Thin wins

Recklessness portends an early exit in the playoffs

The radio ad for the Verdun Dragons of the Ligue nord-américane de hockey came to symbolize the league. “The puck drops at 8 p.m. The gloves drop at 8:05,” proclaimed the excited radio voice. More than 60 teams flowed in and out of the mostly goon pro league founded in 1996. Each game featured an average of 3.2 fights. Just six teams remain in the league. The Dragons are history—despite the popular promotion. So too are the Cornwall River Rats (2012-2016). It turns out the appeal of thuggish, drop-your-gloves hockey burns brightly—but fades quickly.

Gritty forward Dawson Ellis manages to slip the puck under Kingston netminder Trevor Withers on Friday night, but it failed to make it into the net. In any event, the Dukes won 5-1. Photo: Rick Matthews

The 22 teams of the OJHL—for now a very different hockey league—average 17 penalty minutes per game. (This statistic is a bit overstated by 10-minute penalties for which the penalized team loses access to the player, but the team doesn’t play shorthanded.) The Wellington Dukes average 22 minutes in penalties—conceding an average of five minutes per game shorthanded to their competitors. It is a much longer and more tenuous route to success.

Or perhaps it doesn’t matter. With the second- most-penalty-minutes in the OJHL, the Dukes trail only the Aurora Tigers—the firstplace team in the North Division. Yet, the number one team overall, the Toronto Patriots, earn an average of just 16 penalty minutes per game—6 minutes fewer than the Dukes, 10 minutes fewer than Aurora.

It seems that if you were drawing up a plan, however, Toronto’s approach would look better on paper.

Oh, by the way, Aurora is in Wellington on Friday night. The puck drops at 7:30. The gloves… Never mind.

HAMSTRUNG
One might have thought the point might have been made last Thursday night. The Dukes travelled to Newmarket and became entangled in tight defensive game, as netminder Jonah Capriotti turned away 45 shots.

But the outcome in this game was determined by penalties, even though not a power play goal was scored. The Dukes had two power play opportunities. The Hurricanes had six. Seconds after killing the third of these six power plays, Newmarket scored. It proved to be the game winner. The Hurricanes added another late in the waning minutes of the game to seal a 2-0 win over the Dukes. Hamstrung by playing so long shorthanded, the Dukes managed just 24 shots in this game—just five in the first period.

SLUGFEST
Friday’s game was a spectacle from the opening whistle. Kingston was in town. Within the first minute, both Ben Evans and Mitchell Mendonca were in the penalty box. Unsportsmanlike conduct just 21 seconds into the game (how is that possible?), and a hooking penalty 20 seconds later. With the two-man advantage, Kingston soon had the early lead.

But that was it. The Voyageurs didn’t compete after that. Not on the scoreboard anyway. The Dukes regained the lead before five minutes had elapsed in the first period, with goals from Evans and Teddy McGeen. McGeen’s goal was scored on the power play—first of the Dukes four power play goals in the game.

Penalties were the story of the game. One hundred and twenty-four minutes of penalties handed out. three players suspended. Five power play goals.

Ellis’s clearing shot high off the glass focuses the attention of everyone on the ice—as well as the photographer on the safe side of the glass. Photo: Kevin Scanlon

Ellis’s clearing shot high off the glass focuses the attention of everyone on the ice—as well as the photographer on the safe side of the glass. Photo: Kevin Scanlon

Early in the game, the infractions were more of the garden-variety hooking and slashing and such. But as the game wore on and bitterness grew, the penalties escalated to abuse of the official and head contact. At the end of the second period, the Dukes’ Geoff Lawson and Kingston’s Austin Grazenia squared off, exchanging a flurry of blows in the title fight of the night. For his trouble Lawson will watch from the sidelines for a few games.

The penalties kept coming fast and furious in the third.

When it was over, the Dukes had the 5-1 win, Evans had three points—two goals and an assist. Declan Carlisle had three helpers. No one was showered in glory.

GAME OF ATTRITION
On Sunday the Dukes faced off against Stouffville—a team that covered itself in a fair amount of ignominy the previous night in Trenton. In that fight-filled spree, the Stouffville Spirit coach earned a 10- game suspension while one of his players earned a seven-game suspension for physically abusing a referee. Trenton won 7-5, but it hardly matters.

In Wellington on Sunday, the Dukes and the Spirit presented a more contrite and disciplined picture of themselves.

The Spirit played a strong defensive game, in tight around their netminder—even managing to escape a long two-man disadvantage in the first period without being scored upon.

The first goal didn’t come until midway through the game. Hard working and hard-nosed Graeme McCrory powered his way out of the corner with the puck, and on a sharp angle, snapped the puck, short side, for the goal.

It was just a matter of time before the weary and shorthanded Spirit would buckle. Early in the third, McGeen whipped a wrist shot that caught the far corner. Stouffville had little left. Three more Dukes goals from Daniel Panetta, Evans and Jackson Arcan. Carlisle had three more assists—a total of six in two games on the weekend. Dukes won 5-0.

UP NEXT: AURORA
The Dukes welcome the pugnacious Tigers to Wellington on Friday night. Aurora has won eight of its last ten games, losing their first match in 2018 on Monday night in Cobourg. Most of their recent opponents have been lower-ranked teams—it is not at all clear the Tigers have elevated to the top rung of the OJHL.

The Dukes too, despite the second-best record in the OJHL, still have show that they belong among the league’s elite. It begins with discipline. If they continue to concede five minutes per game shorthanded to the likes of Toronto Patriots, North York, Oakville and Georgetown, these disciplined teams will make them pay.