A frustrating road defeat was put on the record for the Wellington Dukes on Saturday night.
The gritty Aurora Tigers outshot and outworked the Dukes in a 3-2 edging in ‘The Jungle,’ despite two goals from rookie defencemen.
Wellington was overwhelmed in shots against in the first, but Mason Raycroft stood tall in his third start of the season with 18 saves, keeping the Tigers tamed.
Aurora managed to break through early in the second through Javian Nei and Alessandro Cadorin, who struck inside the first four minutes of the period.
A late period powerplay got Wellington back within one, as Presley Kelly ripped home a rebound on the outside of a goalmouth scramble for his third of the season.
Zach Mascard and Landon Marleau both assisted on Kelly’s third of the year.
Wellington’s momentum was stunted by a high-sticking minor penalty that put Aurora on a powerplay of its own that was capitalized on.
Connor Hollebek restored the Tigers’ two-goal margin with a long shot through Raycroft from the top of the right-side faceoff circle at 8:35 for the eventual winner.
Wellington amped up pressure by pelting Aurora goalie Lucas Carpino with 16 shots overall in the third and had hope with a late goal.
Gavin Godick received a pass from Jayden Levesque at the blueline, made a nifty move to avoid an Aurora skater, then deposited a wrist shot into the Aurora cage with 2:11 to go to pull the Dukes within one, but that’s as close as Wellington would get.
Raycroft finished with 40 saves but is still searching for his first win as the Dukes fall to 8-4-1-1 on the campaign.
The Dukes are idle until Friday when they take a trip to Lindsay for a 7 p.m. puck drop.
