In signing a pair of veteran defensive options amidst a very busy offseason, the Vancouver Stealth have quietly revamped a team that has won nine games in the last two seasons. Ian Hawksbee and Jeff Moleski have inked deals with the Stealth, giving the team reliability and depth going into the 2016 NLL season.
Offenses were able to pick apart the Stealth on the back-end at times during last season despite an honest attempt to build a tough, gritty unit. Often times the best defensive units are ones that are able to mesh the skilled, transition-minded players with the heavy lifters. It turns out the Stealth didn’t bring either to the table consistently. These two signings in particular are indicators that general manager Doug Locker wanted to bring more toughness and compete to the table and he couldn’t have found two better players to fit the bill.
The simple fact is that you know what you’re going to get with these two players. Hawksbee works over opposition players both on-and-off ball with hacks to the arm and body that make even the toughest players shy away. Moleski returns to the Stealth after a year with the Roughnecks with plenty of experience and an even-keel nature to the floor. Although his loose ball numbers were down last year, he still racked up 61 LBs in 14 games—just over four per game. That clip would’ve put him in the top five on the Stealth last year in terms of per game averages.
Hawksbee had a solid summer campaign with the Salmonbellies in the WLA as well as being an integral part of their appearance in the WLA Finals. He last played in the NLL with the Colorado Mammoth this season, appearing in 13 games, finishing with 35 loose balls and 10 caused turnovers. He was also named to the WLA second all-star team as a defender alongside fellow Stealth Rory Smith.
After signing a one-year deal with the Roughnecks in 2014, Moleski returns with his storied NLL career coming out of the back gate. Moleski still shows the ability to be a key part of a defence and if 2014 is any indication, he’ll step back into Vancouver’s lineup like he never left at all.
It’s interesting to note that in a season where the Stealth often were on the losing end of the loose ball battles, both Hawksbee and Moleski have collected more than 700 loose balls.
The moves make the Stealth a tougher team to play against nightly and allows them the opportunities to find more suitable roles for Tyler Hass and Tyler Garrison in transition. Alongside other offseason additions Travis Cornwall and Reid Mydske and returning players Kyle Sorensen and Matt Beers, what was once a huge hole in their lineup now becomes up to par with the offensive unit, creating a much more dangerous team.
