Alex Urquhart
Tyler Carlson is the Swarm’s lone goalie, this season, that has game experience from last season. Although Carlson is the only goalie on the roster with experience in the NLL, he will have to step up from his performance last season.
Carlson went 4-6 last season with a goals against average of 11.04 over those 10 games and a save percentage of 77.1 percent. These numbers landed Carlson with the 6th spot in GAA, 9th in wins, and 6th in save percentage.
Carlson split much of the season with Evan Kirk, who the Swarm traded away this summer. Kirk and Carlson both had a hard time getting going last season, both had a number of games where they were pulled due to poor play. In the end Carlson played both of the Swarm’s playoff games, last season.
The Swarm will need Carlson to step up this season or the promising outlook that the Swarm have could go down the tube. Carlson will need to be consistent at the least, maybe not great but at the minimum consistent. This means game in game out being ready to go and on top of game management from the net. Carlson will also need to step up in the locker room now that he’s going into his third season with the Swarm and will be called upon to be the number one goalie once again this season.
Carlson is really the Swarm’s only question mark now that they have shored up their defense and added more power to the transition and the forwards. Come the end of November the Swarm will find out whether Carlson is ready or if they will need to find a new answer in the net.
