ONE AND DONE FOR RUSH
Knighthawks are riding a hot streak but Saskatchewan has that hungry look
The Rush’s Nik Bilic and Robert Church celebrate their 15-13 win over the Calgary Roughnecks during a one-game, sudden-death playoff match at SaskTel Centre on Sunday. The Rush advance to play the Rochester Knighthawks in the NLL finals.
They raised the roof at SaskTel Centre on Mother’s Day, filled the place with noise and commotion, deadened eardrums and made a spectacle of the place.
It was the smallest crowd of the season — just 11,568, more than 3,000 less than their average — but the folks who showed up Sunday evening did a boisterously beautiful job of ushering the Saskatchewan Rush into their fourth consecutive National Lacrosse League final.
“Last year, we learned what it’s like to be hunted,” Rush defender Ryan Dilks said after Saskatchewan’s 15-13 Western Division-finals victory over the visiting Calgary Roughnecks, as a little peace settled on the place. “Now, we have to get back on track and be the hunter. We want to bring the Cup back. We always talk about how much fun we had, and that feeling after you win the Cup. And I can tell you that the guys in this room want it so bad again. We’re going to be ready.”
The Rush — who lost last year’s final to the Georgia Swarm after winning back-to-back titles before that — will face the Rochester Knighthawks in the bestof-three NLL championship.
That impending meet-andgreet makes sense, really: Over the last six seasons, one of those two teams have appeared in the final — Rochester from 2012 to 2014, and Saskatchewan from 2015 to 2017. Now, they’ve shoved their way into the 2018 picture, too, and will play each other for the first time with everything on the line.
These Knighthawks have not forgotten how to win a championship. They won all three finals they played in during those three glorious seasons, and retain a solid, veteran core of champs.
Things have been much leaner since that 2014 title, but this year, they went 10-8 during the regular season — Saskatchewan was an NLL-best 14-4 — and did something unmatched by any other team in the league: Rochester beat the Rush twice.
The Knighthawks won 16-11 on Feb. 17, and strolled into Saskatoon on March 24 and dumped the Rush 13-10.
And ponder this: Rochester won their first two games of the NLL regular season, then lost six in a row. They snapped the skid with a Feb. 11 win over the Georgia Swarm, and are 10-2 (including playoffs) since that time. The Rush, to contrast, are 8-3 over that same time span.
Saskatchewan enters this series as favourites. But you can’t throw the word “heavy” in there as a qualifier, because Rochester — which advances to the final after a 9-8 weekend win over Georgia — has both the guns and the momentum to pull this thing out.
“They’re tough,” Rush head coach and general manager Derek Keenan said of the Knighthawks. “They’re a big, physical, defensive team, great goaltender in Matt Vinc, and some real, good young players on offence to mix in with their veterans. They’ve done a good job of turning that team around, back to where they were a number of years ago. It’s going to be tough; we’re going to have to be really good. But if we play with the urgency and energy we did tonight, we’ll be in a good position.”
A couple of weeks earlier, with a playoff spot clinched and an unknown opponent in their future, Rush players had one hard reality to chew on: This entire high-octane season could be erased with one tough-luck game, given that the division final is a one-game, sudden-death affair.
Sniper Mark Matthews knew that reality, and he also knew one thing, in particular, they could do to help themselves.
“Coming out hot,” Matthews said then. “We tend to have slow starts sometimes. Two weeks from now, coming in here and having a good first five minutes, maybe getting a couple, getting up on whoever we’re playing, would be nice. Then just keep things rolling through 60 minutes.” Well, they came out hot. They had a good first five minutes. They got a couple. They got up on who they were playing.
They didn’t keep things rolling through the entire 60 minutes, but they got close enough to survive the game and extend the season.
The Rush outshot Calgary 19-7 in the first quarter and led 8-5 at halftime. Calgary tied the game at eight with a third-quarter rally, then Saskatchewan dashed off six of the next seven goals, and the Roughnecks finished with a late outburst of their own.
They were close, but lost to the Rush for a fourth time this season.
And now it’s Saskatchewan vs. Rochester, with the series beginning May 26 in Saskatoon. Keenan knows about the Knighthawks’ hot play, and their 2-0 record against the Rush.
But his team, he points out, is very good, too.
“We’ve been consistent all year,” Keenan said. “One thing you can’t overlook is we never lost a game in our division this year, including tonight. I don’t think that’s ever been done before, and to beat a team four times, a good team like that ... we’re a pretty resilient group. And we’re going to show that again in the finals.”
AndIcantell you that the guys in this room want it so bad again. We’re going to be ready.