The Wellington Dukes are moving on to the Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Southeastern Conference finals after sweeping away the Halliburton Huskies in four games.

After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in successive days, the clubs returned to the ice on Monday night in Wellington for Game 3 which heavily favoured the Dukes.

The Dukes would pepper the Halliburton net early and often in the first and amassed a 4-0 through the opening ten minters of play.

Lucas Laplam and David Campbell scored goals just over a minute apart in the opening five minutes to build a 2-0 lead.

Wellington would chase Halliburton starter Aidan Spooner at the 9:14 mark without the net minder registering a save. Ryan Smith set up Jacob Vreugdenhil on the Dukes third tally of the period.

Just over a minute later, Edward Moskowitz would light the lamp for his sixth goal of the post season.

Barrett Joynt (Jason Parks/Gazette Staff)

In the second Wellington’s special teams went to work with Lapalm bagging his second of the game while shorthanded at 2:08.

Barrett Joynt’s first of two in the frame came with the man advantage at 4:12 and Wellington would add another man advantage marker at 12:28 to push the lead to a converted touchdown.

Campbell’s third point of the contest came on a setup of Joynt at 15:23 to give the Dukes eight goals in a playoff game for the first time in over a decade.

Neither team would score in the after the Joynt goal but that wasn’t for lack of trying on Haliburton’s part as the Huskies became crazed and took ten minor penalties over the final 30 minutes of the game.

For the record, Wellington’s power play was 2-12 in the game.

Wellington’s Jacob Osborne made 29 stops picking up his second post season shutout.

While the ice was tilted in Wellington’s favour in Game 3, the opposite could be said in Game 4 as the locals attempted to permanently quiet the Dogs on Thursday in Minden.

Halliburton would send 48 shots Osborne’s way and the Gloucester, ON native needed to be sharp the entire 60 minutes to keep the Dukes on the winning side of the margin.

Wellington started the contest well enough as Joint was set up by Corbin Roach at 3:31 to give he visitors the lead.

That lead was doubled at 14:12 then Lapalm would feed Luke Strickland for a power play goal to make it a 2-0 spread.

But the hosts would answer with a power play goal of their own as Josh Currie ended a shutout string posted by Osborne that spanned 123 minutes dating back to the first period of Game 2.

Neither team would second in the second and, in the third, the Wellington power play unit would click for the second time in the game as Strickland and Lapalm reciprocated at the 12:50 mark to regain a two goal cushion. 

That insurance off the stick of Lapalm was needed as Marco Izzo would strip the puck from a Dukes skater and walk in alone on the penalty kill to beat Osborne with four minutes left.

But that was all from the hosts as the Wellington netminding and defence ground down any comeback attempt by the Huskies in the late going in a 3-2 final.

Wellington will play the winner of the Toronto-Trenton semi final which reaches its limits this evening at the Scotiabank Pond where the teams meet for Game 7.