Swarm Begin 2019 With Home Game Against The Warriors

The Vancouver Warriors’ (1-2) quest for their second win of the season does not get any easier in 2019. The West Division team travels to Infinite Energy Arena on Saturday, Jan. 5 to take on the 2-0 Georgia Swarm.

The Warriors earned their second loss of the season with a 16-10 road loss to the Buffalo Bandits. Friday’s loss marks the second-straight game that Vancouver has dropped by six goals.

“I don’t think we’ve been playing our systems the way we want to play them,” Warriors head coach Chris Gill said when asked if roster changes were on the way. “So, I wouldn’t say we’re having a system shakeup. I think we’re not going to play the way we have been playing, hopefully. That’s the shakeup we’re going to have, get back to playing the way we want to play.

“We haven’t done that yet. We’ve done it for – out of the 12 quarters so far, we’ve probably played our system on defense for seven, maybe eight quarters, and on offense, I’d say maybe one or two quarters. It’s not a system change; it’s just fine-tuning our systems and getting them dialed in.”

Their east coast road trip continues in Georgia as they take on the Swarm. Georgia played a tight game against the Toronto Rock last Friday, but 2017 NLL MVP Lyle Thompson put the team on his back to tie the game in the final minutes of regulation and score the game-winner in the final seconds. Georgia left Scotiabank Arena with a 12-11 win, its second of the season.

Georgia’s win last Friday marked the team’s fourth-straight road win against Toronto and ninth win out of ten games against Toronto since 2016, including two postseason meetings.

Granted, it was under a different ownership group and moniker last season, but Vancouver’s last game as the Stealth saw the team challenge the Swarm with a tight 11-10 game back on April 28, 2018. The Swarm knows they cannot repeat the mistakes of the past and will have to be at their best for a full sixty minutes against a Warriors team trying to prevent their losing streak from growing.

“I think Vancouver, as much as their record being 1-2 might say otherwise, but certainly we see them coming in fully expecting to knock us off at home,” Swarm head coach Ed Comeau said. “So, we’re going to have to be at our best to get a win on Saturday.”

Logan Schuss leads the Warriors in points with 17 (5G, 12A). Mitch Jones has 14 points (5G, 9A) and Keegan Bal has 12 points (4G, 8A), rounding out the top three points-getters for Vancouver. Goaltender Aaron Bold has spent the most time in net so far this season. In 149:54 min., he has a 14.41 GAA and a .721 SV%.

For the Swarm, Lyle leads them in points with 12 (6G, 6A), followed by Holden Cattoni (4G, 7A) and Randy Staats (3G, 8A) with 11 points apiece. Goaltender Mike Poulin has won both games this season and has an 11.50 GAA and a .791 SV%.

Faceoff for Saturday’s game is set for 7:05 p.m. ET. Fans can catch the game live via the B/R Live app available through iTunes, Google Play, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire.