Roughnecks in need of more conditioning and fewer penalties
Don’t expect the Calgary Roughnecks to enjoy much R&R during this bye week.
Perhaps a few extra sessions at the gym will be in order.
Coach and players agreed after Saturday night’s 14-13 overtime loss to the visiting Colorado Mammoth that conditioning is somewhat off and, though it wasn’t the only reason for the club’s third loss in five games this National Lacrosse League season, it was undeniably a factor.
“We have to be able to manage our guys’ minutes,” noted Calgary head coach Curt Malawsky. “We’ll take these couple of weeks off to get ourselves in tip-top shape. A few guys are not as fit as they need to be and I think they understand that. Sometimes you get a little tired; you don’t create spaces and you don’t make the plays you should make.”
“We have our short man units, two different units, and I guess since we’re out there so much it can get a little taxing,” suggested Riggers’ defender Dan MacRae. “It seems like those four or five guys need to put in that little extra effort in the gym and be able to stay in shape because the way it’s going now, we’re taking too many penalties.”
The ’Necks were hard-pressed on the back end for a lot of the game, called upon to kill eight Mammoth power play opportunities — only one of which went into the net. But it was that extra responsibility against a top-notch offensive unit that took its toll on Calgary players.
Meanwhile, the league’s leading point-getter Adam Jones proved almost impossible to stop, scoring seven times and adding one assist. The seven goals tied the record for most scored in a game on a Roughneck team by one individual. If not Jones, then the fabled John Grant Jr. added five points on his own, including the winning behind-the-back goal at 2:09 of the extra frame.
“They got 10 on their left side,” sighed Malawsky. “We had some good matchups over there but you put them on the power play, the guys who are supposed to be matching on 16 (Jones) and 24 (Grant) are on the floor all the time and the guys are a little bit fatigued.”
“He’s a magician,” MacRae said of Jones, who now tops the NLL with 37 points and 23 goals.
On the Roughnecks’ offensive side of things, Dane Dobbie collected two goals and four assists, Jeff Shattler sniped once and added five helpers, while Shawn Evans had two and three. Also with two goals — and two-thirds of the way to his season high of three scored last season — was MacRae.
“It’s fun,” he acknowledged. “That’s in our game plan, just get our transition going, so every night it’s going to be someone different pushing up the floor.”
Calgary netminder Mike Poulin was a big reason that the game went into overtime, as he made some stellar saves in the fourth quarter. Interestingly, he was pulled after Colorado’s eighth goal at the 12:57 mark of the second quarter, only to be reinserted after the Mammoth made it 10-8 at 5:42 of the third.