Is the crown slipping?

Dukes facing bolder challengers

Dukes forward Brian Bunnett fights through heavy traffic to chip the puck past the Lindsay Muskies' netminder Luke Bierworth during play on Friday night in Lindsay.

It’s hard to get to the top—even harder to stay there. The Wellington Dukes went into Tuesday’s game against the Peterborough Stars with a two-point lead over the secondplace Stars.

By the time you read this the Dukes will know if they now share top spot with the Stars or have opened up a four-point lead. It won’t be easy. Every team with has extra motivation to play harder against the Dukes; downing the
mighty Dukes is a badge that can put a sheen on even a dismal season.

QUESTION

So it was in Lindsay on Friday night. The Muskies are stuck in the bottom half of the schedule. Yet they are a good, scrappy young team with a pretty good goalie. With a week’s rest under their belts the Dukes skated into Lindsay, perhaps counting the two points a bit too soon.

Lindsay came out and hustled for two periods, playing sound defensive hockey. The Dukes for their part could barely complete a pass.

“They did a good job of clogging up the neutral zone and couldn’t get a lot of flow going,” said Marty Abrams, Dukes head coach and general manager. “They did well to take away our passing and puck movement ability.”

The Muskies’ Dean Klomp picked up his own rebound in the second period to give his team the lead. Meanwhile the Dukes had difficulty penetrating the perimeter. They managed many more shots than the Muskies but most were from the edge and handled easily by the Lindsay netminder Luke Bierworth. Rebounds always seemed out of reach.

In the third the Muskies opened a two-goal lead on a slick feed from Matt Wildman to Drew Berkel positioned perfectly in the slot in front of the net.

That goal seemed to be the spark to get the Dukes to shift to a higher gear. As Wellington turned up the pressure Lindsay began to melt, drawing an interference penalty midway through the period. Less than 20 seconds later the Dukes’ Brian Bunnett had scored, drawing the Dukes within a goal.

For the next 10 minutes the Dukes dominated in the Linday zone but couldn’t score.

The Muskies’ players and fans celebrated the victory with gusto. The game mattered more to them than it did to the Dukes. Two nights later Lindsay fell back to earth, losing to the Streetsville Derbys.

Abrams wasn’t happy about the outcome but was positive about the effort.

“Lindsay played a good game against us. I thought our work ethic and intensity were there but we just fell a bit short.”

The loss was the Dukes’ first in regular time this season.

ANSWER

On Sunday the Dukes travelled to Etobicoke to take on the Upper Canada Patriots for the second time in a week.

Having learned their lesson the Dukes took control of the game early-opening a two-goal lead with tallies from Darcy Greenaway and Sean Rudy in the first period. Upper Canada responded early in the second period with a goal but Joe Zarbo and Steve Evans tallied to open up a 4-1 lead in the third.

A string of penalties late in the game might have proved costly—but the Dukes penalty killing unit has been on a tear of late. After giving up 13 power play goals in its first 10 games the Dukes have given up just one in their last six.

Dukes forward Jeff Stanton.

It was a problem that Abrams knew he had to fix before it showed up in losses.

“Our penalty killing has been outstanding in the past couple of weeks,” said Abrams. “They are doing a great job of killing key penalties at key times.”

Abrams was pleased with his team’s response to the loss in Lindsay.

“They came out focused and determined to get one back into the win column. That was really important. We didn’t give up a lot of scoring chances.”

OCTOBER’S PLAYER OF THE MONTH: JOE ZARBO

The 19-year-old forward played in all 11 games in the month and picked up 18 points including 11 goals. Just two of his goals were scored on the power play while three of them were game winners. Despite his aggressive style of play, the Grand Island, New York native was only called for four minor penalty infractions. Acquired by the Dukes at the mid-season mark last year from the Youngstown Phantoms of the USHL, Joe has a 2011 NCAA Division I commitment with Clarkson University.

RUBY JOINS TEAM CANADA EAST

The Dukes will have to manage without Jordan Ruby for the next six games. The Dukes’ number one netminder is joining the Team Canada East squad in Penticton B.C. for the World Junior ‘A’ Challenge this week and next.

It is now up to Ryan McDonald to takeover the number one spot. But the just-turned 19-year-old has proved he is up to the task. In five games so far with the Dukes McDonald has a 2.80 goals-against average and has stopped 91 per cent of the shots he’s faced–good enough for ninth overall in the league.

UP NEXT: DIXIE BEEHIVES, TRENTON AND VAUGHAN

On Friday the Dukes welcome the Dixie Beehives to the DukeDome. Dixie has only one win in 18 starts so far this season, in the weakest division in the league. The Dukes have been burned recently by taking their opponent too lightly. That isn’t likely to happen again.

On Sunday the Dukes travel to Trenton for the first regular season meeting of these cross-bay rivals. Trenton is second last in the division but is a better team than their record shows.

On Monday night the Dukes get on board the bus again—this time to Vaughan—currently second in the South Division.