By Scott Zerr
EdmontonRush.com

Paul Day spent his off-season wheeling and dealing, fine-tuning and contemplating.

It's now time to see what becomes of his reconstruction of the Edmonton Rush. If all goes according to plan, the Philadelphia Wings will find out exactly how good Day's handiwork has been.

Defeating the Wings on Saturday night will give the Rush their very first home-floor win in franchise history and also start a season-opening three-game homestand off in the right direction. A win would certainly put the Rush in the frame of mind of going from a struggling team a year ago into a serious playoff contender in 2007. But first things first, said Day.

"All I'm worrying about is this first game," chuckled the Rush's GM/Head Coach.

"I think we're eight players better than last year. I don't know if that will equate into eight wins but I think that's realistic. It's just a totally different environment around here now. We've taken a 1-15 team and made improvements. This is now a 0-0 team and it's not the same team at all."

With a host of new names with impressive credentials coming in and a year's experience under the belts of the talented young players, there is hope that the Rush have designs on not only finding success at home, but also being well into the hunt for a playoff spot in the NLL's very tight West Division. Those expectations aren't, however, foremost in Day's mind - at least for now.

"I think I've done a pretty good job at looking at January with Philadelphia, Calgary and Colorado twice, but after that it's just a blur," said Day.

"The first seven games last year we could have been 4-3 or 3-4 and that would have made a big difference. We played a couple of great games against Calgary and if they'd have gone the other way for us, we'd have had a much better opportunity of making it and we could have been fighting for a playoff spot at the end of the year.

"Every team is looking at being in the playoffs and all you need to do is get in because in one-game situations, I've seen in the past where a team has a goalie get hot for three games and they win a championship. Our goal is to get into the playoffs."

One specific area that has undergone a dramatic change is that of special teams. The Rush managed only 31 goals on the power-play last season - a key reason why the team had a league-low 150 goals - and overall finished -28 in special teams situations.

In the two exhibition games against the Calgary Roughnecks leading into the 2007 season, the Rush were a whopping 15-for-18 with the man-advantage sparked by a power-play crew that consisted of newcomers Dan Stroup, Chris Gill and Ryan O'Connor along with creative set-up man Jamey Bowen.

"Over 16 games an improvement in special teams is going to make the difference between a lot of wins and losses," said Day. "We've added 45 power-play goals from last year with our new players and those guys are going to see even more power-play time with us.

"Our shorthanded play is going to be even better because those guys have gained a year of experience and some time jelling together. And (goalie) Pat Campbell has to be our best guy when it comes to playing shorthanded."

In similar fashion to the NHL, the NLL has adopted a policy of freeing up the talented players to weave their magic which means there will be significant more power-play time due to tighter interference, holding and checking from behind calls to be whistled by NLL officials.

"From Day 1 of training camp, we've harped on the guys about the holding and the checking from behind and the high hits to the head," noted Day. "The defence has done a very good job at every practice and in both exhibition games of adapting and the offensive guys have done a good job too with the holding the stick calls.

"The game is already fast but these calls are really going to open up the 5-on-5 play."