The Calgary Roughnecks continue a busy off season as they look toward the 2015 NLL season. Coming one goal shy of hoisting the Champions Cup they didn’t need a ton of improvement but they have definitely made some big moves to get back to that chance to get the ultimate prize.
Offense: The Roughnecks offense last year was extremely potent when firing on all cylinders they were nearly unstoppable. Scoring 22 more times than they had goals scored on them and it showed finishing second in the west standings. They have all their big names back now signing Dane Dobbie last week to a multi year contract, Dobbie broke the Roughnecks goals in a season record scoring 51 times while Shawn Evans had another big year getting 105 points himself our offence just needs to continue that dominance. The club also signed WLA standout Casey Jackson, he lead the Burnaby Lakers in assists last year with 37 finishing the campaign with 54 points in 17 games played last summer.
Defence: With Mike Poulin getting the majority of playing time again between the pipes the Roughnecks always have a chance to win. After coming off another strong performance going 12-5 with a 11.45 GAA he is always consistent with smart defenders like Karson Leung and Andrew McBride in front of him making his life easy. The one thing the Roughnecks may have needed was to add a little size, well, misson accomplished. The Roughnecks drafted and signed defender/transition star from the WLA’s Nanaimo Timberman Tyson Roe, he’s 6’10” and 250lbs!
Transistion: Continuing on with Tyson Roe, he will compliment Karson Leung well if he cracks the roster with his size on defence and his speed on transition. He isn’t a big point producer with his summer club but he is looked upon to keep the ball moving and making turnovers into points with speed and size to keep opposing teams honest on the back end, he will be a big contribution in that area.
The Roughnecks have announced their training camp dates including a preseason game at the Scotiabank Saddledome on December 20th vs provincial rival Edmonton Rush. Regular season begins a couple weeks later as the Roughnecks host the Vancouver Stealth on Jan 3!
