Playoff bound

A strong outing against the league’s best puts Dukes on a positive track

Jacob Panetta vowed, when he took the reins last July, that the Dukes would continue the team’s unbroken streak of playoff appearances in the 2025/26 season. True to his word, Panetta is guiding the Wellington Dukes toward their 37th appearance in the OJHL playoffs. It is a historic streak dating back to the team’s debut in 1989.

Just nine games remain in Wellington’s regular season schedule. The Dukes currently sit in sixth in the East Conference. Eight teams will make the playoffs. No team, currently ranked lower than eighth spot, can catch the Dukes at this point.

While it has been a choppy season at times—and off-ice challenges remain— Panetta, Darcy Murphy and Chris Miles have managed to pull off something that looked doubtful last spring. The Dukes are still standing with yet another playoff run set to begin in 2026.

TRENTON 3 – WELLINGTON 2
Every week, the Dukes keep looking better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter. Friday’s game against Trenton was an important test of how far the team has come since facing the Golden Hawks in early January.

Trenton came into the game leading the East Conference and ranked fifth nationally. The team had won six in a row. So the Dukes understood Friday’s match at home would be a test.

Early on, the test went well.

Strong, persistent forechecking by Dukes forwards led to a pair of power plays in the early going. The Dukes had chances—but so too did the Golden Hawks—creating odd man rushes shorthanded. Dryden Riley stood tall in the Wellington net.

In the second power play, the Dukes managed to get the puck low before putting it on net. Evan Erwin was in the right spot to end the scramble— swatting the puck into the Golden Hawks’ net. And the lead.

Trenton turned up the pace. The Golden Hawks pressured the Dukes in their own zone. While they eventually carried the puck out, the hometown team was on their back foot. An odd man rush back into the Dukes end—a slick cross-slot saucer. Riley had no chance on the shot. The game was tied.

Erwin set up the Dukes’ second goal early in the second. Landon Marleau buried his 21st since joining the team in October. Later in the period, the Golden Hawks Daylen Moses broke loose. Shot on net. A penalty shot was awarded. Moses scored—five hole. The game was tied again.

Just over a minute later, a mistake at the blue line led to a Golden Hawks odd-man rush. The Golden Hawk’s Casey Bridgewater tipped a high slot shot from Taeo Artichuk. It was that kind of night—every mistake seemed to end up in the Dukes’ net.

The Dukes continued to accumulate glorious scoring chances but could not bury the equalizer.

This was a good game. No one left the rink on Friday worried that they hadn’t gotten their money’s worth.

UP NEXT: CALEDON, NORTH YORK, HALIBURTON AND TRENTON
On Tuesday afternoon (yesterday), the Dukes will have played another midweek matinee game—a makeup game with Caledon. Postponed last month due to snow.

North York visits Wellington on Thursday evening for a 7:30 game. The Dukes defeated the Rangers easily when they last met in December. While North York won’t make the playoffs, defeating a team that is, can be an ambition all its own.

Saturday, the Dukes will head up to Minden to face a more formidable opponent in the Haliburton County Huskies. The Huskies sit just one spot ahead of the Dukes, holding an eight-point lead. It seems a tall order for the Dukes to surpass Haliburton—but this is the time of year that messages are sent. And delivered.

The Dukes will head over to Trenton on Monday night for the last game between the Bay of Quinte rivals in the regular season. Expect a stream of Dukes fans heading up the Loyalist Parkway just after supper.