Playoff primer

Who’s who of possible Dukes’ challengers
By David Brown

Sean Rudy celebrates after knocking home a brilliant feed from Joe Zarbo against Cobourg in the final game of the regular season for both teams.

Editor’s note: The question on the minds of Wellington fans this week is: who will the Dukes face in the first round of the playoffs—a series that could get underway as soon as Friday night or as late as Sunday night in Wellington.

Though far from certain, the North York Rangers took a big step closer to a visit to Wellington this weekend as both Lindsay and Cobourg won their first qualifying round games on Monday night. One more win for each of these teams will send them into the playoffs—Lindsay against Vaughan and Cobourg against Kingston.

This is the most probable scenario on Tuesday; however, much can change before Friday night when the qualifying round is set to be complete.

For that reason we have asked Dukes stats wizard David Brown to assess the three teams the Dukes could face in the first round.

The St. Michael’s Buzzers had to win their last game on the last day of the regular season to get into the playoffs and they did. If they defeat the Cobourg Cougars in the best-of-three series, they will become the Wellington Dukes opponent in the next round. The Buzzers and Dukes last met in the playoffs in 2007 with Wellington winning in five games to move on to the league finals.

The Buzzers finished the regular season with 56 points, good enough for fifth place in the South Division and 10th in the South/East Conference. They won six of their last 10 games. The Dukes and Buzzers met twice this season with Wellington winning both (3-1 at the Old DukeDome on Sept. 17 and two days later in Toronto the Dukes prevailed 5-4). You can’t put too much stock in these results as the games were played five months ago and several changes have been made to both rosters.

Top goal scorer: Kyle Morrison, #15, (35); top playmaker: Daniel Ciampini, #26, (49); most powerplay goals: Morrision, #15 (8); most power play assists: Ciampini, #26, (17); most shorthanded goals: Ciampini, #26, (9); most shorthanded assists: Joseph Luongo, #6 (3); most game winning goals: Mark Cooper, #12, (5); top offensive defenceman: Andrew Secco, #4 (36 points).

Goaltenders: Aaron Green, #1, 3.04 GAA and a .910 save percentage; Adrian Ignagni, #30, 3.10 GAA and a .898 save percentage.

NCAA Bound: Michael Neville, #13 (Brown), Jesse Beamish, # 17 (Dartmouth), and Ciampini, #26 (Union).

Roster composition: Their team includes four 20 year olds and eleven 18 year olds (a remarkable number). Taylor Clements, #9, played briefly with the Dukes last season. Tommy Sumi, #18, was a teammate with Brendon Barletta and Brian Bunnett with the Bowmanville Eagles last season. Max Domi, #16, is an affiliate player with the Buzzers and is the son of former NHL player Tie Domi.

The Upper Canada Patriots trace their roots back to the former Bancroft Hawks team. They finished the regular season with 58 points compared with last year’s 34 points. This was the biggest improvement by any of the 31 OJHL teams. They finished fourth in the South Division and ninth in the South/East Conference. They won seven of their last 10 games. If they were to defeat the Lindsay Muskies and the Cobourg Cougars were to defeat the St. Michaels Buzzers, then they will become the Wellington Dukes’ opponents in the next round.

The Patriots and Dukes met twice this season with Wellington winning both (5-0 in the Old DukeDome on Oct. 22 and 4-2 on Oct. 31 at Upper Canada).

Top Patriot Performers: Nick Perruccio, #14, led the team in most categories: 25 goals, 40 assists, nine power play goals, 16 power play assists, and five winning goals.

Michael Sicilia, #13, led the team in shorthanded goals with two. Marko Brelih, #5, led Patriot defencemen with 22 points. Joseph Pianta, #30, received the bulk of the work in net and had a 3.35 GAA and a .897 save percentage.

On the power play the Patriots rank 21st in the league, scoring 17.62 per cent of their opportunities. Team penalty killing at 77.74 ranks them at 26.

Roster Composition: Their team includes just one 20 year old and a remarkable twelve 17 year olds. The Patriots may be one of, if not the, youngest group of players in the entire OJHL.

The North York Rangers played with the Wellington Dukes back in the old Metro Junior ‘A’ days before both teams joined the OJHL back in 1998. The Rangers finished with 59 points this season, a slight improvement over their 53 points in the 2009-10 season. Despite having fewer points than the Cobourg Cougars and the Lindsay Muskies, the Rangers received a bye in the first round as a result of their third-place finish in the South Division. They finished eighth in the combined South/East Conference. They won four of their last 10 games played. If the Cobourg Cougars and the Lindsay Muskies both win their playoff rounds, the Rangers will become the Dukes’ opponents.

Last year they were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Burlington Cougars. This year they faced the Dukes twice and they managed to be the only South Division team to defeat Wellington in 16 conference games the Dukes played. The Rangers downed the Dukes 3-2 on Oct. 1 in a game that ended in a shootout. The next night, the two teams played in North York with the Dukes winning by the same score but in regulation time.

Special Teams Play: The Rangers’ rather anemic power play ranks them 27th in the league. Their penalty killing ability is bit better but still just 19th in the league.

Jacob Mooney, #13, leads the Rangers in most categories: goals (23), assists (43), power play assists (17) and game-winning goals (7). Mooney, along with Taki, #3, Pantziris and Eric Desjardins, #17, each had eight power play goals. Pantziris, #3, also leads all of Rangers’ defencemen in points with 33.

Ryan Demelo, #1, gets the bulk of work in net and his 2.71 GAA ranked him seventh in the OJHL. He also had a very good save percentage of .918.

Roster notes: The Rangers have a good balance of age groups represented on their team: three 20 year olds, five 19 year olds, six 18 year olds, seven 17 year olds and two 16 year olds.

The Rangers are one of the poorest draws in the OJHL, attracting an average of just 85 fans per home game at the Centennial Arena in the Bathurst and Finch area of Toronto.

Defenceman Brandon Mcintosh (#3) battles for the loose puck as netminder Jordan Ruby stands ready in Kingston on Thursday.