Wellington v. Russia

It was a game. Quite a game at that. In the end the bigger and older Russian squad was just a bit better as they skated to a 5-2 victory over the Wellington Dukes on Tuesday night.

The game started fast and ended fast. With crisp tape to tape passes and unrelenting forechecking the Russian Red Stars clearlyhad in mind that they would overwhelm the Dukes quickly and then cruise to victory. It was a pattern they had used in two previous exhibition matches against a pair of all-star squads from the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League–beating a Niagara area team by 7-4 and then a Mid-Western team 11-4.

And early on it appeared they would have their way–scoring two quick goals. The first had nifty forward Lazarov picking up a loose puck out of a scramble and roofing it past Jordan Ruby in net for the Dukes.

Just a few moments later, Russia’s Pavel Dedunov fired a hard laser cross ice from face off dot to face off dot to Dmitry Lugin who one timed a blast into the top corner sending Rubys water bottle flying.

But just as it seemed the Russians might runaway with the game. The Dukes Steve Evans stripped a Russian defender of the puck at blue line creating a break on net. Evans deked shifted to his back hand and slid the puck through the netminders feet.

Then Wellington started getting under the Russian’s skin–it appeared early on the Russian players might be growing weary of their travelling circus act but now the Dukes had their full attention. Yan Kaminsky in particular appeared to garner special interest from some of the agitated Russian players. Yan speaks the language and used it effectively to throw some of his opponents off their game.

More to come.

Photo: Russia’s defencemen Petr Khokhriakov stays to crafty Dukes winger Darcy Greenaway.