Ward Shine in Edmonton's Home Opener

Edmonton,AB -- Ryan Ward's eight points and a strong defensive effort by the club's backend powered the Edmonton Rush to an 11 - 7 home victory over the Buffalo Bandits in National Lacrosse League action Jan. 23 before 7,102 fans at Rexall Centre

Edmonton goalie Matt Disher sparkled behind a tenacious Rush defense, making 35 saves in the victory and Edmonton's penalty-kill unit held Buffalo without a power play marker in five attempts

The Rush power play deep-fried Buffalo going 4 - 7 on the night.

Win the win, the Rush improved to 2-1 on the season, while Buffalo fell to a surprising 0-4 mark.

Ward, acquired in the off-season from Minnesota, continued his hot hand early in the 2010 campaign, as his four goals and four assists Saturday night in Edmonton, pushed him to 18 points (10G, 8A) in three games with the Rush.

"I'm getting a lot of touches and I'm attacking the goal which last year I wasn't doing as much," said Ward, the team's leading scorer. "When you’re being a threat, good things happen.

"I owe a lot of credit to Derek Keenan our coach, who's instilled a lot of confidence in me and the rest of the team. He believes in us and he brought in winners and guys with experience and it's nice to play with winners. The guys make my job a lot easier," he added.

Andy Secore (3G, 3A) had six points for Edmonton while Brodie Merrill (1G, 4A, 12 loose balls), Dean Hill (1G, 1A), Corey Small (1G) and Jimmy Quinlan (1G) also replied for the Rush. Brett Bucktooth (2G, 1A), Steve Greenhalgh (2G), Mike Accursi (2G) and Billy Dee Smith had the Buffalo tallies.

The Rush outshot Buffalo 49-42 in the game and Disher earned the win in net for Edmonton, while Ken Montour was tagged with the loss.

"You have to give a lot of credit to our defense tonight," said a smiling Disher. "It made my job a lot easier. They (Buffalo) didn't get a lot of quality chances in there and it's always good to see that."

The Rush stormed out to a 2 - 0 lead on goals from Ward just 1:17 in and Hill at 4:55 on the power play.

Edmonton had outshot Buffalo 11 - 3 before Buffalo scored their first goal 7:57 in from Greenhalgh and the Bandits tallied again at 8:37 from Smith to tie the score 2 - 2.

The Rush power play hit again at 10:12 of the stanza, as Ward notched his second of the game, to put the Edmonton up 3-2 and Quinlan's five-hole shot beat Montour at 10:44 of the second quarter before Buffalo's Accursi fired back just 26-seconds later making the score 4 - 3.

Merrill's left-handed shot at 12:13 trickled through Montour's pads to close out the scoring in the frame with Edmonton up 5 - 3.

Edmonton outshot the Bandits 24 - 17 in the first half.

Edmonton started the second half killing back-to-back Buffalo power-plays before Secore notched another Rush man-up opportunity at 6:09. Buffalo answered back at 9:37 before Ward, with his hat-trick goal and Secore each tallied as the Rush doubled the Bandit 8 - 4 after three quarters of play.

Bucktooth pulled Buffalo to within three goals at 1:32 of the fourth quarter before Small, an Edmonton rookie, picked up a rebound in front of Montour and found mesh at 5:22 with assists coming from Ward and Powell, to put Edmonton up 9 - 5.

The teams would add two goals apiece later in the frame to close the scoring with Edmonton on top 11 - 7.

The next action for the Rush is the first regular season battle against the defending Champion's Cup winning Calgary Roughnecks Saturday, Jan. 30 at Rexall Place.