Weak habits

Dukes continue to be hobbled by lazy penalties

This should have been a happy story. It could have been the story in which we told you the Wellington Dukes had clinched the East Division Championship. Instead, it’s another story about how penalties cost the Dukes a valuable two points—points they should have won.

It had been a good enough weekend. They had fended off the tight checking, defensiveminded Pickering Panthers on Friday at home. Then they outlasted the Stouffville Spirit, pulling out a 6-3 win on the back of a Teddy McGeen hat trick.

Hard-nosed forward Dawson Ellis battles on every shift, but averages just one penalty minute per game. Some of his teammates rack up penalties at double and even triple that rate.

On Family Day, however, it was a solid return to some very bad habits—giving Whitby eight power play opportunities, 16 minutes with the man-advantage, and two power play goals. The Dukes lost 4-2. Against the only East Division team that won’t make the playoffs.

The Dukes will get two more opportunities this week to earn the point they need to secure the East Championship. But this team has more pressing worries. This is the time of year that winning teams are rounding into playoff form—Wellington, it seems, is honing its penalty killing skills.

Slashing. Hooking. Tripping. Unsportsmanlike. These are penalties of weakness. Of laziness. They proclaim an unwillingness to do the hard work of backchecking. A refusal to dig in the corners. To fight for position front of the opposing net. It tells opposing teams the Dukes prefer to whack their sticks on your legs as you skate away with the puck, rather than work to catch up and take it away. This certainly doesn’t describe all Dukes players, not even the majority. Yet the few it does, are defining the team. And the outcome of their games.

This is a team still in search of character and discipline. At precisely the wrong time of the season.

DUKES 3 – PICKERING 2
It was a bit more promising on Friday night— the Dukes’ final home game of the regular season. The Pickering Panthers are currently queued up to face the Dukes in the first round of the playoffs—though a bit more jockeying is possible in this the last weekend of the season.

As a preview, Friday’s game signalled a tough series ahead.

Pickering has evolved, over the season, into a close-checking, defensively structured team that likes to keep the score low, with some offensive weapons that have helped them eke out a number of one-goal wins. They do an effective job of clogging up the neutral zone and forcing turnovers. And when they get in trouble, 16-year-old Ethan Langevin has proven to be a more than a capable backstop.

It was a tight-checking first period. The Dukes mostly controlled the play until a pair of penalties late in the frame enabled the Panthers to create some good scoring chances. The Dukes’ Jonah Capriotti was up for the challenge—turning back all 12 shots in the period.

It wasn’t until late in the second that the deadlock was broken, when Mitch Martan scored on the power play. But midway through the third, Pickering tallied their own power play goal. One minute later, Anthony Rinaldi rifled a shot top corner, while steaming down the wing at full speed. It wasn’t long after that Martan scored his second power play goal—finding the loose puck behind the Pickering netminder.

But the pesky Panthers beat Capriotti with five minutes left in the game, drawing within a goal of tying the match. Then Dukes defender Declan Carlile was penalized for interference. Wellington played much of the remainder of the game shorthanded, as the Panthers pulled their netminder as soon as Carlile returned to the ice.

But Wellington hunkered down. Capriotti was solid. The Dukes secured the one-goal win.

DUKES 6 – WELLINGTON 3
On Saturday the Dukes travelled to Stouffville. The Spirit are a team playing on fumes—their season ends this week, their coach has been suspended for weeks, and they listed just 14 skaters on their roster on Saturday, excluding netminders.

Mitch Martan continued his goal-scoring streak, giving the Dukes the lead in the first period, on a brilliant cross-ice pass from Carlile. But Stouffville came right back, chipping a pass over Tyler Richardson in the Wellington net.

Jonah Capriotti stares down the Pickering Panther’s shooter on Friday on his way to his 20th win for the Dukes this season.

The Dukes regained the lead on Ben Evans’ one-timer on the power play, served into his wheelhouse by Carlile.

In the second period, Teddy McGeen took over. Jackson Arcan on a strong rush up the wing. Pass to the McGeen in the blue paint. Goal. Late in the frame, Arcan shot. McGeen collects the rebound. Goal.

Early in the third, Stouffville scored after a bad defensive giveaway in front of Richardson, to draw within goal of tying the game.

Dukes defender Mason Snell had been a target for some special attention by the Stouffville toughs through much of the game. Late in the third he was nabbed for exacting some revenge. Two penalties on the same play. Slashing and roughing after the whistle. The Dukes were nursing a one-goal lead. It could have ended badly.

Instead, Rinaldi intercepted a Stouffville defender’s breakout pass. Pass to McGeen. Goal. Short-handed. Natural hat trick.

More importantly the goal sealed a win— which until that point was not at all certain.

Rinaldi, Arcan and McGeen tallied in the last few minutes to finish the scoring. It had been a good night for this line—responsible for four of the six goals.

WHITBY 4 – WELLINGTON 2
Going into Whitby on Monday afternoon the Dukes had, with a pair of back-to-back wins, the chance to seal the East Division leadership. If they swept the tables, there was still a chance they could top the North East Conference.

Those opportunities slipped away as a succession of Wellington players paraded to the penalty box. Three penalties in the first period. Two in the second. Three in the third. Wellington had more penalties in the first period than Whitby had all game.

McGeen opened up the scoring midway through the first. But any momentum was squelched by playing shorthanded. The Dukes managed just six shots in the period.

Whitby tied the game early in the second. Arcan scored shortly thereafter to take the lead again. But that was it. With Mitchell Mendonca sitting in the box for tripping, Whitby scored on the power play. Tripping.

Whitby took the lead for the first time in the game early in the third. The Dukes pushed back. But then Mendonca was penalized for slashing. Short-handed again. Another Whitby power play goal. Slashing.

Whitby won 4-2.

UP NEXT: KINGSTON AND TRENTON
As of Monday, Kingston had not yet set a make-up game with Whitby for a February 11 game postponed due to snow. This means with three games left, Kingston can still catch the Dukes in first place. Mathematically. It is highly improbable.

The Dukes control their own fate, as they face the Voyageurs in Kingston on Friday. The Voyageurs have been hot and cold all season long. More recently they beat Buffalo and Aurora, but lost to Cobourg and Trenton.

On Friday, the Dukes visit Trenton for the final game of the season. Should the Dukes proceed past the first round of the playoffs, it is plausible they could face the Golden Hawks.

Though the game likely won’t mean much in the regular season standings, both teams will be looking to send the other a message across the Bay of Quinte.