CALGARY, AB — The Calgary Roughnecks were on the road for Week 13 of the NLL season, with games against the Georgia Swarm and the Colorado Mammoth. The Roughnecks were able to use a late come-back to beat the Georgia Swarm 16-12 on Friday night, but suffered a heart-breaking 13-12 OT loss to the Colorado Mammoth the next night.
Here are five things we noticed in the games:
1) SUPERMAN
Neither Colorado or Georgia were able to find any kryptonite this weekend as Curtis Dickson was able to put up some great numbers against each team. The Roughnecks star forward scored a sock-trick against the Swarm to go along with five assists. He added four goals and an assist the next night against the Mammoth, bringing his weekend total to 16 points. For the most part, Superman stayed grounded during the contests, but showed off his muscle, launching plenty of goals from distance.
Here’s one of his 10 goals from the weekend!
2) ROUGHIN’ IT
Flying across the country is never easy on the body, but making two long flights in two days to go along with two lacrosse games, that’s rough. Yet, that was the scenario that the Roughnecks had to deal with this weekend. Despite the tough nature of that beast, they played exceptional lacrosse and walked away with a weekend split. The resolve they showed throughout the weekend was incredible and the way that they played without some key players missing was fantastic. Kellen LeClair and Garrett McIntosh, both of whom sat out last weekend, came into the weekend and played solid defence for Calgary. McIntosh even helped out on offence, tallying his first of the year in transition.
3) RESURGENCE
While Dickson made the headlines with his sock-trick, Jeff Shattler was just as important to the Roughnecks success this weekend. The former NLL MVP only netted four goals in the two games, but he helped set up 11 of the Roughnecks goals. Shattler now sits at 63 points through 14 games, which is one more point than he had in all of 2015.
This was quite simply, a classic Shattler goal:
4) MINDING THE CREASE
Mike Poulin was not exceptionally sharp early against the Swarm, but he did enough to keep the Roughnecks in the game. With 17 minutes left in the game, coach Malawsky went to Frankie Scigliano and that proved to be a fantastic decision as the fifth-year net minder allowed only one goal the rest of the way, earning the win. The next night, Poulin got the call once again. After a quick start for Colorado, coach Malawsky once again called upon Scigliano, but only for a brief moment. Poulin went back in net and was steady the rest of the way. The two goaltenders have formed a fantastic pair that the Roughnecks can rely on game in and game out.
5) A GAME OF RUNS
Through two games this weekend, runs played a big role in the outcome of the games. Against the Swarm, the game was fairly back-and-forth, but the Swarm had an early four-goal run that put them ahead 7-4. Later in that game, Calgary used a seven-goal rally to blow past Georgia and win the game. In Colorado, the Mammoth had runs of three and five goals, while the Roughnecks had four and six goal runs in the contest. Calgary coach Curt Malawsky has routinely stated that the NLL is a game of runs and this weekend more than proved it. It also showed that when you get some momentum, you can ride it and put up a handful of goals in a short period of time.
