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The Calgary Roughnecks get set for a busy weekend where they play on back-to-back nights, starting this evening. The Riggers welcome the Toronto Rock at the Dome and on The FAN 960 (7 pm faceoff). Calgary then travels to Minnesota to hook up with the Swarm (6 pm, NLL.com).
For the Riggers, it’s an opportunity to clinch a playoff spot, and it’s all in their hands. All that needs to happen for Calgary is a win, and their playoff berth is secure. They can also get in with a win and a San Jose loss or no wins and 2 San Jose losses and/or 1 Edmonton loss. Basically, it comes down to…win and you’re in, and that’ll be the mindset for the Roughnecks. As much as all the scenarios are fun to break down, Calgary is going to look at it that way and that’s the best way for them to look at it.
The first game is tonight when Calgary (8-2) welcomes Toronto (4-7), the second and final meeting between the 2 teams this year. Back on January 17th, the Roughnecks dominated Toronto at Air Canada Centre, taking a 16-9 win. Calgary was especially impressive in the second half, outscoring the Rock 5-1 in the final 30 minutes, including laying a goose-egg in the 4th quarter. It was as impressive a win this season for Calgary, as the defence was smothering and was at its shut down best.
Calgary enters the game with 3 straight wins, dating back to late February’s win over the New York Titans. That was followed by an absurdly easy 22-10 win in Edmonton, and finally a 13-10 win last weekend at home to Colorado. The Mammoth and Titans games are the real indicators, as there isn’t much to take from the Edmonton game…it was so lopsided and silly. In both games, Calgary lead big heading into the 4th quarter, and in both games the opponents mounted a comeback . However, on both those days, Calgary was able to score a few timely goals to really put things away. Last weekend, it was a Dane Dobbie marker that put it away in the 4th.
The challenge on Saturday night will be to stay fresh for the 5-6 Minnesota Swarm. That’s the second of 2 meetings between those teams as well. Back on February 6th, Calgary took a 13-8 win over the Swarm, which was the 5th straight win at the time for Calgary. Tracey Kelusky was the man of the moment that night, scoring a highlight reel goal from behind the net that finished in the Top 5 NLL Plays of the Week. What Minnesota does well is keep things low scoring…they play a different defence as opposed to the Roughnecks, yet it still is effective. The problem with what Minnesota does is that it can’t compensate for an offence like Calgary’s. If the Roughnecks continue their offensive consistency, they should be able to win this one.
What is it with Minnesota teams and their “defense first, low scores” philosophies? I’m hearing the turn out for tonights game should be good, I hope so. I have been a little disappointed in having 11,000 or less for the previous games. This team (& their owner) deserve better, but that’s a topic ofr another day. Like you said earlier Pat, the Roughnecks need to concern themselves with a Toronto team that may not be as dominant as in years past, but they have been getting better recently and it should be a good contest. I view it similar to last weeks game against Colorado.
PS: No kidding regarding Minnesota Bob, ugh. The Wild with a huge win over Edmonton though! That’s not a problem in my books. Another disappointing crowd at the Dome…just under 10,600. Winning isn’t going to be enough, clearly, and they need to put on a bigger push. Clearly Calgary did not prepare for Toronto on Friday night, and were tired heading into their game with Minnesota. Calgary was able to really bear down against the Swarm and push back, and like expected, Calgary’s offence was too much in the end. Good bounce back, because Toronto was very disappointing.
- Bob in the AbbeyLooks like Bob was right on this one. It is really dangerous to overlook a team that is known to be “weaker”. I’m not saying this is what happened last night but it is something to watch for.
Oddly enough, the game against the Rock last night reminded me a lot of the Flames’ recent struggles. The play (mainly in the first half, but somewhat throughout the game) was very inconsistent. Far too many missed passes, dropped balls, missed loose balls etc etc. Frankly, like the Flames, the Neck’s looked a little lazy coming out of the gate.
I also think that Shooter was pretty much absent for the first 35 minutes or so. And it didn’t help that when the boys did step up, they ran into a hot goalie in Bob Watson or a huge Rock defense, or hit the post (I can recall probably 5 posts/crossbars).
On the positive though, another outstanding game by KT and I think Brider and Nolan has great games. It’s also always nice to see Lewis Ratcliff do well no matter what team he’s playing for. He’s a real talent.
Let’s hope Calgary can pull it together tonight though. I agree Pat, the boys have to break throught the Swarm defense and get to the near the crease as often as possible. Taking shots through the defenders just won’t work as well.
PS: Great show this morning with Jungle Jim. Love that guy. Keep it up Pat (aka McLovin)!
PS: Liked the effort against Minnesota, because as expected, the team was tired to start and they were able to overcome that and not use it as an excuse. I liked how the Calgary offence was able to get back to their consistent ways in the second half and the defence played a full 60 minute effort. Very impressed with the bounce back in St. Paul. I thought on Friday, the whole offence just seemed to be off by a few steps consistently. Malawsky couldn’t reign in the usual crease passes and Sanderson had the ball popping out of his stick time after time. Toth comes up with 2 HUGE games for the team, he was the one consistent force on Friday and was great on Saturday as well.
- Craig