Photo Credit: Dan Brodie
The Calgary Roughnecks are one of the most balanced teams in the NLL at 6-5 and with the NLL trade deadline in just a few hours, they might just stand pat. General manager Mike Board spoke with the Calgary Sun yesterday and has some interesting quotes.
“I talked to some of the teams in the East this week, and they’re all figuring there’s some jostling to do in the standings, and they could be in the playoffs. You don’t want to make some move that’s going to affect your chances to get into the playoffs. The east is a much tighter division than the west and have less pieces to move around.
“We’ll keep our ears open and be listening and talking to people.”
Meanwhile, Calgary has seen their own injuries with Curtis Dickson who just returned and Scott Ranger who still remains out. Board points out that his return might be like an acquisition.
“We’d like to have him [Scott Ranger] back sooner than later and ready for the playoffs. Speaking of trade deadline, that’s almost like picking up a guy at the trade deadline if we can get a hold of him and get him back in the stable.”
Board also points out that trades don’t happen in the NLL like they used to, and with the shortened rosters, even fewer moves could happen this year which might make for a slow deadline.
“If you’re going to do something like that, Lewis Ratcliff for Josh Sanderson is a huge deal with two teams trading top assets. You just don’t find too many of those deals in today’s NLL.”
Calgary is in a good position in a western division where Edmonton dominates, but after that Colorado and Vancouver are struggling. The Roughnecks don’t have too many areas to improve, but where they do, Board says he’ll be looking.
“I think we’d probably look at the back end a little bit,” Board said. “Our offence has been pretty steady. We didn’t have our best outing last Friday against Edmonton. But for the most part, it’s been pretty consistent, so we like what’s going on up there.”
