Massive promise

Composure is still a work in progress

Judgements made in week one can prove fragile. Players are still trying to make their mark, to understand their role. The team has yet to form an identity. So it can be a trap to make grand observations based on the first week of the regular season.

However, it is easy to see that the Wellington Dukes of 2022/23 is a good team—perhaps a great one. This squad is fast, unbelievably skilled and as tenacious as hungry badgers—prototypical Wellington Dukes team led by a captain who embodies all of these traits.

Unlike some past iterations, however, there is heft to this squad. Tough, aggressive and hard-nosed. It looks like a team with big ambitions and the weapons to achieve them.

But discipline.

There were moments in the home opener on Friday when the Lindsay Muskies were on the mat. The Dukes were far superior at every facet of the game, winning battles in every square metre of the rink.

The Muskies are a better team this season. They are keen to shake off the odour of perennial under-performers. At times they showed flashes of renewed self-confidence— but too many of these moments were presented as gifts courtesy of the Dukes. The Muskies were happy—and quick to oblige.

Lindsay scored all four goals against Wellington on Friday with the man-advantage, a pair with a two-man advantage. Twice the Muskies capitalized just seconds into the power play.

Two more power play goals against Wellington on Saturday in a 5-2 loss in Georgetown.

After two games, the Dukes lead the league with 56 penalty minutes. It is too hard to play this game short-handed. The competition is too good, too determined and too eager to exploit weakness.

The Dukes will need to find a way to turn the other cheek—to skate away from perceived injustices. To talk less. To accept the frailty and seeming inequity of human adjudicators (referees).

Otherwise, a season of immense promise risks withering into a lament of what-couldhave- been.

WELLINGTON 7 – LINDSAY 4
A tentative start soon gave way to sustained Dukes’ momentum as Edward Moskowitz scored his first of three goals on the power play— burying the rebound from a blistering point shot from defenceman Julien Jacobs. Moskowitz followed up with a short-handed goal. David Campbell hammered a one-timer from below the face-off dot past the Lindsay netminder—on a brilliant cross-ice pass from Jacobs.

The Dukes were overwhelming the Muskies. But with four seconds remaining in the first, a Dukes defenceman was tagged for holding. Three seconds into the power play, just a second from intermission, the Muskies capitalized. Lindsay had something to say.

The Dukes responded with three goals in the second—another from Moskowitz, Corbin Roach on a pretty set-up by Zander Latreille, and Ryan Smith snapping home a pass from Campbell.

The Dukes were solidly in control, threatening a blowout. They had chased the Muskies’ first netminder, Noah Metivier, for Phillipe De Champlain after Roach’s goal.

But Lindsay potted another on the power play. Dukes’ composure went slack. Roughing. Slashing. Interference. Cross-checking. Provoked by the Muskies for sure. But unlike the Sudbury Blueberry Bulldogs, retaliation penalties can, and do, cost goals.

Lindsay tallied two more power plays in the third. Suddenly a dominant debut by the Dukes was slipping away. Midway through the period, however, Roach found Connor Hunt in the midslot area. Hunt whistled a one-timer past DeChamplain to seal the win—putting a lid on any comeback attempt by the Muskies.

Ethan Morrow earned the win in the Dukes’ net.

GEORGETOWN 5 – DUKES 2
Georgetown potted the only goal in the first period on Saturday’s late afternoon game beating Julian Osborne in Wellington’s net. Jaxen Boyer and Will Mitchell responded in the second—giving the Dukes the lead.

A Raiders’ power play maker knotted the game before Georgetown regained the lead. Another Raiders power play goal in the third—and an empty-net goal.

Take away the power play goals, this game might have been settled in overtime. There are lessons in the first two games of this young season. The Dukes’ success depends on those lessons meaning something.

UP NEXT: AURORA AND CALEDON
The OJHL schedule features considerably more travel and intra-conference play. Rather than play East Division rivals Trenton, Cobourg and Lindsay eight times, they will face them just five times this season. Instead, the Dukes will see more teams, such as Aurora, a team they did not see once last season.

The Tigers come to Wellington on Friday. Aurora has defeated the Markham Royals twice in overtime on the weekend.

The Dukes travel to Caledon on Monday night. The Admirals lost their first game 4-2 to the Milton Menace, who looks to be a powerhouse this season.