The 2014 training camp for the Edmonton Rush gets under way Thursday, November 28, and GM/Head Coach Derek Keenan expects it to be a challenging one for both the players and the coaching staff.
Two major changes will be front and centre when the Rush camp opens at the Leduc Recreation Centre and then moves to the Rush’s home turf at Rexall Place. The first is that instead of a drawn-out series of weekend sessions over the course of a month, the Rush’s camp this year will be a compacted two-week sprint to the final roster. The camps will run Wednesday through Sunday with one intra-squad game on Crystal Glass Field at Rexall Place on Nov. 29, and one exhibition game in Six Nations, Ontario, against the Buffalo Bandits.
The new format is one Keenan is looking forward to implementing albeit with player maintenance among the top priorities.
“We have to be very conscious about keeping guys healthy,” stated Keenan. “It will be the same format when it comes to evaluating players but we’ll also be implementing systems at the same time.
“We’re going to have two-a-days, but our time is still limited and I don’t want to see unstructured lacrosse.”
The other alteration to training camp comes in the form of the very roster that Keenan and his staff will be putting together. With the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement between the NLL and its players, teams will now be allowed to carry just a 20-man active roster plus a four-man practice roster. The cutdown in personnel will make coaches take an extra-long look at the talent pool they have in front of them before wading into the world of cuts.
“With nine teams, we’re down to 180 jobs in the best league in the world so that’s going to make it awfully tough,” said Keenan. “Near the top of the roster it should still be pretty easy unless something surprising happens, but those last four or five spots, that’s where the decisions are going to be very hard.
“You’re going to see some guys in the older range – 32 or 33 years old – whose salaries are on the higher end, and they may be replaced by a younger player who makes a lot less money and is just as good.”
“You’re also going to see the importance of the practice roster guys in a much bigger way. Those four guys are going to have to be good enough on any night. They’re going to have to be able to step into the lineup and contribute right away. They’ll have to be game-ready because one week they might be on the practice roster and the next week right on the roster.”
The Rush will certainly have a handful of changes from the 2013 roster to this season’s edition. Who’s in and who’s out … well, only training camp will bring about that answer.
The Rush are returning both of their goaltenders from a year ago – incumbent starter Aaron Bold and promising up-and-comer Brodie MacDonald – though Keenan hinted that a third contender could be something he looks at.
On the defensive/transition side of things, former Rush captain Jimmy Quinlan becomes the team’s defensive coach leaving a decent-sized hole in the group. Quinlan’s grit and leadership will be tough to replace, but they Rush are hoping to find a new core of players that will provide two-way play in transition. The Rush return a great crop coming out the back door including two-time NLL Defensive Player of the Year Kyle Rubisch alongside fleet-footed Chris Corbeil and faceoff kingpin Jeremy Thompson – all three of whom recently signed multi-year deals.
“We have a lot of strength on the right side with Curtis Knight, Jarrett Davis and Cory Conway as guys who are talented offensively but also very capable defensively,” explained Keenan. “We need to find some guys on the left side to do the same thing. One them might be (2013 second-round draft pick) Adrian Sorichetti.”
Sorichetti, who played last season with Hofstra University and previously toiled for Keenan with his junior club in Whitby, Ontario, is one of a handful of new faces that hope to crack the Rush roster. Two other high draft picks also figure largely in the newcomer group. First-rounder Robert Church was a star at Drexel University and with the Coquilam Adanacs in junior, while second-rounder Riley Loewen leaves Limestone College as the school’s all-time leading goal scorer. Other youngsters figuring large at training camp will be returning transition player Dane Stevens, 2013 fourth-round pick Reid Mydske (younger brother of current Rush star Brett Mydske), and 2012 draft pick Mitch Banister who spent last season on the practice roster.
Up front the Rush are coming off the franchise’s best offensive output in 2013 with 203 goals, and the team returns key personnel including NLL Rookie of the Year Mark Matthews, sniper Zack Greer, and breakout performers Knight and Davis. The team will be without Corey Small who suffered a serious knee injury during the summer season, but Keenan is hopeful that Church can pick up some of that missing offense especially when it comes to play-making talents.
Overall, Keenan has high expectations for the Rush, the runners-up in the 2012 Champion’s Cup derby.
“I’m very optimistic. We had a good year last year but we need to play a little better and we need to win at home,” said Keenan, whose team was a terrific 7-1 on the road yet disappointingly went 2-6 at home in 2013.
“We have a good young team, and a very athletic team. Defensively, we’re strong, we’ve got good goaltending, and our transition game is very good. We’ve got all the parts to be very successful this season.”
