Bounce back

Dukes regain composure after dreary outing at home

Andrew Rinaldi (15) scored the Dukes lone goal on Friday night. He has scored in each of his team’s last three games.

It was a game that seemed as though it might slip into the gorge, erupting in flames. After a lacklustre loss at home against Cobourg on Friday night, the Dukes and their netminder Olivier Lafreniere bounced back with solid 3-0 victory over the Tigers in Aurora on Saturday night.

So, the game in Downsview on Sunday would decide whether this was a winning weekend or not.

The Dukes came out hard. Fast. Shots on net. But by the first intermission they trailed the Junior Canadiens by a goal. Andrew Rinaldi (extending his point scoring streak to four games) and Elijah Gonsalves connected in the early going of the second frame to tie the game.

But 13 seconds into a Dukes penalty, Toronto regained the lead. Tyson Gilmour scored a couple minutes later. The second period ended in a 2-2 tie. But early in the third Ben Woodhouse earned a five-minute major penalty and a two-game suspension for checking from behind.

Toronto took back the lead on the ensuing power play. That is where the score stood until just 90 seconds remained on the clock. Wellington pulled Lafreniere for an extra forward. That’s when the Dukes’ newest defenceman, Tim Fallowfield, fed Quinn Hanna. Hanna’s shot on net. Tapped by Dalton Bancroft. The game was tied.

A minute into overtime, Gonsalves found Daniel Panetta, who converted to salvage the win. And the weekend.

DUKES 3 – AURORA 0
Gonsalves was involved in all three goals on Saturday in Aurora. But Saturday’s story was Lafreniere. Early in the game, the Tigers pelted the Dukes netminder, and Lafreniere came up with a series of astonishing stops.

The teams traded penalties in the first, but neither managed to take advantage. This trend continued in the second. But it couldn’t last. On the power play, the Dukes’ Hanna slid the tidy pass into Fallowfield’s impressive wheelhouse. His blistering slapshot put the puck in the net before the Aurora netminder knew what had happened.

Daniel Panetta stretches to swipe the puck on net on Friday night.

Early in the third, Rinaldi was working the puck low, deep into Aurora’s zone. He dropped the puck to Gilmour, then skated around the net, to the far side. Gilmour slid it to Gonsalves who was positioned on the opposite side of the crease to Rinaldi. Pass across the top of the blue paint. Rinaldi fired. Dukes led 2-0.

Later in the period, with time running down, Gonsalves chipped the puck away from an Aurora defender on his blueline, freeing Gilmour on a break. One move later, and the puck was jammed through the netminder, sealing the Dukes solid road win. Lafreniere had his second shutout of the young season.

LINE UP

Tim Fallowfield comes to the Dukes after 43 games with the OHL’s London Knights. Prior to the Knights the 6′-1″, 175-pound defenceman had toiled with St. Thomas in the GOJHL, racking up 28 points in 57 games.

UP NEXT: NEWMARKET AND WHITBY
With just a few days rest, the Dukes get back to work on Thursday night, travelling to Newmarket. The Hurricanes are struggling this season with just three wins in 10 games. Consistency also seems to be lacking. Newmarket beat Pickering 5-2 on the last day of September, then fell to the same team by a 1-0 score four days later.

The Dukes are likely to face a tougher test at home on Friday night against the Whitby Fury. Whitby owns the second-best winning percentage in the East Division, after Cobourg, with seven wins in 10 outings. (And the Fury beat Cobourg on Monday night.) The Fury haven’t lost a game since being edged 4-3 by St. Mikes on September 2. They are very good penalty killers (92 per cent) but dreadful on the power play—scoring just a single goal on 38 opportunities with the man-advantage.