Marvel Super Hero Night made its way to Calgary on Friday night with the hometown team donning Black Widow themed jerseys. In Albany’s first ever visit to Cowtown, the Firewolves took the Roughnecks to the absolute limit forcing overtime after an impressive fourth quarter comeback. Three minutes into the extra frame, the Roughnecks dipped into the 1970’s and summoned their own superhero – Tanner Cook, to save the day. Cook fired a laser from the parking lot that beat Doug Jamieson propelling the Riggers to a 10-9 overtime win in front of 9,656 fans.
“He doesn’t really necessarily fit the conventional modern day offensive player in the NLL. We always kind of joke that Tanner was dropped out of the 70’s into modern day,” said Christian Del Bianco after the game. “It’s always nice when he scores a big goal like that.”
Cook took the praise in stride, crediting coach Josh Sanderson with the real magic.
“Before I went out there… they were calling I was going to score it and shoot game over. (Coach) gave me a little rub on my stick to put a little magic in it for me, so maybe it worked out,” Cook said.
The win was crucial for the Roughnecks as they came into week seeded at number 12. Shane Simpson got the Black Widows off to a quick start with a goal in transition followed up by a Jesse King strike. Glenn Clark’s team weathered the storm and replied with a four-goal run courtesy of Firth, Nishimura, Kurtz and Piatelli, putting them up 4-2 at the end of the first.
Calgary’s dynamic duo of Jesse King and Tyler Pace returned fire in the second quarter with two from Pace and one from King to give the lead back to the Roughnecks. An opening third quarter goal from Haiden Dickson moved the lead to 6-4. Like they’ve done for the better part of the season, Albany’s group of young forwards refused to be intimidated and went to work. Kurtz and Simmons tallied in the third, but Albany was still down 9-6. A three-goal-run with goals from Kurtz and two from Travis Longboat combined with outstanding goaltending from Jamieson sent the game into OT.
In the extra frame, both Christian Del Bianco and Doug Jamieson made point blank saves to keep the score deadlocked. Both goalies faced 55 shots with Del Bianco making that all important one more save. On the winning goal, Jesse King set an up-pick on Nick Chaykowsky that allowed Cook to get overtop and have an open look at Jamieson – beating him with a side arm laser that hit short side.
Tyler Pace continued his hot streak scoring four times and adding two assists for a six-point night. Jesse King added five points to his team leading 82 while Zach Currier bumped his loose ball stats up by 13 for a season total of 154 (top amongst non-face off takers).
Albany received a balanced attack from their forward group. Tye Kurtz and Ethan Walker scored 5 and 4 points respectively, while Alex Simmons, Travis Longboat and Sam Firth all had 3 point nights. Joe Nardella was virtually automatic at the face-off dot going 19 for 23.
Both teams are off next week and will resume action in Week 19. Calgary (6-8) will play a home and home series against Saskatchewan (5-7) with the first game in Calgary on Friday April 5th and the second in Saskatoon on April 6th. Albany (10-5) will host the Toronto Rock (12-5) in a big 1st place vs 3rd place game.
