This Friday night, FC Edmonton will try to do what no other NASL club has done so far this season. Stop Etienne Barbara. The Maltese striker has 12 goals in 10 games so far this season. He’s only been held off the scoresheet once so far this NASL campaign. And, in that game, he set up both Carolina goals.

News is made when something out of the ordinary happens. The classic case of man bites dog. So, the fact that Carolina RailHawks striker Etienne Barbara was named the NASL’s player of the month for May isn’t news — but it is interesting.

The Montreal Impact will remain the Montreal Impact when the club makes the move to MLS next season. The team announced Monday that it will retain the name in 2012, ending all speculation that the club would rebrand itself for MLS. Instead, the Impact follows the lead set by three other Div-2 clubs — Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps — that all kept their names when they made the moves to ML

Canada is 10-18-17. That’s the combined win-loss-tie (we live in North America, so we’ll put the draws behind the wins in the standings) record of the four major Canadian professional sides this season. Out of 45 games, our NASL and MLS teams have just won 10 of them. And five of them come from FC Edmonton, the new kid on the Division-2 block.

Both Montreal and FC Edmonton came into today’s match at Saputo stadium hoping for a positive outcome. But only the Impact and the large majority of the 11,232 spectators who turned out on the most clement day for soccer Montreal has seen so far this spring,were happy after 90 minutes. The Impact came out on top, 2-0, outshooting FCE 16-6 in a lopsided affair.

FC Edmonton coach Harry Sinkgraven will be missing a key part of his regular starting XI when his club heads to Montreal to face the Impact Saturday. Forward Kyle Yamada, who plays on the left side of the 4-3-3, hurt his ankle in the second half of Tuesday’s 4-0 win over FC Tampa Bay. Yamada had scored earlier in the game — and he unintentionally set up Kyle Porter’s opening goal, ringing the initial shot off the post, then seeing Porter tuck the rebound into an empty net.

A comprehensive 4-0 win at Foote Field over FC Tampa Bay put FCE in second place overall in the NASL standings, six points behind the surging Carolina RailHawks. FC Edmonton has lost just two of eight matches in its first NASL season.

While the Montreal Impact’s scoreless tie against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers provided netminder Bill Gaudette with his third clean sheet of the season — in a game that had him not have to make a single save along the way — his success was more than counterbalanced by the Impact’s continuing offensive impotence, an affliction that has plagued the club since its May 1 5-0 rout of FC Edmonton.

But, with two games at Foote behind them, FC Edmonton's players are getting used to how fast the turf plays. They know that through balls keep running and running away from the strikers. They know that the ball bobbles when it hits the hard football, soccer and lacrosse lines on the field. And, as they get used to the nuances of the hard turf, they know it will be a huge home advantage.

For this week at least, FC Edmonton’s Kyle Porter looms larger than the most prolific scorer in North American pro soccer. Porter was named the NASL’s offensive player of the week on Tuesday. The Mississauga. Ont. native scored with his right foot in the first half and with his left in the second as FC Edmonton beat the NSC Minnesota Stars 2-1 to wrap up the Victoria Day long weekend.