Knighthawks Set To Faceoff With Rock

The Rochester Knighthawks (2-5) look to snap their five-game losing streak when they welcome the Toronto Rock (4-3) to the Blue Cross Arena for an 8:00pm ET faceoff on Saturday February 10. The game will be live on NLLTV. This is the second matchup of these two teams. The Rock played the ungracious host back on January 12, coming away with the 17-9 victory at the Air Canada Centre.

That game was Rochester’s second loss on the season, and it is still their biggest loss of the season. The Knighthawks have lost every other game by three goals or fewer. Despite the five-game losing streak, Rochester’s defense and goaltending have been respectable. Matt Vinc has a save percentage of .780 and a goals-against average of 11.58, which includes the 17-goal game against the Rock. Meanwhile, four defensemen have scored three goals so far on the season, providing some punch in transition.

Rochester dropped their last game 16-14 against the Buffalo Bandits, and despite the score, the game could have been even more out-of-hand without the efforts of the defense. Graeme Hossack scored twice, and Jake Withers, Brad Gillies, and Luc Magnan each chipped in a goal in transition. Despite the score, the offense is where the heart of the problem lies. In that game, Cory Vitarelli scored four goals. Between the five scored by the defense and Vitarelli’s four, that means that the other seven forwards in the game scored seven goals. Former league MVP Cody Jamieson was held without a goal, as was stalwart Dan Dawson and Josh Currier.

On the other side of the floor, the Rock are coming off a second-half throttling at the hands of the Calgary Roughnecks, who rattled off the last nine goals of the game to win 16-8. It was a shock to the system for the Rock as they had been on a four-game winning streak, and Calgary came into the game with only one win under their belts.

For a team to be shut out in the NLL for the entire fourth quarter and a chunk of the third is almost unheard of. The Knighthawks need to get their offense back on track to prevent a sixth-straight loss, because Toronto is coming and will want to get the sour taste of the Roughnecks game out of their mouth.