I wrote an article last week speculating potential draft picks in yesterday’s 2014 NLL Draft on what the Calgary Roughnecks may need to look for in said draft and how the club needed to move forward to the eventual goal of winning the last game that matters being the Champions Cup Final.
Going into the draft the Roughnecks held two first round picks (sixth and eighth overall) as well as picks later in the draft and originally I said they needed to potentially draft a strong overall defender that has experience and size.
Then the Roughnecks went and re-acquired Jeff Moleski. This is big for a number of reasons. This being his second stint with the team, he played a big role on the back end for five years between ’05-’10 winning a championship with the team in ’09 before being traded to the Stealth for a first round draft pick.
He went on to win another championship the next year with the Stealth playing his solid defense and a strong body to pick up tough loose balls; he played the last four seasons with the Stealth before signing to Calgary again last week.
In 145 career NLL games Moleski has a respectable 105 points (39 G, 66 A) for a defender while collecting 753 loose balls he will continue playing a major role on the defensive end for the Roughnecks who are looking to get back to the NLL finals and fill the defensive holes they seemed to show at moments last season.
With Moleski now added to an already deep roster the Roughnecks bring more experience and a guy who has been there and can get the team back to the finals and shut down the world’s top players to give his team the chance to win every night and also has the size to get the greasy loose balls in the corner late in the game that close out big wins.
In my next article I will look into how the Roughnecks did in the draft and what it means for the future of the franchise with the young talent coming in and the experience guys like Moleski can teach about the speed and intelligence of today’s game compared to the junior ranks.
