Last Saturday’s matchup between the Philadelphia Wings and the Colorado Mammoth came down to which team was going to make a mistake after getting great defensive and goalie play from both teams. Philly was doing a good job of taking away the Mammoth’s top lefty scoring options in Will Malcom and Connor Robinson. However, it was Ryan Lee who would be scoring in crunch time. There were a few instances where Lee was left wide open to cause damage, particularly late in the fourth quarter. Lee took full advantage of those opportunities, scoring back-to-back goals in the final 75 seconds of the game to give Colorado a 10-8 win.
Lee put the nail in the coffin with his last goal, coming out from behind the net to snake-bite the Wings and make Philly pay the piper. The Mammoth up their record to 8-5, sitting in third place with five weeks left in the regular season. Colorado is positioned to make another deep playoff run like they did in 2022 and 2023, and show that last year’s dismal 5-13 performance was a fluke.
Goalie duel between a Philadelphia Wing and a Philadelphia Waterdog
This was a great defensive battle between the Philadelphia Wings and the Colorado Mammoth. South Philly had that playoff atmosphere. Colorado did a great job on their defense, clogging up Broad Street and making it hard for the Wings to make any cutting plays to the opposing goalie. This forced Philly to shoot from the outside, often with negative results. On the other end, Philly was also making the Mammoth take the tough shots. It was a great game from both goalies and defenses. Nick Damude (Wings goaltender) stopped 45 out of 55 shots on net, and Dillon Ward (Mammoth goaltender) stopped 33 out of 41 shots on net. Philly fans will be hoping for similar performances from Ward in the summer when he minds the net for the PLL’s Philadelphia Waterdogs.
What’s next for Philadelphia in the aftermath?
Some good bright spots for Philly included Joe Resetarits, who had one of his best games in quite some time with 3 goals and 4 assists, recording his 500th career assist in the process. He is the first American-born NLL player to reach that milestone. Mitch Jones did a great job facilitating the ball with 7 assists. Brennan O’Neill was effective with a couple of nice spin moves, creating space and making goals as he continues to make his case for Rookie of the Year honors.
2024 draft pick Steve DelleMonache did a great job at the faceoff circle in his NLL debut, winning 10 out of 21 faceoffs, an area where Philly has struggled this season. We shall see if the Philadelphia Wings can get back into the win column this weekend as they head up to Toronto to face a Rock team that looks much different after making a number of trades at the deadline, including one with the Wings. Philly will likely need to win four of their final five games to put themselves in a position to make the postseason.