Game Preview – Wings vs Panther City

PHILADELPHIA WINGS vs PANTHER CITY LACROSSE CLUB Sunday, March 10, 2024

The Philadelphia Wings host the Panther City Lacrosse Club in their 11th game of the year and sixth at home. This is a stretch where the Wings are playing five of six games at home, which will wrap up their home regular season schedule. The lone road contest in the run comes next Saturday when the club visits Georgia; after that, the Wings come home to play three times in the span of eight days to wrap up March.

VS. PANTHER CITY

This is the first of two games between the clubs this season. They’ve squared off twice before, both of which have come here in Philadelphia; this is where Panther City played its first ever game, on Dec. 4, 2021, a 12-11 Wings victory. Philadelphia will make its first-ever visit to Fort Worth in about a month, on April 7.

WING TIPS

Mitch Jones tied his own franchise record Feb. 16 with eight assists in the win over Las Vegas. He set the record on March 4, 2023 as part of a six-goal, 14-point game that also established a new franchise record for points in a contest and was the third sock trick in Wings history. Last week, Jones recorded four power-play assists, making him one of just five players across the league to have a game of four or more this season. Jones has recorded at least four points in all 22 games he’s played with the Wings since arriving from Vancouver in a trade on January 31, 2023; he has a total of 23 assists in the last three contests.

Ben McIntosh has 28 points in his last five games, which is the best stretch of his Wings career. The eight-point contest Jan. 27 vs. San Diego tied his single-game high for points as a member of the Wings (4G/4A, 3/4/23 vs NY) and set a new single-game high for assists. McIntosh has appeared in 44 of a possible 46 games as a Wing and has at least a point in 43 of those contests.

The 67 shots fired by Halifax on Wings goaltender Zach Higgins on Dec. 29 set a franchise record, topping the 66 shots on goal by Buffalo on March 8, 2019. The 52 saves came up three short of Higgins’ franchise record of 55 that he’s done twice before, with the last such occasion coming on 3/6/23 vs. Toronto. It’s tied for the second-highest single-season save total of any NLL goalie so far this season; Higgins made 50 saves Feb. 2 against the Thunderbirds and also has a pair of 48-save games.

Chad Tutton has eight assists on the season, which ranks third among non-forwards in the NLL. Tutton has at least a point in six of the last seven games, led by a four-assist game on Feb. 2 vs. Halifax.

Holden Cattoni has only appeared in five games this season due to injuries and outside commitments but still has posted 10 goals and 10 assists in that time, with consecutive five-point games over the last two outings. He has a total of 16 points (6G, 9A) in his last three games.

The Wings signed Nick Rowlett on January 10 to take over the team’s faceoff duties and he made his debut Jan. 27 vs. San Diego, going 12-for-24 against Trevor Baptiste, the team’s previous face-off man who departed in an offseason trade. Rowlett went 16-for-40 in his first two games, which happened to come against Baptiste and Halifax’s Jake Withers, before turning in a 14-for-22 night in Las Vegas. Rowlett missed last week’s game with an injury but is now 42 for 90 (46.7 pct), a notable improvement over the team’s 19 percent win rate over the first five games of the season before Rowlett’s arrival.

Joe Resetarits became the NLL’s all-time leading scorer among American-born players Dec. 29 when he passed Casey Powell with his 675th career point. Powell played 11 seasons in the NLL with Rochester, Anaheim, New York/Orlando, Boston and Colorado. Resetarits is also in his 11th season and his second with Philadelphia.

Taggart Clark made his NLL debut in Week 2 and scored a goal in Week 3 against his father, Albany head coach Glenn Clark, before picking up his first NLL hat trick on Jan. 7. Clark attended Robert Morris University and was the Wings’ first-round selection (23rd overall) in the 2022 NLL Entry Draft.

Sam LeClair had four points Dec. 29 vs. Halifax (2G, 2A), his best as a Wing, and had a first-half hat trick last week vs. Calgary. LeClair has 12 goals and nine assists for 21 points in eight games this year and has at least a point in every game so far. He had 11 goals and six assists for 17 points in 17 games last season.