For the first time in five seasons in Halifax, the Thunderbirds lost their home opener. Losing 18-17 against the Calgary Roughnecks in the highest-scoring game in Thunderbirds’ history.
While the score was close, the loss was ugly. Halifax was up 11-4 with under five minutes in the second quarter. Afterwards, they surrendered seven straight goals to allow Calgary to tie in the third quarter. The game was close afterwards, but Calgary pulled through.
“It’s inconsistency, right,” said Thunderbirds head coach Mike Accursi. “We didn’t get the saves when we needed the saves. We gave up some extra and easy looks inside, not picking up loose balls… You know, it’s those things that we didn’t do right, and if we did do those right, we should have won that game. We put up 17 goals; in this league, you should be winning every single game.”
The Thunderbirds came out hot to start. Dawson Theede picked off a pass high in the offensive zone and quickly went on a two-on-one break with Randy Staats. Theede passed it over to Staats, who made no mistake in firing the ball past Calgary’s goalie, Cam MacLeod.
The Roughnecks responded with a power-play goal. Quick ball movement led to Dane Dobbie receiving a back-door pass and he put it in the back of the net.
Halifax responded a minute later with a shorthanded goal from Ryan Terefenko. Then Mike Robinson received the ball at the top of the horseshoe and fired it into the back of the net for his first NLL goal.
Dawson Theede and Clarke Petterson add two more goals for Halifax, while Tanner Cook and Jesse King rounded out the scoring in the first quarter with Halifax being up 5-3.
Halifax’s two big additions on offence, Jason Knox and Thomas Hoggarth, dominated the first half of the second quarter.
Theede scored the first goal of the quarter because he got open off a screen by Knox, who would get his first as a Thunderbird a few minutes later by firing a shot from in close.
Not to be outdone, Hoggarth came off the bench and walked down the left side to score his first as a Thunderbird. Then Knox and Hoggarth added another goal each.
Hoggarth came over from the Roughnecks in an offseason trade where Halifax sent defender Caelan Mander and the 10th overall pick in the 2024 draft (Jack Follows) the other way. Knox joined the Thunderbirds through the Panther City dispersal draft. Hoggarth enjoyed his first experience playing at home in “The Nest.”
“They are the best fans in the NLL, it was great playing in front of them and I wish we could have gotten a win for them,” says Hoggarth. “I played here before on the other side. When we get the fans behind us, it’s almost like having a sixth player on the floor, so it’s great to be on their side.”
Knox completed the second-quarter hat trick by faking to go high but went low toward the net and firing the ball past Colby Bowman, who had just come in to replace MacLeod in Calgary’s net.
In the offseason, Halifax moved on from five-foot-eight Ryan Benesch and five-foot-ten Austin Shanks and replaced them with six-foot-four Jason Knox, and six-foot-three Thomas Hoggarth. Halifax wanted to get bigger on offence.
“They (Hoggarth and Knox) are pure goal scorers,” said Accursi. “We knew they could fill the gaps of Benesch and Shanks so we weren’t worried about that. I think our offence did a good job tonight. We got 17 goals, and we got a few goals in transition, which we really wanted to do.”
But Calgary was far from surrendering.
A minute after Knox’s goal, Dane Dobbie set up a pick for Jesse King high in the offensive zone and he fired a shot past Hill. A minute later, Dobbie got the ball back from King on a pick-and-roll to score.
Curtis Dickson scored two goals for Calgary to give them momentum heading into the second half, now down 11-8.
The Roughnecks came out flying in the third quarter. Seventeen seconds in, Tanner Cook opened the scoring.
Dobbie scored two more to tie the game. It was an impressive return for the former Roughnecks captain. He and Dickson returned to Calgary after spending last season with the San Diego Seals. They scored five goals and nine points each in this game.
After Calgary tied up the game, Clarke Petterson, Ryan Terefenko and Hoggarth scored within 38 seconds to quickly take command back, up 14-11.
Dickson and Theede traded goals to round out the quarter, making the score 15-12 going into the decisive fourth quarter.
Just like the third quarter, Calgary opened the scoring quickly. Bennett Smith ran down the left side untouched in transition to score 18 seconds in for his first NLL goal.
Hoggarth responded 40 seconds later.
But the Roughnecks kept coming. Dickson scored two and Tanner Cook added another to tie the game again at 16 with five minutes left.
Two minutes later, Brett McIntyre received a pass at the side of the net on the powerplay to score and gave Calgary their first lead of the game.
Halifax pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, but Ethan Ticehurst scored to seal the win for Calgary. Theede scored with a second left, but it was too late; the Roughnecks made an amazing come-from-behind victory to grab their first win of the season.
It was a stunning loss for the Thunderbirds, who have not beaten the Roughnecks in the past four meetings. Their only win against Calgary came in Halifax’s first season in 2020. They looked in complete control of the game but ended up surrendering the most goals in one game in Thunderbirds’ history, tied with an 18-13 loss to Buffalo two years ago.
Accursi equally blamed the defence and the goaltending for the result. He said their goalie, Warren Hill, allowed some high goals from far out early (three of the first six were from far out) needing the Thunderbirds’ defence to extend further. When they did, they couldn’t defend the slot efficiently, allowing Calgary to get goals from in close.
“The defence gets dictated by Warren, and if Warren is struggling, then they have to extend and bad things happen. That wasn’t our typical defence, and it wasn’t typical Warren here tonight,” said Accursi.
Outside of Theede’s meaningless goal at the end, the Thunderbirds only scored once in the fourth quarter. Six of Halifax’s eight losses last year were lost by one or two goals, while they only won three games within that margin.
“We lost a game in the last five minutes, we lost many of those games last year. Something has to change in our last five minutes because clearly, we’re not getting the job done,” said Accursi.
Dickson and Dobbie both had five goals, four assists and nine points. Jesse King had two goals and eight assists for a game-high 10 points. Tanner Cook and Brett McIntyre had five points each.
Randy Staats and Clarke Petterson led Halifax with nine points each. Dawson Theede and Thomas Hoggarth both had four goals and two assists, and Jason Knox had three goals and two assists.
The Roughnecks travel to Albany to play the FireWolves on Saturday, while the Thunderbirds travel to Saskatchewan to play the Rush on the same day.
