NLL.com - The Official Home of the National Lacrosse League

ROUGHNECKS TO HOST UNDEFEATED STEALTH

Calgary hosts Washington in battle of early season favorites

01/23/2010

By Josh Chalmers, covering the Roughnecks for NLL.com

The Calgary Roughnecks (1-1) will look to right the ship after their first loss of the young season in a rematch of last year's West Division Final against the Washington Stealth (3-0) at the Pengrowth Saddledome on Saturday at 9:30 pm ET. Fans can watch this game live on The NLL Network at NLL.com.

The Roughnecks opened up the season by splitting a series with the Minnesota Swarm (1-1), with each team winning on their own home floor. The Stealth will be looking to follow up on wins versus Colorado (0-2) and Edmonton (1-1) that have placed them atop the West Division.

In the 2009 West Division Final, the Roughnecks beat the Stealth 17-5 at the Saddledome. That game saw the return of Stealth Head Coach Chris Hall to Calgary. Hall was head coach of the Riggers in their first game in 2002 until his departure midway through the 2007 season, including a 2004 championship run.

Heading into a weekend in which they will play two games, the Stealth opened by defeating the Buffalo Bandits 13-11 on Friday night. They are now 3-0 on the season.

"(The Stealth) are off to a great start and obviously their confidence is going to be extremely high," said Roughnecks Head Coach Dave Pym.

"Their transition game is real strong with that athletic defense that they have. Offensively they're moving the ball like I haven't seen them move it before. So it's going to be a real good challenge for us."

Pym is looking for his squad to have more energy then they did in their first loss of the season.

"We were emotionally flat for that game," Pym said of the loss at Minnesota. "Our guys realize that they have to be better in that department if we're going to have any success in this league; because parody and the strength of the teams out there will kill you if you're not ready."

While the Roughnecks ended up on the wrong end of a 12-10 score, they outshot the Swarm 51-38. Pym said that shooting has been a focus for his coaching staff.

"Our shooters are constantly working on what they perceive to be necessary to their shooting percentages, and optimizing where they are putting the ball," Pym said. "We'll bear down a little bit more and do a bit more game situational shooting in our practices and shootaround leading up to (this) game."

Roughneck fans have been without a familiar face in the lineup the first two games with veteran forward, and Calgary native, Kaleb Toth on the sidelines.

"Kaleb's day-to-day and we're optimistic that he'll be able to go (on Saturday)," said Pym. "We're being very cautious with him. He's dealing with a bit of a (hamstring) issue. So we don't want him to light it up and tear something that will cost him the season. We know he's going to be extremely valuable to us the rest of the season. It's day-to-day and we're hoping we get the okay from our therapists and doctor's by week's end."

If Toth is unable to go on the weekend, Riggers fans will get their first chance to see 2009 third round draft pick Carlton Schuss.

"He brings some size and grit to our offensive end," Pym said of the rookie. "He'll go through the middle and bang and crash to create some space for his teammates to operate. We think that's something that we didn't do very well in Minnesota and it's something that we are going to address."

This will be the first of three meetings in the 2010 season for these teams. Calgary will head to the Comcast Arena in Everett on February 19 for the next meeting.