The Calgary Roughnecks had a whole slew of goals to accomplish this season in the NLL.  Clinch a playoff spot? Check.  Take top spot in the West Division?  Done and done.  Number 1 overall in the league?  In the books.  Now, with all that accomplished, just 1 goal remains…the ultimate goal looms in the balance.

Of course that ultimate goal would be the NLL Champions Cup.  And while that’s the goal of every team entering the season, you’d have to think the Calgary Roughnecks have as inside a track as you can have entering the playoffs.  Before they can do that, they take on the Portland Lumberjax on Friday night (8:30 pm, NLL.com).  They’ll have a home playoff date May 1st, 2nd or 3rd.  There are certainly a lot reasons Calgary could realize their goal, yet there are also a few worrying trends sticking out.

The first would be the inconsistent second half of the season for the Riggers.  After starting the season 5-0, Calgary is now 6-4 since.  Granted, 2 losses in there were by 1 goal (Colorado and Boston), but their 2 most recent losses were disappointing efforts for the team.  In fact, 4 of Calgary’s last 5 games have not been good enough in the eyes of players and coaches on the team.  They were out of sync in a loss to Toronto, inconsistent in a loss to Portland, only showed up for a half in a win over Rochester; same with a win in Minnesota.

Saturday’s win over Edmonton was much better, and it clinched them everything they wanted to clinch.  In talking to the Riggers, they all point to the same thing when it comes to the inconsistency.  Work ethic.  Whether it be Kaleb Toth or Bruce Codd or Tracey Kelusky, they are all on record saying that their gameday shoot arounds have lacked the intensity needed for this time of year.  It’s an interesting point, and very correctable with this group of players.  The leaders addressed it prior to Saturday’s game, and I expect to see a fired up, intense attitude with this team for the remaining (at least) 2 games.

The other thing that concerns me is something that has concerned offensive players all year.  I remember talking to Tracey Kelusky midway through the season, and he pointed this out.  There are times when Calgary can get into a bit of a slump offensively, and it really hampers them.  On Friday night against Portland, Calgary went 17 minutes without scoring in the 3rd and 4th quarters.  Saturday against Edmonton, it was around 10 minutes.  It’s something Calgary is striving to eliminate, and with the talent on this team, should be fairly easily rid of.

Now, all those negatives aside, the positives overwhelm for this team.  I liked Calgary’s response on Saturday in Edmonton, after a disappointing effort on Friday.  It wasn’t perfect at Rexall Place, but it was a hard fought, character win.  They needed a win like that, and I think it’ll be a team firing on all cylinders Friday in Portland.  Good to see Dane Dobbie pot 3 against the Rush, get him back on track late in the season.  Kelusky has been very good the last 2 games while Kaleb Toth has been this teams most consistent performer in all facets the last 5 games.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.