Photo Credit: Brad Watson/Calgary Roughnecks
The Calgary Roughnecks grabbed a decisive 19-13 victory over the Toronto Rock Saturday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary.
The Roughnecks improve to 6-3 on the season while the Rock fall to 4-6.
Calgary opened the game with their best quarter of the season, scoring seven times—including four goals from Curtis Dickson—while shutting the Toronto offence down completely After staking themselves to a seven-goal lead, it was simply a matter of exchanging goals the rest of the way to earn the win.
Goaltending was the single most important factor in the game. Mike Poulin was outstanding in net for the Roughnecks, making several huge saves while Toronto peppered him with 61 shots. On the other side of the floor, Calgary took 50 shots on Nick Rose and Zak Boychuk, finding the back of the net 38 percent of the time.
Dickson’s early season slump can now officially be considered over. He finished the game with six goals and four assists to lead all scorers, far and away his best effort of the season and the fifth game in a row where he has scored more than one goal.
Jeff Shattler and Shawn Evans chipped in with a goal and seven assists each, Dane Dobbie scored four times to increase his league-leading total to 30 and rookie Karsen Leung had a four-point night (2 G, 2 A), including a key fourth-quarter goal on transition that stopped a three-goal run by the Rock.
Toronto was paced by Stephan Leblanc who scored five times and added two assists.
Next on the schedule for the Roughnecks is a trip to Denver to face the Colorado Mammoth on March 8 while the Rock have a bye week to regroup before a two-game set the following weekend, hosting the Rochester Knighthawks on March 15 and then travelling to St. Paul to face the Minnesota Swarm on March 16.
