Alex Urquhart
The Minnesota Swarm have gotten off to a very, very, slow start this season. The team is 1-3 on the season and averaged only 7.5 goals per game through the first four games. Although the Swarm are not scoring goals they are, for the most part, sticking with most teams. They have only given up 41 goals this year, and 15 of them were in Sunday’s matinee match up against the Philadelphia Wings.
These problems are mostly due to the almost-all-new roster that is either rookies or are second-year players. This has caused a lot of problems on the offensive side of the floor; the offense has only a few guys who had a lot of playing time together last season. This has caused a lot of slow starts for players like Tyler Haas, Scott Jones, and Shayne Jackson. Jones was the fourth overall pick in the draft; he has only four points on the season. Jones is a good, big, strong forward and has the ability to be a rookie of the year. Jackson was one of the top young players last year and unfortunately like most of the team he has struggled to get the ball in the net. Jackson has six points on the season and only two goals.
The question we have to ask is, can the Swarm get their act together fast enough to be players in the playoffs? I believe yes they will. With young players it’s tough to say one way or the other how they’ll do but with veteran leadership like Callum Crawford and Andrew Suitor the young guys have very good role models. Also the training camp for these guys was only three weekends long and with a new roster and a number of young players it will take time to adjust to the game plan.
The other question to ask is, it time to give Zach Higgins a chance as the starter? Higgins has had to come in twice already to replace Tyler Carlson and has played extremely well. I say give it a shot; right now the team needs something to rally upon.
The Swarm have another bye week this week and will take on the Colorado Mammoth on February 8.
