A Couple Things: Dudemaine’s Quiet Feet, Twisters, and Forechecking

The Mimico Mountaineers defeated the St. Catharines Athletics last night by a score of 11-10 in an excellent OJLL game. 

I was lucky to be on the call for the OJLL with Matthew Caruk, and the full stream can be found below. 

If you missed the first edition of A Couple Things, check it out here. But there was a lot of great stuff on display Wednesday, let’s talk about A Couple Things. 

Plays of the Game 

There were two plays that really stuck out to me in this one, the first was the btb pass from Zack Toll to get the game within one in the third period. It actually faked out our own JVI video camera, but that’s ok because the pass was really the highlight here. 

In one motion, he picked it up and whipped it behind his head to his teammate. It wouldn’t end up being enough for the win, but a great play nonetheless. 

The other play of the game was this passing play by the Mountaineers in the third period. Finn Thomson comes off a side-seal and passes it behind the net to Alex Roussel. This draws the crease man down towards the back of the goal. Roussel moves it to Lucas Dudemaine, who then whips it back to Thomson for the quick stick. 

The defender who originally should have been in that spot had moved down to cover the pass behind, allowing Thomson to be wide open. It was a great play design by Coach Tanner Thomson and great execution by everyone involved. 

The Quiet Feet of Lucas Dudemaine 

While Finn Thomson will rightly get the attention in the OJLL this summer, Lucas Dudemaine was the star in this one for the Mountaineers, finishing with 4 goals and 6 assists. This Mimico left-side is fun to watch, as Dudemaine is joined by Mark Watters, Isaiah Moran-Weekes, and Henry Camponiti. 

What stands out to me is the size of Watters and Dudemaine. They have the ability to eat checks without much of a worry, and can stand their ground in the offensive zone. This allowed Dudemaine to play a quiet game, where he can stand behind the mess of the pick and survey the defence. He then can either shoot or pass. 

This set is a good example, he gets a good look to start that is fought off by Vanyo. Notice the subtle steps he takes down towards the goal, that gives him space to pop to a shooting spot. When he gets the ball, Thomson sets a good cross-pick for him, allowing him to snipe the clean shot. 

This other one is an example of the feeding ability, and again the quiet feet that sets it up. Notice how both Watters and Dudemaine are big enough to not get pushed off their spots. They are dictating the action here, and Dudemaine has his hands free as he waits and eventually finds Justin Lee. 

Dudemaine currently sits sixth in OJLL scoring.

A standout Game from Toll

Zack Toll was the clear player of the game for the Athletics, finishing with 3 goals and 5 assists. 

He showed good vision throughout, including this no-look pass to the backside. He does a good job of looking towards the inside man on the powerplay which draws some defenders attention, before whipping the ball through the defence for the goal. 

I also liked this one from Toll, where he reaches his stick out and wraps it around his defender. This makes the shot very hard to pick up for the goaltender, and it finds the five-hole. 

It was a good night in a losing effort for the Vermont-bound Toll. 

Twisters!

I wanted to make note of this shot by Finn Thomson at the start of the second period. Notice how he manipulates goaltender, acting as if he is going to shoot to the top left corner and at the last second pulling it back to the top right corner. 

If you’re more of a visual learner, check out my breakdown of the goal here. 

That’s next-level stuff from Thomson. 

Mimico Forecheck

Mimico is a team loaded with 21 year-old players, and ones with size like I mentioned with Dudemaine and Watters. One other area where this really stuck out was in the clearing game for St. Catharines, where several times Mimico used their size to turn the ball back and create turnovers. Here is one example, which led directly to a goal on the ensuing possesion. 

This is good hustle from Roussel and Dudemaine, but I think you can see the St. Catharines player turn back because he knows he will lose a physical confrontation with the much larger Dudemaine. 

Any OJLL team playing Mimico will need to be clean on their zone exits with outlets up the floor. Trying to run by some of these Mimico offensive players is going to be tricky. 

Thanks for reading, and make sure to follow along with LCD’s box coverage all summer long!