Bye-bye byes: Saskatchewan Rush roll up the wins to start NLL season

Saskatchewan Rush/NLL photo by Jeffery R. Crawford. Zach Manns leaps in the air to score one of the six goals he scored for the Saskatchewan Rush against the Halifax Thunderbirds on Saturday night in Saskatoon. The Rush won 9-8 in overtime.

The undefeated Rush — which improved to 2-0 with a 9-8 victory over the visiting Halifax Thunderbirds on Saturday night at SaskTel Centre thanks to a six-goal outburst by Zach Manns — returns to action Saturday in Rochester against the Knighthawks (1-2).

Darren Zary, Saskatoon StarPhoenix

With two more games over the next two weeks, Derek Keenan couldn’t be happier.

Strike while the iron’s hot, as the saying goes.

No upcoming byes.

“Perfect,” said Keenan, the general manager and co-head coach of the Saskatchewan Rush.

“Let’s go. Let’s keep playing. We’re on the road (this week). We’ve got a pretty good road trip planned. We’ll get all the guys from out west in Thursday night and then bus down to Rochester and practise down there Friday night and then we’ll be ready to go.”

The undefeated Rush — which improved to 2-0 with a 9-8 victory over the visiting Halifax Thunderbirds on Saturday night at SaskTel Centre thanks to a six-goal outburst by Zach Manns — returns to action Saturday in Rochester against the Knighthawks (1-2).

They’ll also play the following week with a game Saturday, Dec. 28 against the visiting Philadelphia Wings at SaskTel Centre.

A pair of early wins is a bonus as the Rush, after missing the playoffs the last few years, looks to build a winning culture.

“It really does (help),” admitted Keenan. “It could very easily be the other way (0-2) but it’s not and that’s the key, especially how we won. How we won both of those games and even the last game where we kind of blew a late lead but we still managed. Our attitude is ‘what’s next?’ and that’s the way we want to play. And that’s the way we want our guys to present themselves, ‘what’s next?’ — and I thought we did a good job of that (Saturday) because it could have easily gone the other way.

“Let’s be honest. That (Halifax) team’s been our kryptonite for a couple of years. We have not played well against them, and a year ago, the game turned into a blowout both in Halifax and at home.”

This time, the Rush prevailed and found a way to win.

“It could have gone that way, but our guys just stuck with it and you could kind of see as the game went on,” offered Keenan. “We didn’t have a lot of shots on goal at half-time. I think we had 16. Boom, by the end of it, we had more shots on goal than them.

You could see the momentum change and I think a lot of it was our fitness level — guys have taken care of that — and, again, playing that half when we weren’t great and then we started to execute better after having a week off. This year, fortunately, we don’t have as many byes as we’ve had for the last few years. We do have them, but we just have to deal with them better.”

How huge was this latest win?

“It’s massive,” said Manns. “We know we can play a hell of a lot better than we did and we still got the two points at home, and that’s a great team over there. They absolutely kicked the crap out of us last year two times, so we were thinking about this game for the last two weeks. We may have had a bit of cobwebs in the first half from that bye week, but I think that rest made our legs go a little longer.

“It just proves that we’re being confident for the right reasons. We believe in our group. We have great coaching, great goaltending. Those are the two fundamental things you need to have a great team. We’re just looking to build.”

Mann says the Rush players have trust in their team, top to bottom.

“(Goalie) Frank (Scigliano) was great in that first half. He made a lot of saves and kept us in it. We were lucky that they (T-Birds) were only up four. Then we got legs for days. Everyone on this team can run for a full 60. We knew we were in way better shape than they were and we knew that if we stick to the game plan and kept running, kept pushing the ball up the floor, that within that last 30, things were going to click, and they did.”

dzary@postmedia.com

-Advertisement-