Jeff Moleski predicted that if his Calgary Roughnecks reached the National Lacrosse League playoffs they would make some noise.
They did that on a snowy Saturday night in Denver, defeating the Colorado Mammoth 11-5 in the NLL West Division semifinal, silencing a partisan Pepsi Centre crowd of 16,027.
"It was a great game with a good atmosphere there but our gameplan was to get an early start and get the crowd out of it, which we did," said Moleski, the 33-year-old Roughnecks defenceman from Prince George. "When they start scoring it gets pretty loud in there. We stuck to the gameplan and got great goaltending and every time they scored we answered back."
The star of the game was Calgary goalie Frankie Scigliano, a 23-year-old from Coquitlam, who made 43 saves to kick the teeth out of the Mammoth attack.
"He was very good for us, no doubt, if we can get goaltending like that we should be in good shape," said Moleski.
The Calgary defence limited 40-year-old lacrosse legend John Grant Jr. to one goal and Scigliano completely shut out Mammoth scoring leader Adam Jones. Jones, who led Colorado with 51 goals and 93 points in just 16 regular season games, fired 13 shots at Scigliano on Saturday.
"We played pretty well on defence and credit to our coaching staff, we had a very good gameplan going in on how to shut down their top threats and we did what was asked," said Moleski.
The team uses video clips extensively to prepare for games and learn the habits of opposition players. Former Roughnecks forward Shawn Cable, who grew up in Prince George and played junior B lacrosse with Moleski on the Prince George Posse, is Calgary's video coach.
"He breaks down every play and gives us lots to look at," sad Moleski. "In lacrosse, there are a lot more set plays than there are in hockey and guys have more tendencies. When somebody is good at breaking that stuff down, that was a big reason we had success."
The Roughnecks opened the scoring 1:14 into the game and built a 5-1 lead early in the second quarter. Two of those goals, including one while shorthanded, came off the stick of NLL scoring champion Shawn Evans, on his way to a five-point game. Curtis Dickson also scored twice and Jeff Shattler contributed five assists to lead Calgary offensively.
Grant's goal 3:53 into the fourth quarter cut the Calgary lead to 9-5 but Daryl Veltman scored for Roughnecks less then a minute later and sealed the win with his second of the game a few minutes later.
"It's playoff time, everyone is ready to step up their game," Evans told the Calgary Herald. "I think it's a whole new season, it's one game and you're done and we didn't want to go home. We executed well, every guy is a threat and when we move the ball and attack the net, we're going to put the ball in the net."
The game was delayed for 26 minutes with 7:06 left in the fourth quarter due to a partial power outage which knocked out some of the lights in the building after a spring storm Saturday dumped as much as 25 centimetres of snow on Denver.
The Roughnecks overcame an 0-6 start this season to finish with a 7-11 record and sneak into the playoffs. They've now won eight of their last 13 games.
Saturday's win puts them on a collision course with the Edmonton Rush in another round of the Battle of Alberta for the West Division crown. The best-of-three West Division final series starts Friday night in Edmonton. Calgary will host Game 2 of the series the following weekend and, if necessary, if the series is tied, a 10-minute mini game would follow Game 2. The teams each won two games head-to-head in the regular season.
"They're a good team, but if anybody can beat them it's us," said Moleski. "We have a veteran group of guys and I think we have a little more experience than them so that might be a factor. I'm predicting a really good series."
Moleski, a free-agent acquisition for Calgary last summer, was not with the Roughnecks last season when they beat Edmonton for the West Division title, then lost to the Rochester Nighthawks in the NLL final. Moleski was on Calgary's practice roster when they won their first Champions Cup title in 2004 and was a starter on defence when the Roughnecks won it again in 2009, two years before he joined the Washington/Vancouver Stealth.
The three-time defending NLL-champion Nighthawks defeated the Buffalo Bandits 14-11 Friday in the East semifinal.
Rochester will open the East final Saturday against the Toronto Rock. The Rock finished first in the East and had a first-round playoff bye. Usually the highest-finishing team hosts the first game of the division final but Air Canada Centre is not available this weekend and the first game will be played in Rochester, N.Y.
