It’s boom or bust for the Seals with four games remaining in the regular season and the mad dash to the finish line starts this Saturday night in Toronto when they face the Rock on Saturday night, April 4 at the Paramount Foods Centre in Mississauga, Ontario. Faceoff is 4 p.m. PT.
It’s a fine line between winning and losing in the National Lacrosse League and unfortunately the Seals have come up on the short end of late, dropping their last four by a mere six goals in total. On the season, the Seals have allowed the third-fewest goals in the NLL (147), but unfortunately, they sit on the opposite end in goals scored, ranking last with just 141. Still, the Seals come into Saturday night’s game at 6-8 and find themselves tied for 9th place in the 14-team NLL, while Toronto is 9-6 and tied for 5th place. The top 8 teams make the playoffs.
This is the second meeting of the season between the teams and the Seals would love to get a measure of revenge after falling to the Rock by a 12-7 score on Jan. 9 at Pechanga Arena.
Seventeen (17) different players have scored goals for the Seals this season with forwards Tre Leclaire (27), Wes Berg (20), Dylan Watson (19), Connor Robinson (18) and Ben McIntosh (17) leading the way. And Leclaire and Berg haven’t just been scoring, they’ve been helping too as they rank 1-2 on the squad in assists and total points. Leclaire has 32 assists for 59 total points and Berg’s right behind with a team-leading 38 assists for 58 points.
The Seals have two of the League’s top transition players in faceoff specialist Trevor Baptiste and Zach Currier,. Baptiste leads the League in faceoff win percentage (75%) while ranking second in faceoff wins (258), just two behind League-leader Jake Withers of Halifax (160).
Currier meanwhile ranks second in the NLL in loose balls secured (162) and he’s had 10-or-more in seven of the Seals’ last nine games. Currier’s also forced a team-leading 20 turnovers, one ahead of Danny Logan, who’s second with 19, and he’s third on the team with 9 blocked shots, four behind James Barclay (13) and one behind Eli Gobrecht (10).
The Seals will also look to get a great effort in net from goaltender Chris Origlieri, who’s allowed nine-or-fewer goals in seven of the team’s last 10 games and whose 10.01 goals against average is fourth-lowest among netminders who’ve played 700-or-more minutes this season.
Broadcast Information
Saturday night’s game will be broadcast locally in San Diego on Spectrum Cable Channel 4 and streamed to a global audience on ESPN+.
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