Today the Toronto Rock and Rochester Knighthawks will take over the old stomping grounds of the ill-fated Montreal Express. For the second time, the NLL heads to Montreal for a pre season game where these two teams will play at Bell Centre.
The Rock lost their pre season contest last week to the Calgary Roughnecks where they scored just five goals. Meanwhile, the Knighthawks also lost when the Minnesota Swarm exploded.
These two teams played in Montreal in front of 7,400 fans in 2012 as the Knighthawks defeated Toronto 14-10.
This will also be the last time these two teams will have a chance to evaluate their rosters before the 20 man rosters are due on Thursday. Toronto was missing a lot of their offense last week that will get a look this week. They need some of their role players and rookies to step out with Colin Doyle and Garrett Billings out for the entire or considerable portion of the year.
Rochester’s offense had some holes last week, but overall they still have plenty of weapons. Gavin Prout and Jordan Hall played well replacing Johnny Powless and what would have been second overall pick Jeremy Noble.
“The Knighthawks are excited to start the 2015 season and we are also excited about playing a game in the Bell Centre in Montreal,” said Knighthawks President Lewis Staats. “We believe in order to continue to grow the game, we need to expose NLL lacrosse action to as many new fans as we can. Montreal offers a very good opportunity to do just that and it will also give us a chance to play in a game-like atmosphere which is always good.”
Knighthawks backup goalie Angus Goodleaf might see a lot of time today as he returns to Quebec, as a native of Kahnawake, just about 15 minutes away from Montreal.
Game time is 2pm and it is the last pre season game for the Knighthawks while Toronto does play next week.
