The Wellington Dukes stole a key second point from the St. Michael’s Buzzers on home ice Friday night.
Landon Marleau touched off the scoring for Wellington and then finished it with the lone goal of the shootout as the Dukes edged St. Mike’s 3-2 at the Duke Dome.
After a rebound goal was deposited home by Gavin Whiston shy of seven minutes into the first, Marleau used a Buzzer player as a ricochet to beat Erik Maki at the 10:16 mark to even the score.
The goal was the Los Gatos, California native’s league-leading ninth of the year, assisted by Jayden Levesque and Ryland Harvey.
Wellington jumped out in front early in the second thanks to its outstanding goaltender taking charge with a fantastic save.
Riley robbed the Buzzers point blank before youngster Austin Ottenhof, in his first OJHL game, raced away to set up Kasen Beitz for a quick one-timer up high on Maki at 3:34 of the period.
Wellington’s gritty effort made the lead hold up until the waning stages of the game, when Caiden Clair cleaned up a rebound on a powerplay, taking advantage of an otherwise fairly disciplined game from the Dukes to knot the score at two and send the contest to overtime.
The Dukes’ best chance came on a deflected shot that was paddled away by a sliding Maki.
Marleau went top bunk with the first shootout shot and after a review, the goal stood as the eventual winner.
Joseph Ferraro, Josh D’Addario and Tyler Clark all failed to beat Riley, as he and the Dukes sealed their sixth win in nine games to begin the season.
Riley made 28 saves in the victory as Wellington will look to keep rolling against a tall test, the Markham Royals on Sunday at 2:45 p.m. at Honey & Barry Memorial Arena.
