Photo by Garrett James
The Vancouver Stealth could only net six goals as they fell to the Edmonton Rush 13-6 on Saturday night in their first preseason game of the year. The Rush were led by goals from Robert Church, Ben McIntosh, Mark Matthews, and Tyler Melnyk.
Matthews scored the hat trick to be the leading scorer in the game while Church and McIntosh had two each. It was the NLL debut for both McIntosh and Melnyk. Melnyk’s goal was the first of the game and led the Rush to a 5-1 run to open the game.
Vancouver saw goals from Rhys Duch, Tyler Digby, Dane Stevens, and Dan Keane. Stevens formerly played for the Rush before he played in Minnesota, where the Stealth acquired him from. This was the first NLL contest for Keane.
While Vancouver struggled to score, there was also concern over the amount of goals given up after they have lost so much defense. Matt Beers and Kyle Sorensen are out for the season while they lost Jeff Moleski to free agency to the Roughnecks and they traded Nick Weiss and Mike Grimes away.
This was also the NLL debut in Vancouver for Brendan Clelland, DJ Saari, Jakub Doucet, Dan Keane, and Matt Delmonico. Making their Stealth debuts were Johnny Powless, Wenster Green, Tyler Burton, and Kyle Belton.
Debuting for the Rush were rookies Matt MacGrotty, Melnyk and McIntosh. Corey Small made his return to the lineup after missing last season with a knee injury.
The Stealth will get an opportunity to rebound today at home against Colorado, while Edmonton does not play again until the last preseason game against the Calgary Roughnecks.
