Toronto Rock bury Black Wolves 21-9 for fourth straight win

Offence, defence and goaltending were all working for the Toronto Rock, as they took over first place in the East Division with a win over New England.

The Toronto Rock walked into the friendly confines of the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night looking up at the New England Black Wolves.

When the final buzzer went, the Rock had their fourth straight win and first place in the East Division in their grasp.

The first half was fairly even, with the teams trading goals. Both goalies were on top of their games, with Black Wolves goaltender Aaron Bold facing more rubber.

The Rock took a 10-7 lead to the dressing room, along with a 36-26 advantage in shots.

"“We thought we were actually pretty sloppy in the first half,” Rock Head Coach Matt Sawyer said of his team post-game.“Coming out of the bye, as a coach and team you’re worried about that. Ideally, we would’ve just kept playing with the role we were on.“We put things together in the second half and cleaned things up and you saw the result.”"

That we did, as the Toronto Rock came out of the gates firing. Tom Schreiber scored the first two goals of the second half to push his team’s lead to five.

The Toronto offence did their thing from there, scoring over 20 goals for the third time during their winning streak. After failing to score over 10 in each of their first two games of the season, the Rock has exploded for 82 goals in the last four contests.

The three-headed monster led the way for the Rock as Rob Hellyer and Adam Jones each had nine points, while Schreiber finished the game with 12 points. All three men had at least a hat-trick. Schreiber and Jones each had five goals.

The team even got a shoutout from former captain Colin Doyle.

Despite the offensive domination, Schreiber gave the most praise to the team defence and goaltending, who kept their opponent under 10 goals for the third straight game.

"“On the offensive end, we’ve gotten a lot of press but the defence has been incredible and the transition game has as well.“I think if we can limit teams to five-on-five offence and defence, we have a lot of confidence in Rosey and I love the guys we have on the defensive end.“I think another storyline is Sheldon Burns and Challen Rogers, those guys have really sparked us and been amazing.”"

Both men poured in solid performances, with Rogers grabbing an assist, while Burns scored twice and added an assist of his own.

With his first goal of the game, Burns extended a perfect shooting streak to five goals on five shots since joining Toronto via trade in December.

Burns came to the Rock from New England and was playing his first game against the team that drafted him. The same could be said for Stephan Leblanc, the man who headed the other way for Burns.

The veteran lefty finished the game with two goals on six shots.

The Black Wolves managed two goals in the third quarter, but that was it. Rose shut the door the rest of the way, making 46 saves on the night.

The Rock defence also managed to shut down Black Wolves top scorer Shawn Evans. The two-time NLL MVP was held scoreless and only had three assists on the night.

"“Bruce Codd did a really good job there. Evans and Kevin Crowley are two real tough checks on the right side,” Sawyer said. “When we go up against Shawn, we try and get the right matchups against him. So good gameplan by Bruce and a good job by the players to execute it.”"

Next: Tip of the Tower Podcast - Leafs improving at right time

The coaches will be hoping for more of the same when the Toronto Rock match up with the Calgary Roughnecks, and Curtis Dickson – arguably one of the best players in the world – next Saturday.