Mixed messages

Penalties and suspensions mar important divisional wins

Sixty-four minutes of penalties assessed. In one game. That’s what the Wellington Dukes accumulated on Friday night. Oh… and they won the game. In overtime. Downing the Trenton Golden Hawks 4-3 in overtime. An ugly match. Earning the Dukes one-game suspensions for three players. Against a lone suspension for Trenton.

Ben Woodhouse buzzes around the Trenton net

The Dukes gifted Trenton with 10 power play opportunities in the game—three of these became two-man advantages.

Yet the Dukes won the game. But in doing so, they were forced to play the Cobourg Cougars—the East Division leaders—on Monday night without the services of Elijah Gonsalves, Tyson Gilmour and Ben Woodhouse.

Some will protest that the Dukes have been treated unfairly. That it takes two sides—and some help from the refs—for the game to get this out-of-hand. There is usually some strands of truth to this complaint.

The Dukes however lead the league in penalty minutes. By a wide margin. It is a dubious distinction they have owned since the opening game of the season. Penalty minutes accumulated in the OJHL teams so far this season average 372 per team. The Dukes have 537. Forty-four per cent higher. Wellington has gathered nearly 20 per cent more penalty minutes than the next most penalized team in the league. If there were a trophy of playing with the man short, the Dukes would have a lock on that prize.

It is hard to see how the Dukes can climb out of the middle of the pack in the East Division while dragging the weight of penalties and suspensions through the remainder of the season.

Yet.

DUKES 4 – COBOURG 1

With three of their top five scorers watching from the stands, the Dukes defeated the Cobourg Cougars 4-1. A solid win. Once again Olivier Lafreniere was dominant—turning away 39 shots. Madoka Suzuki benefitted from the extra ice time alongside Andrew Rinaldi—potting a pair of goals. So did Dylan Massie, with help from Landon McLellan, called up from the Picton Pirates. Zach Nelson and Frank Vitucci earned assists in the win.

In Monday’s game, both teams had the same number of power plays (3). There was no advantage to either side.

It will be interesting to observe the lesson that is learned from this weekend: Do penalties—either the quantum or duration—matter? Does discipline matter? Or will the leading penalty gatherers spend a few more games watching than playing? Penance, perhaps.

Jacob Vreugdenhil is extremely quick and this helps him to be effective chasing down the play at either end of the rink.

There were mixed messages in the Dukes’ wins Friday and Monday.

In any event, the team leapt across the .500 mark. Perhaps the wind has changed.

DUKES 4 – TRENTON 3 DOUBLE OT
Andrew Rinaldi scored on his first shift in Trenton on Friday night. It was his teamleading 17th goal and 33rd point of the campaign. The play swung back and forth up and down the ice until the middle of the second period, when Dylan Massie converted a Quinn Hanna shot. Trenton continued to press, frequently with the man-advantage, but it wasn’t until the 13-minute mark of the second period, that the Golden Hawks found a way to beat Olivier Lafreniere in the Dukes’ net.

A moment later Frank Vitucci gave the Dukes a 3-1 lead. It wouldn’t hold. Massie was tagged for delay of game infraction. Trenton scored with the man advantage. It was their first power play goal in six opportunities. Seconds into the third frame the Golden Hawks tied the game.

Near the end of the first overtime period, Trenton’s Dylan McMahon was penalized for high sticking. Still on the power play early in the second overtime, Ben Addison and Rinaldi combined to feed Vitucci who knocked home the winner—his second of the game. Vitucci has 12 points in his last nine games—including five goals. He was named first star of the game— though Lafreniere and the Dukes defence earned special mention for turning away 39 shots—most of these while short-handed.

UP NEXT: WHITBY
The Dukes play just one game this week. On Saturday the team heads to Whitby for an early afternoon tilt. Whitby is nipping on the heels of the Cobourg Cougars, hungry for top spot in the East. The Fury play extremely tough at home—winning nine of 11 at the Iroquois Centre so far this season. They don’t fear penalties, possessing a formidable 93 per cent penaltykill rate. They are below the middle of the pack in terms of taking advantage of the extra attacker, however.

Netminder Luke Pearson has the second-best goals against average in the OJHL (1.83) so the Dukes’ snipers will need to get the puck on net and create noise in front of the Whitby goalie.