This game between the Philadelphia Waterdogs and New York Atlas would come down to the wire, ending after midnight Saturday morning in Denver, due to weather delays throughout Friday evening pushing the start time back several hours. As always, the Philly vs New York rivalry involves a lot of trash talking and lots of hard hits. The Waterdogs would pull out the 11-10 victory. CJ Kirst getting back into scoring rhythm after a relatively quiet outing last week, putting up 4 goals in this game and demanding all eyes from the Atlas defense. Michael Sowers making great plays from behind New York’s net, doing a great job of reading New York’s defense while putting up a hat trick, including the game winner with 1:52 remaining.
This would be rookie Sean Byrne’s first start in net for the Waterdogs, filling in for Matt DeLuca who is out for at least three weeks with a hip injury. Even though Byrne gave up 10 goals, he made enough stops to get both the win and the much needed experience. Now the Waterdogs turn around in less than 24 hours with another tall order in front of them as they face the hometown Denver Outlaws in the late game Saturday night.
Despite loss to Waterdogs, the New York Atlas are looking better
New York didn’t walk out with the win, and at 3-6, last place in the Eastern Conference, their chances of making the playoffs have dropped to 14%. But they looked better in moving the ball around, as eight different Atlas players scored goals in this game. Reid Bowering had a pair of goals. Bryan Costabile had a 2-pointer, his league-leading sixth of the season. The Atlas never trailed by more than two, and were up by two with just six minutes left to play in 4th quarter.
New York will need to learn how to finish games if they want to make a late season push for the playoffs. That push might be helped by the fact that they have already split their season series with their other Eastern Conference opponents, Maryland and Boston, and can still split their series with the Waterdogs by beating them in the next to last regular season game in Week 13. However, their first order of business comes next week against the California Redwoods, who were off this week.
