Mohegan — Scoring 17 times in their season-opener last week, maybe the New England Black Wolves thought the goals were going to come easier than they did Friday night.

“That great offensive output happened because we were active and tenacious,” first-year Black Wolves coach Glenn Clark said. “(This time), we were a little stale in terms of ball movement. We get into a pattern and it takes a while to shake it.”

Playing their home-opener Friday night before 5,589 fans at Mohegan Sun Arena, the Black Wolves, in their second season in the National Lacrosse League, found goals to be at a premium against a physical Calgary Roughnecks defense, falling 9-8.

New England led 4-3 with 11 minutes, 25 seconds remaining in the second quarter before going cold, allowing Calgary to score six unanswered goals.

Calgary's Curtis Dickson scored on a power play with 4:05 to go in the third quarter to make it 9-4 and the Black Wolves went 22:42 in all without scoring before Kevin Buchanan got New England back on the board with 3:43 left in the third.

New England scored three unanswered goals in the fourth quarter, the last one by Sheldon Burns with one second to play to pull within a goal.

Buchanan, Burns and Pat Saunders scored two goals each for the Black Wolves (1-1) and Kevin Crowley and Jimmy Purves each had three assists. Goalie Evan Kirk made 46 saves.

Shawn Evans, the reigning NLL Most Valuable Player with a league-record 130 points last season for Calgary before being traded to the Wolves, had his first home goal at Mohegan Sun, but was mostly limited by his former team.

Evans said the offense needed to be better. He included himself.

“It wasn't a good outcome for me,” Evans said. “I was playing my former team and they shut me down. Just coming off a fresh trade, I needed to be better. That ball needed to be swinging around.

“Hopefully it's a wakeup call. We have to be ready to play, play for each other.”

Jeff Shattler had three goals and two assists and Dickson had two goals and an assist for Calgary, which lost its first two games by a total of three goals and was looking for its first win.

New England won its first game of the season 17-7 last Saturday at Vancouver, but Friday it was the Wolves' defense, including Kirk, which did the bulk of the work.

Clark said during a preseason conference call that Kirk and backup goalie Tye Belanger were both vying to start at Vancouver. Kirk has had back-to-back impressive games since then, however, with 49 saves in the opener.

“No matter how old you are, no matter what level, you've got to play well,” Kirk said. “There's always guys breathing down our neck, whether they're on our team or not. There's nine teams, that's not many spots for a lot of people.

“I think I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think I like pressure. I'm really nervous every game. If I don't have butterflies, there's something wrong.”

Clark called losing any game “a kick in the throat,” but the coach was pleased his team didn't let them game get away.

Saunders and Brett Bucktooth scored to pull the Wolves within 9-7 with 7:47 to go and they had their opportunities after that.

“It's not a light switch you can turn to go from 4-14 (last year) to the championship,” Clark said. “I definitely think we weren't playing our best, but we found a way to keep it competitive.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday