Craig Campbell battles for the loose puck along the boards—looking to feed linemate Anthony Taylor in Friday’s 2-1 shootout loss against Whitby on Friday. Campbell is averaging more than point a game in his last five.

Dukes battle hard in ultra-tight division race

As the Wellington Dukes prepare for their final weekend of action in advance of the holidays, the tightness of the race for first place in the East Division could not be more pronounced. After earning just a single point in their overtime loss against Whitby on Friday, the Dukes slipped another notch behind the Trenton Golden Hawks who haven’t lost a game since losing to the Dukes at the end of November. Meanwhile Cobourg was able to widen its second place lead and Whitby crept within three points of the Dukes, advancing from the rear. It is a division so tight, one slip makes the task of moving up the ranks exponentially harder.

“We really have to take them one game at a time,” said Simon Bessette, Dukes captain. “Every game is the most important game of the season now. If we let up we will look back on these games as missed opportunities come February.”

This truth makes the shootout loss to Whitby on Friday much harder to swallow. Whitby is a disciplined, well-coached team that demands its players follow a defensive system—clogging up the neutral zone, forcing opposing teams to rely on individual effort to move the puck into the offensive zone.

But from early in the game the Dukes were playing from behind. Just seconds into a power play Whitby scored on a deflection to put them up 1-0. The score would stay this way until young Erick Delaurentis made a creative move in the neutral zone dashing through defenders, through the wing and firing the puck on net—the puck slipping past the Whitby netminder.

The score was locked at one goal apiece at the end of regulation. In overtime Whitby was penalized for hooking, giving the Dukes two minutes of four-on-three hockey. The Dukes moved the puck well around the defenders but all three Fury players collapsed deep around the net—giving the Dukes shooter little daylight to target.

In the shootout that followed, both Darcy Murphy and Craig Campbell beat the netminder but not the post or crossbar. Whitby’s Chris Ragueso did, however, beat Tyler Marble for the Whitby win.

“They are a strong defensive- oriented team,” said Bessette. “They may not be the most talented team on paper but every player buys into the system and the game plan. That makes them a very difficult team to play.”

It was a very different team the Dukes encountered on Sunday. The Lindsay Muskies like to play a rough-and-tumble game—close battles fought hard along the boards. It makes for a very scrambly game according the Wellington captain.

Erick Delaurentis has scored a pair of goals in his last three games.

“It is difficult to establish a flow against Lindsay,” observed Bessette. “Darcy Murphy gave us the early lead but we struggled to get the next goal. We felt when we got that goal we would get another and another. But they stayed in the game until the very end.”

Bessette eventually got the insurance marker on a bit of a fluke goal with just over a minute to go in the game. At the end of a long shift he dumped the puck into the offensive zone with some mustard—hoping to rim it around the end of the boards in time for the next line to scoop it up inside the Lindsay zone.

Lindsay netminder Luke Bierworth slid behind the net to stop the puck from scooting around. But the puck never arrived. Instead Bessette’s shot hit a glass partition along the mid board and deflected into the now empty net. Bessette was almost off the ice when he scored.

UP NEXT: AT TRENTON, LINDSAY AND AT PETERBOROUGH
The Wellington Dukes play three more times before heading home to turkey and family. Though all three are important in the standings race, Friday’s match in Trenton on Friday is the one both teams have circled on the calendar since the end of November.

It is the second last time the cross-bay rivals will face each other in the regular season. The Dukes have won the head-to-head series three games to one. Trenton meanwhile has lost only four games outright all season— three of these at the hands of the Dukes.

These will be some of the numbers running through the coaching staffs of each team as they prepare for Friday’s game.

On Sunday—Wellington’s last home game of 2011—the Dukes welcome Linday for the Muskies’ last trip to the Essroc Centre in the regular season. The Dukes have won all four previous matches, outscoring the Muskies 18-5.

Elliott Richardson continues to lead all OJHL defencemen in scoring with 38 points in 31 games.

On Tuesday the Dukes will travel to Peterborough to tangle with the lastplace but ever dangerous Stars. The Dukes are ahead three games to one in the head-to-head series with the Stars.

VETERAN LEADERSHIP
The Dukes will have David Pratt back on the blueline this weekend as the fleetfooted defenceman has completed his studies in Potsdam.

“It will be great to have his experience and skill back in our lineup,” said Bessette. “I am not taking anything away from our other defencemen but experience makes everybody better. We saw it with the return of Guy (Guillaume Naud) after two games with the Bulls. He is confident and sharp and that rubs off on the whole team.”

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 twelfth in a series of tracking down former Duke Players.

NAME: CHRIS STANLEY
Chris Stanley was a product of the Parry Sound Minor Hockey system and made his way to the 1995 Wellington Dukes training camp as a 16-year-old forward. After making the team he was given the unusual jersey number 13. His lone season with the Dukes saw him score 27 goals and a better than point-a-game average with 56 in 52 games.

Not drafted by any Ontario Hockey League team, his efforts were rewarded with an invite to the Belleville Bulls camp in the fall of 1996. A good rookie season concluded with being a fourth-round NHL draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks. He played three more seasons with the Bulls with the highlight being the 1999 OHL Playoff Championship, the only one by the Bulls in their franchise history.

His OHL tuition money was put to good use as he attended Dalh o u s i e University located in Halifax, Nova Scotia for four years. His final season saw him lead the entire Canadian Interuniversity Hockey in scoring with 48 points in just 28 games. He was also named CIS All-Canadian for the second time in his career.

Las Vegas, Nevada was his debut in the professional hockey ranks but after two seasons he moved across the ocean and has played the last six years in Europe, most recently in Germany where he currently leads his team, the Fischtown Penguins, in scoring.

DID YOU KNOW?
Chris was named the 2003-2004 Canadian Interuniversity Sport Player of the Year.