Damude Denies Swarm; Wings Win 9-5
Interviews with Wings Head Coach Ian Rubel and Swarm Head Coach Ed Comeau
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
After an 11-6 loss to the Georgia Swarm (8-4) the night before, the Philadelphia Wings (3-9) evened the season series in Gas South Arena, winning the back end of the doubleheader weekend on Saturday by holding the Swarm scoreless in the second half and winning 9-5.
Entering the night’s game, the Wings would be without notable players in the lineup. Michael Sowers was placed on the Injured List after suffering a lower body injury during Friday’s contest. Joe Resetarits and Scott Dominey were both the healthy scratches. With Kyle Jackson playing in the PLL Championship Series, Philadelphia brought Landen Sinfield up from the Practice Roster and dressed Dalton Young and Ben Kromer, neither of whom played Friday.
The fresh legs paid early dividends for the visiting club. Young would bookend the first quarter’s scoring, using a nifty spin dodge on his defender for a leaning shortside tuck to open the contest’s scoring, then stinging from the point into the top right corner. Between his goals, Nolan Byrne continued his impressive weekend with a diving goal to get the Swarm on the board.
Lyle Thompson powered a shorthanded marker past a three-person screen in the second quarter, and the offenses gained more momentum from there. Philadelphia took advantage of Bo Columbus’s solid work at the face-off dot by scoring on the very first shift after three of his wins in the quarter.
Blaze Riorden potted a pair in the frame, with Young securing his hat trick and Sam LeClair cashing in on a skip feed from Brennan O’Neill. The challenge flag did some work for the Swarm, reversing a no-goal call on Byrne’s hat trick for what was clearly a goal from the outset. Richie Connell used a step down to whip the ball hard past Damude at the end of the frame, putting the score at halftime at 6-5 in the Wings’ favor.
Georgia did not find the back of the net the rest of the game. Nick Damude was stellar between the pipes in the final 30 minutes. Equally as impressive was Brett Dobson for the Swarm, but one goalie’s offense saw success while the other struggled.
Eric Fannell was the lone goal-scorer in the third frame, and his goals came the exact same way, on the power play with an awkward jump to tuck the ball around Dobson. The Wings were a perfect 3-3 on the power play at that point and would finish the night 3-4.
Defenses battened down the hatches in the final frame. A Jordan MacIntosh dunking extra attacker goal was called no good by the refs. A lengthy challenge and unclear explanation determined it was inconclusive after review, keeping the Swarm scoreless. A final extra attacker chance didn’t work for the Swarm, and Ben Kromer capitalized on the empty net to score his first pro NLL goal and ice the game, 9-5.
Young led the visiting team in scoring with 5 PTS (3G, 2A), followed by Riorden with 4 PTS (2G, 2A). Damude was exceptional, making 48 saves for a .906 Sv%.
Byrne’s hat trick led the Swarm in scoring, with a trio of players posting 2 PTS each. Dobson allowed 8 GA, keeping his streak of single-digits goals against alive despite the loss. He finished the night with an .830 Sv%.
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
Wings Head Coach Ian Rubel
After last night and just how the season's been going for you guys in general — starting off, no Sowers, no Joey Rez, no Dominey tonight, and you get the win. That was impressive as shit.
And it's been a revolving door at our back end. I don't know if you've seen our IR list, but our IR list right now in our back end, I think we have over the last like three weeks, we've had like probably six, seven new guys in our lineup. So, it's been that adjustment period. But we as a staff, we saw the potential in this group. We've showed glimpses of it. Our starts of games have been great. We just haven't been able to put full 60s together. You know, we had one game against Buffalo, which was good, but I thought this was probably, obviously of the season, our most complete game. We still only scored nine, but it was nine against Dobson, who was on track to set records in the NLL. So, it was a great night for us.
I don't think there are enough superlatives to talk about Damude. That was impressive as hell.
He's been our rock all season. Last year, we had talks in the offseason about his season last year, and I don’t know if it was an adjustment period to the team or what it was. He knew he had an off year last year, and we talked about how we can kind of get him in the right mindset to come into this season, and he's been our foundation of this team. He's played well even in our losses. He's always hovering around that 80% save percentage, which is, you know, if you can get there or above, that's that magic number, right? He's kind of been there for us. He provides a lot of confidence to our group.
Dalton Young, know he didn't play last night. It feels like every time he plays the Swarm, he has big games, but again, impressive as hell. I think that was the best game of his young career. What was working for him tonight?
I told him before the game, “Just go shoot the ball.” Because I think he felt in previous games that he was just a role player, “Okay, I had to go there and bang some bodies and create space for these guys.” I'm like, “That's not why you're here. You're an offensive player; you’ve got to shoot the ball.” And he shows that he can do it. He's a lot to handle. He doesn't have a lot of size, but he's thick, he's fast on his feet, and he's got a great stick. Then he showed it tonight.
Bo Columbus, I have a new appreciation for his size. But not only what he does for you guys at the dot, the fact that you guys are able to capitalize on his wins and score four goals on that first shift following a win, what's working for him? What does that do for the team that you're able to capitalize on this chances?
Well, I think it's been great. Initially, early in the season, he was working with Nick Rowlett to get him up to speed, and Nick was a great mentor for him coming in. We knew what Bo can do. That's why we picked him first overall for us in the draft, and we needed a guy that can take face-offs for us and play some minutes on the D end. I think everybody knows it's tough to play with nine D guys. It gets tiring, especially when you play a team like the Swarm, who like to run up and down the floor. So, having a guy that can at least give us a ball that we're fighting for and play some minutes on the D end’s a big piece for us.
So looking ahead for you guys. The season's not gone how you wanted to and everything, trade deadline coming up, and you have all that coming. But this win has to get a little bit of the wind under your sails, and that's momentum you can carry against Oshawa. I don’t know if you saw how their game went tonight.
No, I haven’t seen.
They were up like 11-5 or 6 and lost it 13-14.
Oh, wow. That’s the NLL for you. We've been in games we’re going to have nightmares about, because there are some games this season that I thought we should have had. You look at the standings, I looked at them before our game last night. Eighth place had four wins. So, I mean, we're going to have nightmares about some of our games early in the season that we should have had. That's why we love this league and this sport.
How do you ensure you don't have a nightmare after next weekend?
I think it's coming out with the same confidence that we had this weekend. We had good energy. Obviously, the game didn't go like we wanted it to last night. But again, I thought we played solid minutes last night. Just came down to the last quarter there that we didn't play — I mean, our third quarter wasn’t great either last night, but we’ve got to play the same energy, same confidence that we had here this weekend.
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
Swarm Head Coach Ed Comeau
I want to start off with that MacIntosh dunk. Did the refs give you guys a good reason for why it was a no goal?
No. You can't even hear what he's saying on the microphone, but something about a foot. It looked good. The one we challenged, it was a good call, that was good. Crease calls are tough. The replay system is supposed to be helpful, and it's quite honestly, it's just not — I don't find it overly helpful unless it's very obvious. But I would say the reviews are taking far too long. When it's called a goal and it takes three minutes or four minutes to figure out that it is a goal or isn't a goal, like are we looking too closely? Just anyway, it'd be nice to be nice to keep the game moving a little quicker. I didn't really get an explanation, didn't hear one.
Kind of overall with this game, you beat them last night, they're coming in severely depleted just across the floor, and they stonewall you guys for the final 30 minutes. From your vantage point, what’s the overarching story of that game?
Just energy, effort. They came with a lot of jam, they picked up a ton of loose balls, they battled. We didn't, you know, I mean, that was the difference. I thought they had a jump on their step, and we didn't. I thought Dobber played well. I don't know what his final numbers were, but that wasn't on Dobber at all. I think our defense looked a little suspect, and our offense had no flow, and their goalie played well, but again, full credit to them. We addressed it before the game. We said they're playing some new guys. This is their opportunity to show that they belong in the league and in the lineup, and they went out, and they proved that.
With the offense, you guys started (Kean) Moon and Connell this time around, so a little bit more youth movement. Was that kind of them not getting regular reps or something, or was that like, coupled with it being the back end of a doubleheader just not a good recipe?
Yeah, I think it's always good to get some fresh bodies in whether you win or lose, some fresh, and they did the same. They put fresh in. I think over the course of the season keeping guys in the lineup and ready to play is important in case you're run into injuries or when you’re in the last third of the season, you've got guys that haven't played for two months. I thought those guys played with some energy. Richie got a goal for us, Mooner had at least one assist. But ultimately, our offense didn't do the things that we said we wanted to do, and when we did get chances, Damude made some good saves.
I know one guy that did make the most of his chances. Nolan Byrne had quite the weekend.
Yeah, he's really a budding superstar in this league. He's hard to guard and really creative around the net. I would say he’s been as good as expected, but I think he's exceeded our expectations, and he’s going to have a long career in this league. He's 21 years old; he's just gonna get better.
It's one thing to lose the face-off, but it's another to give up a goal on that very first shift, and you guys gave up four. Was that part of that similar thread of tonight’s game?
Yeah, I think if you look back at some of those face-offs, we probably had a shot at some of those balls we didn’t come up with or had some misplays. I don't put a lot of stock in that (face-offs) usually. We had a game a couple weeks ago, we were 1-for-21, and we won, right? So, I think it's about playing good defense when we lose the ball, having a good plan, and coming up with the ball, we got a shot at it. I thought there was a number of face-offs tonight where we had a pretty good shot at the ball, and we didn't come up with it. They did, and I think that went to their energy and their desire to make plays.
In the grand scheme things, you guys are still 8-4 and securely in a playoff position right now. Obviously, a tough loss in everything, but, it's important to remember that. You guys get the bye week and then Vancouver. How do you kind of wash this one away and prep for the Warriors?
Yeah, I think when you have an off week, it's a chance for guys to get healthy, get their minds straight. We'll watch the game. Like I said, there wasn't a lot of good to gleam from that game, a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes we haven't made. So, we'll talk about that and make sure we have ourselves ready and give us a couple weeks to get ready for Vancouver. Hopefully, they play next weekend, we'll get a chance to watch them. They’re a good team. They're well coached, and they'll be a handful for sure, and surely ahead of us in the standings, right? We have six games left, so we’re in the push for it.
