Bienvenue à Montréal. Or should I say, Bon retour à Montréal, c’est le grand jour. Excuse my poor French. For those of you, like me, that had to look up what those phrases meant, here ya go. Welcome back to Montréal, today is the day! The NLLUnBoxed Series came to you live from Place Bell in Laval, Quebec on Friday night. The beautiful city of Montreal saw live lacrosse action for the first time since 2002, and what a matchup they had in store. The “visiting” Toronto Rock sat atop the NLL standings and the “home” New York Riptide were on an absolutely white-hot streak.
Obviously, when two teams like this meet, one has to be disappointed. The Rock outscored the Riptide 9-3 in the second half to propel themselves to a 16-10 win to remain atop the standings. C’est l’heure du jeu! (It’s game time!)
New York may have been outscored in the second half, but they came out of the gates on fire in the first. Three straight for the Riptide ignited their team. Scorers were Connor Kearnan with a disgusting behind-the-back shot, and Jeff Teat twice. Josh Dawick finally got Toronto on the board, but was answered by Callum Jones’ first and the first in his NLL career. Corey Small on the power play and Larson Sundown also traded goals, and that’d be it in the first. 5-2 Riptide after one.
Let the Toronto comeback commence. Justin Martin kicked it off with his first, but once again Sundown had the answer, this one being on the power play. The Rock, excuse me, Mark Matthews, cut the deficit to one with two straight, the first on the power play. Teat tallied his hat trick, but the tides were changing (ha ha). Two more from the Rock tied it up to take it into the half, the first from Dan Craig, Matthews the second, giving him the hat trick. 7-7 going into the break. For those of you who like the physicality, at the 1:11 mark of the second, tempers boiled over and l’enfer s’est déchaîné (all heck broke loose). Brad Kri and John LaFontaine had a disagreement about which team Montréal liked more. LaFontaine was a little worse for wear, but things proceeded to settle the rest of the way.
Here’s a quick plug to show some love to the men between the pipes, both of which were as stingy as could be. Nick Rose stopped 18 of 25, while Cameron Dunkerley made 23 saves on 30 shots.
Toronto continued their momentum to begin the third quarter. What better way to take control of the game, then to blank the Riptide in the frame. Three goals were scored by the Rock, by Craig, his second, Small, his second, and Matthews, his fourth. Shoutout to the Rock defense for limiting scoring chances, and to Rose for being an absolute wall in net. 10-7 Rock after three.
The Rock continued their run with two more to begin the fourth, both of which were on the power play, and both from a pair of Dan’s. The first was from Lintner and the other from Craig, his third. Stephen Keogh stopped the Toronto run with two straight, but once again, Toronto exploded offensively. This time it was to the tune of four-in-a-row. Scorers were Tom Schreiber on the power play, Dawick, his second, and Small twice, giving him four on the night. Sundown got his hat trick with under a minute to play, but c’est tout les amis (and that’s all folks). Your final from Laval, 16-10 Rock in convincing fashion.
Players of the game for Toronto were Matthews (4+7), Schreiber (1+8), and Small (4+1). Rose was a stud all game long, stopping 35 of 45 in total. For New York, Teat (3+5), Sundown (3+1), and Keogh (2+2) led the way. Dunkerley struggled in the second half, making 39 saves on 55 shots for the game.
“We’ve been challenging ourselves as an offense,” said Lintner after the game. “We’ve had a slow start the last few games, so it’s nice to come out here and put up a number. This was cool. Hopefully we can get back here and get a team in Montréal, the crowd brought it tonight.”
Toronto (7-2) looks to ride their momentum as they sit pretty in the standings. They travel back home and host Vancouver (2-7) this Saturday at 7 p.m. for their annual Indigenous Heritage Night. New York (5-5) looks to start a new win streak. Their next chance to do so is this Friday when they travel to Colorado to take on the Mammoth (3-7).
Until next time, Montréal, au revoir.
