Moving forward

Wellington does well to paper over bad start in Markham

One bad period does not make a weekend when it comes to junior hockey. So, all things considered, the Wellington Dukes turned in a decent effort this past weekend, picking three of a possible four points.

The first period of Friday’s game notwithstanding.

The Dukes (11-5-3) started their Eastern Conference showdown with host Markham on Friday night in reverse, allowing the top seeded Royals to hang a four-spot on the visitors in the opening 20 minutes.

But true to the character they’ve exuded all season, Wellington slowly clawed their way back into contention and erased the four-goal bulge by the first minute of the third period.

The Dukes wound up losing in overtime 5-4. However, considering they were down 4- Cobb to start the second, that’s a nice road point no matter the arithmetic.

On Monday, the Dukes took care of business in Toronto, blanking the Warriors 6-0.

The productive weekend helped the Dukes stay in the upper echelon of the conference with 25 points. They trail the Royals by five points through 19 games.

Meanwhile, the Cobourg Cougars are in third with 23 points, but have a glut of four games in hand as jockeying for the pole position starts in earnest this weekend.

ROAD WARRIORS
Wellington turned in a tidy 6-0 shutout of the Warriors at the Scotiabank Pond Monday night.

Mason Raycroft made 23 stops to earn his first Ontario Junior Hockey League goose egg while his teammates struck for a pair of goals in each period.

Landon Marleau paced the Wellington attack with a pair while Marco Wolf, Cooper Woron, Kasen Beitz and Zach Anderson also lit the lamp.

BATTLE ROYALE
On Friday, Wellington showed up in Markham with a serious case of bus legs. The Royals beat a path to the Dukes’ net and four different Markham skaters fired goals for a 4-0 lead after 20 minutes.

If Wellington was trying to distance itself from a 9- 4 drubbing at the start of the week in Cobourg (The team’s worst outing by far this season), the locals had a funny way of showing it.

a funny way of showing it. But a funny thing happened on the way to the final buzzer at the Honey and Barry Memorial Arena.

Wellington started punching back.

Justin Doak picked up a loose puck on the far side of centre, left a drop pass just inside the blue line and rookie Austin Ottenhof ripped a laser beam through traffic 4:07 into then second to get Wellington on the board.

Just over two minutes later, more sloppy play by the Royals in their own end led to Bietz picking up a loose puck behind the Markham net, skating to the side of starter Jacob Ceranic and firing his ninth goal in 11 games to bring the visitors to within a pair.

The Dukes went to work on the power play before the end of the second and hit pay dirt. Marco Wolf’s cross-crease pass landed safely on the stick of Zach Anderson and the Calgary native sniped his third of the season to bring Wellington to within a goal at 4-3.

Wellington outshot Markham 10-8 in the second and came out firing early in the third. Jayden Levesque used Marleau as a decoy on a 2-on-1 rush, retained a puck and beat Ceranic to the glove side just 46 seconds in to bring Wellington all the way back.

You could fault the Dukes for their worst start of the season. However, it wasn’t the team in red, blue and white that squandered a four-goal lead.

Markham salvaged some respectability in overtime with Andrew Pacheco solving Dryden Riley 53 seconds into overtime.

The Dukes close out one of their busiest Octobers on record Friday when they host Aurora. They locals are then idle for a week before hosting St. Mike’s on November 6.