The New England Black Wolves had a week of highs and lows following last Sunday's dramatic win over the Toronto Rock, killing a power play for the final 4 minutes, 58 seconds against the Rock for a 13-11 victory.

On Wednesday, New England coach Glenn Clark was named the head coach of the Canadian National Team which will compete in the FIL World Indoor Lacrosse Championships in September in British Columbia.

Also Wednesday, the Wolves announced a trade with Vancouver for 6-foot-3 defenseman Mackenzie Mitchell, whom Clark believes will bring the team depth headed into the back half of the regular season, beginning with Sunday's 1 p.m. matchup against the Colorado Mammoth at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Following that, however, on Friday, came the low point as the National Lacrosse League issued a six-game suspension for New England's Callum Crawford, currently the league's leading goal scorer (30) and points leader (70).

Crawford, who elbowed Toronto's Brad Kri late in Sunday's game and was handed a game misconduct penalty, had the punishment upgraded to a match penalty for dangerous contact to the head, a one-game penalty. Because Crawford is a repeat offender, he had a five-game suspension tacked on to that.

Crawford is eligible to play in today's game against Colorado while the suspension is appealed by the Professional Lacrosse Players' Association.

The additional penalty to Crawford came after Clark had already spoken on his weekly conference call.

"We will look different," Clark said, asked what would happen if the Wolves should lose Crawford. "Different you can sometimes manage, but in terms of replacing him, you can't. We will have to get more balanced contributions from people."

Now, for business as usual. The Black Wolves are 6-4, comfortably in line for the final playoff spot in the NLL's Eastern Division with eight regular-season games remaining.

The Mammoth are 3-6, coming off a 9-7 loss to Saskatchewan on Feb. 22. Colorado is led by Ryan Benesch (16 goals, 28 assists, 44 points) and Eli McLaughlin (21 goals, 18 assists, 39 points).

New England is led by Crawford (30 goals, 40 assists, 70 points), Stephan Leblanc (18 goals, 34 assists, 52 points), Tyler Digby (15 goals, 32 assists, 47 points) and Reilly O'Connor (17 goals, 26 assists, 43 points). The Wolves also got a hat trick last time out from rookie Dereck Downs (13 goals) and Wednesday moved forward Quinn Powless from the practice roster to the active roster.

"We try to build all the time," Clark said. "We're trying to get closer to what we what to be consistently. (Down three goals against Toronto headed into the fourth quarter), we stayed the course. There was opportunity to get a little rattled, to start looking for shortcuts."

v.fulkerson@theday.com