The Wellington Dukes snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Haliburton Saturday afternoon and the loss was a difficult one for the locals to stomach. While there’s 17 games left in the season for Wellington to make some hay, the Dukes need to figure out how to protect leads at the most vital of times.

With the third place Huskies six points in front of fourth place Wellington but the locals holding two games in hand on the opposition, the timing was perfect for the Dukes to grind out a road victory, maintain those games in hand and make a move on third spot in the Eastern Conference standings.

And with Wellington holding a two goal margin inside the final ten minutes of play, the Dukes seemed to be heading in that direction.

That is until Tai York snapped home his 3rd of the season with 9:46 left to make it a 4-3 game in favour of the visitors. Still up a goal with the knowledge the next nine minutes were the biggest half period of the 2024-25 OJHL regular season, there was time to button down this road win and escape Cottage Country with a clean two points.

But Wellington seemed to have the attention of the officiating crew for most of the game and Jared McNeil picked a bad time to get whistled for a stick infraction.

With the Wellington defender off to the sin bin at 18:10, the Huskies were afforded the opportunity to gain an extra man advantage without lifting netminder Tyler Hodges.

Ty Petrou would beat Wellington starter Jacob Brown with just over a minute left in the game to tie the contest at 4-4.

After a scoreless first overtime period, Chase Lefebvre sent the Haliburton fans home happy, beating Mr. Brown with 46 seconds left in the second extra session. It was a three point gut punch swing in the standings.

As of Monday morning, instead of being within four points of the Huskies with two games in hand, Wellington trails the Pups by seven and now find themselves in a dog fight with the fifth place Stoufville Spirit who trail Wellington by just two points. The same Spirit who made the Dukes look rather pedestrian in a 5-0 white wash on Jan. 11.

If the 2025 Buckland Cup Playoffs started today, the Dukes would host the Spirit in Game 1 of the quarterfinals. Not a great match up for Wellington.

Muskies Snagged

A Jayden Levesque goal partway through the third period got the Wellington Dukes unstuck in their game against the visiting Lindsay Muskies Wednesday evening and the locals broke back into the win column.

In a rare mid-week tilt at Lehigh Arena, the Dukes seemed to be outplaying the Fish through two periods but the clubs were all square at 2-2 after 40 minutes.

Wellington’s Corey Jewitt batted home his 18^th of the season with under five minutes to play to break the ice. The power play tally was reviewed by the officiating crew. Wellington’s game opening goal stood after a three minute delay.

The Dukes doubled down in the second when Ryan Schaap made a nice toe drag move just inside the Lindsay blueline and used time and space to fire a bullet past starter Noah Kraus at 3:06 to make it a 2-0 game. Mr. Kraus made a number of good saves in the period to keep his team in the contest.

Lindsay’s Daniil Kononov’s fifth of the season would sneak past Wellington netminder Dario Cantini at 14:54 to carve the Dukes lead in half.

Then, with time winding down in the second stanza, Carson McKenzie was able to stickhandle to the Wellington net without much opposition and tuck a game tying goal past Mr. Cantini. Mr. McKenzie’s second of the season with just 17 seconds left made it a 2-2 game heading to the final frame.

In the third, Mr. Levesque paid instant dividends for Wellington. Having come over from the Georgetown Raiders at the Jan. 10 trade deadline, Mr. Levesque converted on a Ryan Castle pass at the 11:24 mark to push Wellington ahead 3-2.

Lindsay lifted Mr. Kraus for an extra attacker inside the final minute of play in an effort to tie the game a second time but Wellington and Mr. Schaap had other ideas as the Carlisle, ON native sent his 20^th of the campaign into a yawning cage to make it a 4-2 final.

Wednesday’s win comes on the heels of a 5-0 setback suffered at the hands of the host Stoufville Spirit. The Spirit got on a roll in the second period, scoring four of their five goals.

The hosts outshot the Dukes 44-21 in the contest.

Wellington is in Markham on Tuesday to play the Royals and then come home for a pair of back-to-back games against the Toronto Jr. Canadiens Thursday night and the North York Rangers on Friday evening.