When New England travels up to Toronto to face the Rock, it will be matching the East Division’s best record against the worst. New England has been changing their roster around much more in the recent weeks, so it will be interesting to see how they look both offensively and defensively.
For the Black Wolves on offense, adding Brett Bucktooth to the lineup produced immediate benefits. In his first game against Rochester, he scored four goals, being the only member of the team to net more than one. Filling in the spot created by Quinn Powless being injured, he adds more firepower to their righties, playing along with Kevin Crowley and Kyle Buchanan. Defensively, things are getting a little more desperate. In their season opening wins, New England allowed eight and seven goals. Since then in their losses, they have allowed 19, 18 and 15. Their offense is capable of scoring in double digits every game, but they will not carry the team. The defensive unit has to get back to only giving Evan Kirk shots he wants to see and stopping the fast breaks.
This task for the defense will be noticeably more difficult against the Rock. Undefeated at home, the Rock also have the highest scoring offense in the league. The only other team that is close to their goal total is Buffalo, with an additional game to their credit as well. Leading the way for Toronto is Josh Sanderson who has been unstoppable this year. He leads the NLL in assists, feeding four other forwards who all have between 15 and 18 goals each. This is a very balanced, explosive team. What many fans are waiting to see though is if Garrett Billings makes his return this weekend or not. Reports are out that he is cleared to play medically after cutting last season short due to injury. He was on pace to a potential MVP season in 2014 before going down for the season. Adding him back into the lineup could disrupt the chemistry on offense so far, but more than likely it will just make them that much better.
For the more casual fans, some may be hoping to see a “Battle of the Bills”. Bill O’Brien for New England made nearly every major news outlet’s sports site for his fight with Stephen Keogh last week. No matter what your view of fighting in lacrosse is in general or of this fight in particular, this put a lot of new eye balls on the league. I don’t expect this to repeat itself as New England does need him on defense for this entire game, but with Billy Hostrawser playing for the Rock, there could be an epic tilt. It’s tough to get two defenders going against each other at any time during the game, but Hostrawser has never been afraid to initiate things himself. It took him an entire 0 seconds of game time this preseason to start a fight in their first scrimmage, so anything can happen. If he finds himself in the mood, O’Brien might have a big target on his back.
Fights aside, this should be a great lacrosse game to watch. Toronto should win according to the numbers, but New England still has plenty of potential if they can play a complete game, which has been an issue as of late. This would be a marquee win for the Black Wolves and keep them firmly involved in the playoff race. The East is a very tight division right now and an upset by them would make it tighter.
