Tonight the Boston Cannons are looking for their first back-to-back wins of the season tonight as they finish off their road trip at Chesapeake. Meanwhile, the Bayhawks are 1-5 on the season and have not won since their second game of the season on May 3rd when they beat New York, 12-11.
The good news for the Bayhawks is Peet Poillon will be back in the lineup after missing last week’s game, a loss to Rochester. However, they remain without Stephen Peyser, who stays on the injured reserve for this week. Dan Burns and CJ Costabile are both expected to be in the lineup as well.
Last week the Bayhawks held the Rattlers to eight goals into double overtime and the only reason they didn’t score more than seven was the terrific outing from John Galloway of Rochester. The loss still proved that the Bayhawks defense can play very well, something the Boston Cannons have struggled against at times this season.
“I thought our defense played much, much better,” head coach Dave Cottle said on the league’s coaches conference call. “Much better on the ground, much better from defense to offense that we didn’t take advantage of. At 4-4 at half, we probably had five or six unsettled breaks that we didn’t score on for whatever reason. But I thought for the first time, it was a game that we lost that we were actually competitive in. So that was a positive.”
The Bayhawks need to keep possession, something they have struggled with which is why they traded for Stephen Robarge. His faceoff matchup won’t be easy as he faces the league’s best in Chris Eck on the other side. If the Bayhawks can hold possession, the challenge is still there with Jordan Burke having an MVP like season in net for Boston, but their defensive unit did surrender 16 goals to Ohio last week.
For the Cannons, scoring was not an issue last week with 17 goals in Ohio. Will Manny continues to be an offensive force as he is fourth in the league in scoring, behind his team mate Paul Rabil who is second.
These two teams are rivals after years of playoff battles, so this game will be an intense one and after last week, it might make one of the best games of the year. Both these teams last week had two of the top games in the league this season, so don’t expect anything less tonight.