opportunity of knocking off the Wellington Dukes and a week to think about the task at hand.

The Dukes too have a week to prepare and to allow some to catch up on classwork.

On Saturday the Dukes will miss Pumpkinfest as they travel to Cobourg to tangle with Pickering as part of the Governors Showcase tournament.

A couple of wins this weekend could pull the Dukes out of a three-way tie for third place and begin the process of reeling in the division leaders— Trenton and Cobourg. To do this Trenton must lose a game or two along the way. The Golden Hawks face Whitby, St. Mike’s, Vaughan and Cobourg over the next two weeks. Their undefeated streak will surely be tested in the coming days.

For their part the Dukes can only play their games. A two-game winning streak is a start.

Where are they now?

The Wellington Dukes trace their hockey roots to the former Belleville Bobcats franchise, purchased in 1989 by 10-year operators of a successful Wellington Junior C representative who moved the acquired squad to the tiny Village. This is the third in a series of tracking down former Duke players.

NAME: DEREK SMITH
Derek first attended a Wellington Dukes training camp when he was just 15 years old. He was sent back to the Quinte Midgets AAA team but was called up as an affiliate for a few games and scored his first Junior A goal. For the next three years he was one of the Dukes’ top four defencemen and helped lead the team to 15 playoff rounds over that time.

His play with the Dukes earned him a scholarship at NCAA Lake Superior State University where he stayed for three years. He was then signed by the NHL Ottawa Senators and played most of the next four years with their top farm club, the Binghampton Senators. He did manage to be called up for 11 games by Ottawa where he recorded his first NHL point.

This past summer he signed with the NHL Calgary Flames and will turn 27 years old Thursday.

DID YOU KNOW?
Derek is just one of a handful of former Dukes to have ever played in two OJHL playoff cup finals (2002 & 2003).