Signing the best free agent available during the offseason is paying off fantastically for the Georgia Swarm.

They are first overall in the NLL at 3-0 and goaltender Mike Poulin has been outstanding. He made 52 saves in a 14-9 home win over the New England Black Wolves last Friday.

“It was the type of game where everything seemed to go right for us,” he said. “We’re a clean, hard-working team. It’s all clicking right now. My saves numbers are just one aspect of things working well for us. Our defense has held opponents to low-percentage shots.”

Poulin, 31, learned from some of the best netminders in the world.

He turned pro with Toronto in 2007 out of his Kitchener, Ontario, junior team, spent two years with the Rock working under NLL Hall of Famer-to-be Bob Watson, backed up current Buffalo goalie Anthony Cosmo with the Boston Blazers in 2009 and 2010, and then moved to the Calgary Roughnecks to assume a No. 1 job and help them become one of the league’s most successful teams. Poulin was NLL Goaltender of the Year in 2012 and helped the Roughnecks to the Champion’s Cup final in 2014.

It is an impressive background.

His desire to return to a team in the eastern time zone so he could reduce travel and time away from his family, and his craving to make the return with a team he felt could be a contender for the championship, led him to partner with Swarm owner-manager John Arlotta.

“I’ve joked that I signed with the Swarm because I didn’t want to deal with their offense anymore,” he said.

Poulin used to dread the Thompson brothers. Now he pats them on the back. He likes the way Arlotta has built the team with head coach Ed Comeau.

“There is a commitment to win now by keeping this group together,” Poulin said. “It was important to me to be with a contender. I loved my Calgary experience. It’s a fantastic organization and I have the utmost respect for [head coach] Curt Malawsky. At first, not being there was hard to wrap my head around, that I wasn’t a Roughneck anymore. But family comes first. I was spending way too much time on the road. I’m already noticing an improvement on how I’m feeling the Monday after games.”

Poulin works a nine-to-five office job weekdays in his home city. He squeezes in Tuesday and Wednesday workouts and attends a Thursday yoga class. He flies to lacrosse games out of the Toronto region’s Pearson International.

“I have an amazing wife and two young kids at home where the rest of my time is allotted,” he said. “My calendar is pretty full.”

It’s off to Vancouver for a road game Saturday.

“I’m really, really, really enjoying this whole experience,” Poulin said. “That’s the key to having success. I really think this team is a great fit for me. We’ve got a lot of young guys passionate about the game. They don’t worry about the outcome. They just go out and do their jobs. It’s fun to travel with them, be in the rink with them and to win with them. We’re going to lose games. I’m going to have off nights. But as long as we enjoy the process this is going to be a really good season.”

Poulin began playing lacrosse during summers when he was 9 and after he was cut from a baseball team.

“My mom and dad weren’t going to let me sit around all summer and do nothing,” he said. “So, I tried out for lacrosse. The coach asked who wanted to be the goalie and nobody put their hand up. Then he asked who didn’t want to run that day and I put my hand up, so he told me I was going to be the goalie. I just kind of fell into it.”

Poulin has a good reason for wearing 30 on the back of his NLL sweaters.

 “I played hockey,” he said. “I wasn’t a hockey goalie, but I always pretended to be a goalie when we were playing around, and Martin Brodeur was my favorite player. He wore 30. That’s why I have 30, and my helmet paint jobs are similar to Marty’s.”

Poulin has never met Brodeur but would love to.

“That would be amazing. Goalies have a mutual respect for one another because of what we do,” Poulin said. “I’d love to pick his brain for five minutes.”

The only down side to the great start to 2017 by the Swarm is attendance. The announced size of the crowd for the last home game was 2,386 in an arena that seats more than 10,000. Selling pro lacrosse in the Atlanta suburbs of Gwinnett County, population 859,300, is proving to be a tough assignment. The players try not to concern themselves with crowd sizes, but they want to see Arlotta succeed. He’s a father figure to many of them. Winning him a championship is on their minds.

“He’s such a passionate leader,” Poulin said. “He’s invested so much of his time and money in the NLL. He wants this to work. The county we play in is only 45 minutes from Atlanta, but the traffic is horrendous. It’s a matter of trying to engage the interest of sports fans in the county. Once they see the product, they’ll see that we have an exciting team and will be back.”

Poulin is doing his part to see that happen and, in the process, his 12th NLL season has seen a rejuvenation of his lacrosse career.

“I’ve always played for the right reasons and this season I can say it’s truly for the love of the game,” Poulin said. “You start to realize how much being in this game means to you. Sometimes it takes a lot of years to come to that realization. It’s special to still be playing and contributing.”