With the second half of the National Lacrosse League season looming and the congested West Division still a toss up, it’s not yet time for the struggling Washington Stealth to reach for the panic button. But a victory tonight against Colorado would provide much-needed momentum for a team that h
as experienced more downs than ups through its first eight games.
The Stealth (3-5) sit in third place in the five-team West Division and have dropped two straight games heading into their final contest before the All-Star break.
“The schedule certainly doesn’t get any easier for us,” Stealth head coach Chris Hall said following Saturday’s loss to Edmonton. “The last half of the schedule, we play four Eastern teams. We have to go through Toronto and Buffalo, and Rochester and Boston come here. We’ve done a poor job with our division so far. We’ve lost the season (series) to Minnesota, we’ve lost the season series to Edmonton.”
Playing host to a 1-5 Mammoth team that Washington has beaten twice on the road this season appears to be a perfect opportunity for the Stealth to make up some ground in the division. “We need to win that game to maintain distance between us and last (place),” Hall said.
“Every game seems like a pretty important game now. We’ve got to take those opportunities to move up in the standings,” said Stealth forward Lewis Ratcliff, who ranks second in the NLL with 48 points (16 goals, 32 assists). “Last year we buried teams when we had a chance and this year we’re struggling to put teams away and struggling to close them out. Hopefully we’ll get a couple guys back in the lineup and get back on track.”
Washington made a move Wednesday in an attempt to help shore up the defensive unit in the absence of injured defensemen Kyle Sorensen and Eric Martin. The Stealth swapped defenseman Tyler Codron to Edmonton for left-handed defenseman Ian Hawksbee, a highly regarded player both on defense and in transition.
Hawksbee’s addition could bolster a Stealth defense that is giving up a league-high 12.63 goals per game, but Hall also wants to see improvement from his goaltenders.
“We still need some better goaltending,” Hall said, “We’ve given up 101 goals now and that’s way too many and way more than we were giving up last year. We really felt that we had improved our defense (from) last year and our goaltending should be the same.”
Another problem, evident last week in back-to-back losses to Edmonton, was the Stealth offense’s inability to stop the transition game — another area where Hawksbee might provide some relief.
“Our offense has to be more accountable in stopping the transition,” Hall said. “I think generally we need to address how many goals we’re giving up.”
The Mammoth come to Comcast Arena losers of four straight, including a 10-8 setback to Washington on Feb. 5 in Denver. All-Star forwards Luke Wiles (three goals) and Rhys Duch (two goals), in addition to forward Tom Johnson (two goals), provided the offense for Washington and goaltender Tyler Richards was superb, stopping 52 shots.
In the teams’ first meeting of the season on Jan. 8, Duch scored the overtime winner as the Stealth defeated Colorado 11-10.
Mammoth All-Star forward John Grant Jr. has seven goals and five assists in two games against the Stealth this season, but few Mammoth players have contributed as steadily as Grant.
“We know each other pretty well,” Colorado head coach Bob Hamley said of the two teams. “It’s down to making the fewest mistakes. We have to be better on both ends.”
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