Overall: 9-7 (7-1 Road)
West: #3 Seed
Overall NLL #4 Seed
The 2012 season was a magical one for the Edmonton Rush who went 6-10. In round one they beat the Calgary Roughnecks 19-11 on the road, a team that basically owned them in 2012. Then they travel to Minnesota and just destroy the Swarm 15-3 (11-2 at half), vaulting them into the Championship game. In that game they went into the half leading 5-1. Oh if it could of only ended there for the Rush. Thirty minutes later the Knighthawks outscored them 8-1 to win the Championship 9-6.
We fast forward to 2013, Rush take #1 overall Mark Matthews. Matthews this year is a lock for the Rookie of the Year. He has also tied John Grant Jr’s rookie goal mark at 38, and has also helped the Rush improve by 3 games from last year(6-10 2012/ 9-7 2013).
The Rush this season had a leagues best 7-1 record on the road so they should feel right at home when they travel to face the Washington Stealth at 7:30pm eastern on CBS Sportsnetwork.
Matthews ended the regular season with 38G/31A 69 pts. But his presence on the floor was much more valuable. Corey Small (28 goals/64 pts), Ryan Ward (21G/75 pts), Zach Greer (28 goals/53 pts) have made this a very well balanced scoring team. It’s just not Mark Matthews. Matthews has been able to help the rest of the team improve as the focus was on him when stepping onto the floor.
Edmonton scored 203 goals this season, 3rd best in the NLL only behind Calgary (222) and Minnesota (219), and only allowed a league low 170 goals. The Rush did take the season series over the Stealth 2-1 18-10 Jan 20th (in Washington), a 12-10 loss Jan 25th, and 15-10 Feb 15th.
This is the 8th year for the Rush. First four years they missed the playoffs going 16-48 over those first four seasons. And over the last four they have gone 30-34 a major improvement.
This is their third trip to the playoffs. 2010 the lost in the Western Final to the eventual Champion Washington Stealth 12-11. In 2011 they missed the playoffs, and 2012…well we know what happened
This first round matchup versus the Stealth is sure to be a classic matchup, and could be the beginning of another magical journey down that Championship path, were just maybe…in 3 weeks we could be saying…… (Not going to say it, could jinx them.)
Just strap in for another exciting ride through the playoff season!
