W2W4
Friday night will be an important one for the Edmonton Rush organization and the local lacrosse community as Jimmy Quinlan’s #81 will be retired. One thing that teams always have to guard against when it comes to pre-game ceremonies are sluggish starts and letting the emotions of the festivities distract them from the task at hand. Fans are being asked to be in their seats at 7:15 pm for what is otherwise a 7:30 pm start, so that indicates that players on both teams will be bottling up their nervous pre-game energy for 15 minutes longer than usual. The last thing the Rush need is to lose focus and give the Roughnecks’ offence a chance to go on an early run.
Another thing that will be an important focus is the chess match between Edmonton’s pressure defence and Calgary’s veteran offence. In the final game of the 2013 season, one where a win would have given the Rush their first ever home playoff game, Shawn Evans exposed the Rush double team down the stretch by anticipating the slide collapsing on top of him. On the game tying goal he was able to find Daryl Veltman open and on his OT winner, he and Scott Ranger took advantage of a bad switch by the Rush, allowing Evans a lane to the crease that he took full advantage of.
Roughnecks Head Coach Curt Malawsky mentioned how it is up to his offence to make adjustments to their attack in anticipation of what the Rush are going to do.
Geoff Snider’s ability to control face offs and create offence off of them is also something the Rush are going to be aware of. Jeremy Thompson has his work cut out for him. In the three 2013 games Thompson squared off against Snider, his stat line read 4 goals, 1 assist, 28 loose balls, 18 face off wins and 61 face off losses while the Roughnecks’ all star transition player had 4 goals, 3 assists, 58 loose balls, 65 face off wins and just 17 face off losses. The one thing that the stats do not tell is how many 50/50 balls Thompson was able to create off of the draw so that Snider didn’t win them directly to himself to make he and the Roughnecks’ face off unit a dangerous and immediate offensive threat.
Edmonton Head Coach and General Manager Derek Keenan had this to say when Scott Zerr from edmontonrush.com asked about his team’s approach to neutralizing Snider.
After putting up 16 goals on the Mammoth on the strength of big nights from Mark Matthews and Zack Greer, the new look Rush offence will really be tested against an aggressive Calgary defence. If all other parts of the game.
What will likely decide this game is goaltending. The last time these teams met, Aaron Bold was the reason the Rush got to overtime and why his team still had a chance to clinch first place in the West in their last game of the season. Roughneck’s starter Mike Poulin was solid during the four chapters of the Battle of Alberta last year, posting a 0.805 save percentage compared to Bold’s 0.744 in the same four games. Early on in 2014, Bold has been outstanding for the Rush, allowing just 16 goals in two games on the strength of an 0.814 save percentage putting him third in the National Lacrosse League behind Matt Vinc and Tyler Richards.
Any way you slice it, this is a statement game. A victory for the Rush serves notice to the NLL that they are the team to beat in the West early on while a Roughnecks win will make it clear that they are not ready to relinquish that reputation anytime soon.
