Wings miss morning wake up call, get crushed by Knighthawks

By Tom Hoffman

The Wings played in front of a sparse
 and disappointed crowd Friday.

It was a dreary day outside the Wells Fargo Center on Friday.  Inside it somehow managed to be even worse as the Philadelphia Wings played their second straight stinker of a home game, falling to the Rochester Knighthawks 20-10.  Fortunately not many decided to witness the Wings first (and possibly last) 11 AM Lacrosse in Education game as a franchise low gathering of 5,139 passed through the turnstiles.  Those who took the day off from work were probably looking to go back to work while those who were part of the school groups in attendance learned why the Knighthawks are the National Lacrosse League’s defending champions.

Counting last season’s playoff match Rochester came into the game with 10 straight wins over the Wings dating back to January 10, 2009 and quickly served notice that number 11 was on its way.  Rochester led the game 2-0 before the Wings got on the board courtesy of former Knighthawk Jordan Hall’s power play goal.  The Rochester lead would increase to 5-1 when Kevin Buchanan added an extra man tally.  And that would be as close as the Wings would get the rest of the day as the Knighthawks closed out the half with six goals and added two more in the third to lead 13-2 before the Wings attempted to wake up.  To Wings Captain Brodie Merrill, the three straight losses all had a common denominator.

“For whatever reason the last three games we’ve gotten off to poor starts,” Merrill said.  “It seems like we’re chasing the play from there.  You get down by 4, 5, 6 goals inevitably you have to change your game plan.  When you do that you kinda leave yourself vulnerable.  It went from bad to worse, it just kept snowballing in the wrong direction and we couldn’t seem to stop it or have any answer for it.”

The Wings did score five of the last seven goals in the third to make it a 15-7 game but Rochester exploded again in the fourth with four straight goals to stomp out any hopes of a Wings miracle comeback.   While Brandon Miller was not sharp in net and was replaced twice by Kevin Croswell, Wings coach Johnny Mouradian instead turned the magnifying glass on his defense.

“We just had a very porous defense,” Mouradian said.  “We didn’t give Brandon Miller an opportunity on a lot of those goals.  They scored far too many inside shots, they scored some transition goals; they had reverse transition opportunities so we were very porous.  You can’t win letting in that many goals.”

The Wings did win the shots on goal total outshooting Rochester 59-50 but Merrill felt that number was deceptive.

“We may have outshot them but I would say they had a lot more quality opportunities than we did,” Merrill said.

Looking at the huge pre season deal that sent Dan and Paul Dawson to Rochester for Paul Rabil, Joel White, Jordan Hall and Rob Campbell, the Knighthawks certainly had the better of it Friday.  While Hall did tally four points (2G, 2A) for the Wings, Dan Dawson had as many points today (11 on four goals and seven assists) as he had in Rochester’s first four games.

Now the Wings have another weekend off before returning to another back to back weekend which starts in Rochester against these same Knighthawks.  And Mouradian realizes what the Wings need to do.

“We have to get better against that club,” Mouradian said.  “For some reason this Rochester club has us.”