Craig Campbell (#9 centre) was able to reach up and tap the puck out of the air and over Charlie Finn, into the net.

Dukes winning streak ends at 10

Acommitment to back-checking—forward skaters wheeling around and battling for the puck from the rear— is a hallmark of great hockey teams. As a rule the teams that work hardest to regain the puck they’ve given up, win.

Nowhere was this more on display than during the Wellington Dukes’ defeat of the Kingston Voyaguers on Sunday in Wellington. For two and a half periods the Dukes hounded the speedy and talented forwards, tracking them down in the neutral zone and forcing them to dump the puck rather than make a play on net. Over and over again the Dukes defence were able to scoop up the loose puck and clear the zone.

But with the game pretty much in hand on Sunday, with a 4-1 lead after two periods— the Dukes loosened their grip on the Voyageurs forwards, ever so slightly. Suddenly Kingston had a bit more ice to operate with. Soon the puck was behind Tyler Marble and the outcome of the game was no longer a certainty.

“It has always been our strength, to backcheck hard and help our defencemen recover the puck and give them some options to clear the zone,” said Simon Bessette, the Dukes captain. “We stopped working a bit early in the third. And when you give guys like McParland some space—they are going to score goals. But we got back on track pretty quickly after that wake up call. We started working harder and took the momentum back.”

The Dukes’ Adam Ritchie #22 swings around the Kingston defender to get a shot on net. Photo: Michelle Cochrane.

DUKES 5 – KINGSTON 3
It was the fourth meeting between Wellington and Kingston. Kingston had won all three previous games. But since mid-October the teams were heading in different directions in the standings. Sunday was an important test of the red-hot Wellington Dukes.

On his first shift of the game, lanky forward Anthony Taylor bobbed and weaved his way from his own end, across the neutral zone and pushed into the Vees zone, pulling the puck on net with his extraordinarily long reach. Guillaume Naud got credit for tapping in the rebound but this was Taylor’s creation. Early in the second Craig Campbell on the power play jammed home a loose puck from a scramble in front of Vees netminder Charlie Finn. A few minutes later newcomer Adam Ritchie bulled his way out of the corner with the puck and fired through Finn, giving his team a 3-l lead.

Kingston got on the board scoring with their own power play goal late in the period. But 16 seconds later Naud made another contribution to his personal highlight reel. After Mitch McNeill’s blueline blast was kicked aside Naud picked up the puck on the short side and, with a gymnast’s flexibility, twisted between the defender and netminder carrying the puck with him—then depositing it in the far side of the net.

Other teams might have folded. But the Vees came out of the dressing room after the second frame with an extra step and were soon rewarded with a goal—

Then on the power play Elliott Richardson teed up the puck to David Pratt who unloaded a howitzer that might have torn through flesh had it encountered any. The twine at the back of the net was all that stopped the puck.

With less than a minute left Kingston scored again—a signal that while the match was lost, the battle between these teams was far from over.

“Fans were telling us on the street all week “you had better beat Kingston on Sunday,” said Bessette. “We were ready. We got off to a quick start. Got some nice goals from Guillaume’s line and some great saves from Tyler Marble in net. Our power play was pretty good too. It was a big game.”

Captain Simon Bessette chases Kingston’s David McMullen into his own end while killing the penalty on Sunday night.

DUKES 4 – PETERBOROUGH 2
The game plan was simple enough. Peterborough is the last-place team in the division. Pop a couple of quick goals and the Stars would fold. That was the plan.

The Stars’ netminder Aaron Davis had something to say about the matter, however.

“He kept them in the game—longer than he should have,” said Bessette. “We couldn’t buy a goal. At the end of the first we just had a 1-0 lead. If I had been in the Peterborough dressing room between periods I would have been pretty happy with the first 20 minutes. Our coaching staff let us know that the longer we let them stay in the game the greater the chance they had to steal the game.”

Even with a four-minute advantage the Dukes couldn’t solve Davis. But then, with the period nearly at an end, defenceman Kyle Paat put a hard shot on net. The league’s top scorer, Darcy Murphy, scooped up the loose puck and skated through the crease until Davis could no longer follow. Shot. Score.

Just seconds into the second, Josh Gervais fed Murphy with a slick blueline-to-blueline pass. With an open lane to the net Murphy could pick his corner. His choice: top shelf, far corner where Mrs. Murphy keeps the marmalade.

Kyllian Kirkwood scored his second in seven games as a Duke before Murphy completed his hat trick late in the period.

“In the second period we started burying our chances and the game plan fell into place,” said Bessette.

DUKES 6 – COBOURG 8
The captain said his team was ready for the Cougars on Monday. He knew that Cobourg would be looking for a measure of revenge after being soundly beaten the last time they were in Wellington. Morevoer the winner of the game would emerge in second place.

But it is hard to say from the outcome on Monday the Dukes were ready enough.

The Cougars came out fast and flying, scoring two goals in the first three minutes, widened to a 3-0 lead by the end of the first period. Early in the second frame the Dukes mounted a bit of a comeback with goals from Craig Campbell and Simon Bessette. But Cobourg followed up with three unanswered goals in a six-minute span—including a short-handed goal. Guillaume Naud and Evan Jasper traded goals for their respective teams to end the wild and woolly second period.

The Dukes regrouped in the third period, scoring three goals—from Jan Kaminsky, Erick Delaurentis and Josh Gervais—but an empty-net goal late in the game sealed the loss for the visiting Dukes. It was a particularly hard loss for netminder Tyler Marble—not since donning the Dukes jersey has he given up seven goals—sending his goals-against average from the league’s best at 1.66 to 2.24. He still has the second best save percentage among OJHL goalies.

For the Dukes the brief brush with second place is over—for now.

UP NEXT: WHITBY AND LINDSAY
There are just two more home games before the Christmas break. The first of these will be on Friday as the Dukes host the Whitby Fury. The Fury have made a team commitment to the neutral zone trap this season and hold a firm grip on fourth place behind Wellington. Each team has won a game in two previous matches. On Sunday the Dukes travel to Lindsay to take on the slumping Muskies—winless in their past five outings.

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 eleventh in a series of tracking down former Duke Players.

NAME: MATT COOKE
This past Saturday the Sports Net Television channel had a feature on Matt Cooke that went into detail on his transformation of his game this year and, a third of the way into the season, it has been quite remarkable.

In 1994 he appeared at the Dukes training camp as a 16-year-old graduate of the Quinte Red Devils ‘AAA’ organization. He made the team and despite playing mostly on the third and fourth lines he managed to score nine goals and picked up 32 points. The OHL Windsor Spitfires drafted him and again he played mostly on their bottom two lines, racking up 8 goals and 19 points.

His second season with the Spitfires would be his breakout year, however, when his goal total jumped to 45 and his point total to 95. At the conclusion of the season he was selected in the sixth round of the NHL draft by the Vancouver Canucks.

After splitting his final junior season with the Spitfires and the Kingston Frontenacs, Matt turned pro and spent most of the next nine years in Vancouver before he was traded at the 2008 deadline to the Washington Capitals. That summer he signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Pittsburgh Penguins and helped them win the Stanley Cup in 2009.

DID YOU KNOW?
In his only season with the Kingston Frontenacs Matt had 16 points in 12 playoff games in 1998. The Frontenacs have not advanced past the first round of the playoffs since.