This weekend will be the first road trip for the New England Black Wolves as they venture up to Edmonton to face the Rush. The Black Wolves are coming off a rough loss, their first of the season, to the Minnesota Swarm. The Rush are coming off their first win, a dominant showing over Calgary, with their coach Derek Keenan returning to the bench for this first time this season. This is a critical game for each squad as it would mean either building winning momentum for Edmonton or New England proving their loss was a fluke, and that they belong in the conversation of top teams in the league this year.
The theme of this game will be goaltending and defense. These are two out of the top three scoring defenses in the league with Edmonton being the top with a mere 10.3 goals against average Considering that they lost their first two games and the third was against the explosive Roughnecks forwards, this is very impressive. New England is not very far behind and in addition to the third best defense, they also boast the third best offense. Beating either of these goalies though will prove to be battle.
Edmonton’s Aaron Bold leads all full-time starters with a 78.2 save percentage. He is right where he was at the end of last year as one of the best keepers in the league and is just .9 percentage points behind his 2014 average. This is not good news for the Black Wolves offense. As much as they struggled with Minnesota’s transition game, their shooting was severely lacking. Their highly productive righties with Kyle Buchanan, Kevin Crowley and Quinn Powless saw their combined shooting percentage drop to only nine percent after featuring games of 20 and 29. Had they reached that 20 percent figure again, it would have meant another four goals. Their shots on goal percentage was right on track with previous performance, but they just weren’t finishing. Their lefties filled in well by dramatically increasing their volume of shots will still maintaining their efficiency. Their righty side performance is not promising going to Edmonton. On top of this, Quinn Powless was moved to the IR, providing the first roster change of the season, and coming off their worst shooting of the season, they get to face the best goalie in the league through three full games. That side against the Edmonton defense and Bold will be a game within a game.
Edmonton’s offense won’t have it too easy either. At least eight of Minnesota’s goals against New England can be directly attributed to the transition game, which is the Swarm’s calling card. That’s not to say Edmonton can’t or won’t run the floor, but they are a team setup to play a suffocating defense and send it up to a settled offense. The point in bringing up Minnesota’s transition game is that New England’s settled five man defense held Minnesota to about eight goals, ignoring power plays. That alone would have produced a much different outcome if the game were relegated to those set situations. Edmonton’s offense is currently seventh best in the league, so this will have to be dramatically improved to top the Black Wolves. Their best chance is to provide a heavy dose of Ben McIntosh, Robert Church and Cory Conway as New England has struggled the most defending against the righties they’ve faced.
This will be an exciting game to watch as Edmonton is looking to prove they are the same, dangerous team as they were a year ago. New England is going to try to erase the memories of last week and chalk to up to bye week grogginess. Either way, both of these teams are ready to play some tough, physical, defensive lacrosse.
