The Edmonton Rush (16-2) will be on the road to face the Calgary Roughnecks (12-6) Saturday night in the first game of the West Division Finals.
Calgary earned their berth in the second round of the playoffs with a dramatic 16-15 overtime win over the Colorado Mammoth last weekend while the Rush enjoyed a bye.
The Roughnecks won the last matchup between these two teams when they squeaked past the Rush 14-13 in overtime in the second-last regular season game for both teams. However, Edmonton won the previous three meetings of the year, all by wide margins, and have never lost to Calgary in a playoff game.
Shawn Evans, who led the Roughnecks in scoring with 105 points during the regular season, also paced the offense last weekend, contributing six assists and a hat trick that included the game winner. Dane Dobbie, who led the NLL in goals with 51, had four against the Mammoth to go along with four assists.
Edmonton will be countering with Mark Matthews, who led the Rush in scoring during the regular season with 78 points, and Curtis Knight who was tops on the team in goals with 35.
At the other end of the floor, Edmonton’s Aaron Bold led the league in wins (15) and goals against average (8.73) while Mike Poulin won 12 games and posted an 11.45 goals against average in the regular season. Poulin’s 14.75 goals against and .700 save percentage last weekend against the Mammoth doesn’t look very impressive, but made several game-saving stops late in the game to give his team a chance to win.
Defense was the biggest difference between these two teams during the season. The Rush gave up just 157 goals against, best in the NLL, while Calgary was fifth in goals against with 215. The Rush collected 1,201 loose balls to just 1,084 loosies for the Roughnecks and, more significantly, Edmonton led the league in forced turnovers with a whopping 275 while Calgary only forced 169—more than 100 fewer.
The Roughnecks will have to avoid turning the ball over and letting the Rush run in transition if they want to have a hope of winning this game. They will also have to play a disciplined game—Calgary was short-handed 96 times during the season, compared to just 70 penalty kill situations for the Rush. If they give the Rush too many man-up opportunities, Edmonton will make them pay.
Edmonton will have to contain Calgary’s many scorers and contest every shot. If Dobbie, Evans, Curtis Dickson or Jeff Shattler can get themselves open, they can score a lot of goals very quickly.
A critical question mark for Calgary is the status of Geoff Snider, who was injured in the third quarter of last week’s game and did not return. If the NLL’s all-time leader in faceoff wins can’t play, Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson will likely dominate whichever guy Calgary sends to the faceoff circle. Matthew Dinsdale and Garrett McIntosh combined for only 11 faceoff wins in 29 tries during the regular season and last weekend Curtis Manning won just a single faceoff in seven attempts.
Game time at the Scotiabank Saddledome is 7:00 pm MT and all the action can be seen on The Lacrosse Network’s You Tube channel with Game Two of the two-game series going next weekend in Edmonton.
