Rush faces must-win situation against Toronto Rock

The message seems simple for the Saskatchewan Rush ahead of Saturday night’s game against the Toronto Rock: Win and you’re most likely in.

The Rush needs a little bit of help from around the National Lacrosse League as both the Vancouver Warriors and New York Riptide have the same record as the Rush and Panther City has one more win.

Vancouver managed to split the season series 1-1, but the Rush holds the playoff tiebreaker against the Warriors.

The playoff picture can get a little complicated if both Panther City and New York win, but the Rush isn’t too worried about that as it controls its own destiny.

Head coach Jimmy Quinlan said his team has to go into Saturday night’s game with an extreme level of desperation.

“Our season is on the line, (and) we see it as a playoff game,” said Quinlan. “We’ve been good the last two weeks playing desperate.”

Quinlan said desperation lacrosse is doing the easy things that can be hard to do.

“Running on and off the floor – it doesn’t really take a lot of skill to do that, but it’s a choice,” said Quinlan. “(It’s about) playing physical on defence, getting through the middle (and) being aggressive when you have the ball or being aggressive to take away the ball.”

As the Rush practised throughout the week, the players are treating Saturday’s game as a Game 7 in a playoff series.

“We’ve been kind of playing the last few weeks that way,” said Quinlan. “We know the only way our season continues is to win.”

Preparations for the Rush this week were fairly similar, but Quinlan said coaches and players watched a little bit more film than they normally would.

The year didn’t get off to the start the Rush was hoping for, as it went 1-4 through its first five games. The team eventually found its mojo and clawed its way back into the playoff picture.

Quinlan credits that to everyone getting comfortable with each other.

“We had a number of new players in new positions,” said Quinlan. “It was a little bit of building some continuity and learning from our mistakes.”

Despite needing a little bit of help from around the league, the Rush doesn’t plan to follow along too closely to what the other three teams are doing.

“I won’t,” Quinlan said. “I’m sure they’ll be on at some point and we’ll take a peak at them. The only scenario we are looking at is that we need to win.”

“Even all week leading up to this, I don’t look (at) what’s going on,” added Rush defenceman Adam Jay.

The Rush acquired Jay in the off-season from Toronto. Jay said facing his former team does add to the motivation.

“Those guys over there I have a lot of great relationships with, but when it comes to game time, there’s no friends on the floor,” said Jay.

Jay said heading into the weekend, he and his teammates have to approach this game as if it was a deciding game in a playoff series.

“One hundred per cent, because that’s exactly what it is,” said Jay. “If we don’t win, we won’t be playing next week and that’s the ultimate goal.”

The energy in SaskTel Centre when the Rush plays is hard to match, so heading into the final game of the regular season, Jay said it’s important to get that energy going early.

“Saturday nights are my favourite here because the fans are great,” he said.