Playoffs

Action begins this Friday night in Wellington

It’s playoff time in Wellington. On Friday the Wellington Dukes host the Pickering Panthers in Game 1 of the best of seven series.

On paper the matchup appears to favour the East Division Champions. The Dukes won all four games against the Panthers this season. And Wellington had seven more regular season wins than Pickering and 11 fewer losses in regulation time.

But, and it is a significant but, the Dukes peaked somewhere around mid-December and have been going mostly sideways since. The Panthers floundered through much of the early part of the season, but added a few pieces and got progressively better throughout the regular season.

All season long Colin Doyle has been the Dukes’ best all around player—dependably headmanning rushes up the ice, putting his team in a position to score and killing penalties. And despite logging tons of ice time, and generating his team’s second most assists total, Doyle has amassed fewer penalty minutes than 10 of his team mates.

That said, folks who saw the last two Dukes regular season games in Kingston and Trenton reported the return of the powerful, structured and assured team play observed earlier in the season.

But Wellington fans ought not expect an easy romp over the Panthers. The Dukes have only played Pickering one game since October. They are a different team since then.

One clear difference is young Ethan Langevin in the Pickering net. The 16-year-old Sarnia Sting prospect was poised and athletic in his first start against Wellington in mid-February, turning way 29 shots in a 3-2 loss.

Forward Brock Traill, picked up from Lindsay earlier in the season, set up Pickering’s lone power play, while Andrew Hughes has been on a point-a-game pace since he was acquired from the Stouffville Spirit in November. Both are persistent offensive threats.

Zach Anderson, picked up from Oakville, is a smaller defenceman—but he is quick and smart. With an effective shot from the point.

Joseph Franzin is the Panthers most offensively productive defender, putting up points in 12 of his last 13 games.

Perhaps more than a collection of pieces, Pickering has bought into a defensive style of team play—each player responsible to the other. This team rarely gets caught on an oddman rush—opposing teams have to earn their way into the Panthers’ zone, through old fashioned hard work. Chipping the puck deep and applying pressure.

EAST DIVISION CHAMPS
The Dukes have demonstrated amply through this season that they are fully capable of hard work. The team has the grit needed to do the tough slogging necessary. Led by Captain Colin Doyle, who never takes a shift off, the Dukes can also count on Daniel Panetta, Dawson Ellis, Graeme McCrory and Mitchell Martan to get in and get their noses dirty each and every game.

Others like Andrew Rinaldi, Ben Evans and Jackson Arcan can, and do, demonstrate this hard-nosed character—at times. The playoffs, however, demand a more consistent work ethic. It seems likely the Dukes will go as far as they want to work.

Discipline will surely be a factor as well. Pickering averaged 16 penalty minutes per game in the regular season. The Dukes averaged 22 minutes. Six more minutes short-handed in the playoffs likely helps shape the decision.

Overall the Dukes have the weapons, and the talent, to make a deep run into the playoffs. Now it’s up to them.