Game report: Colorado 11 @ Toronto 7

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Graeme

When Tom Schreiber got injured, some Rock fans were worried that the offence wouldn’t adjust. After a few rough outings, they went and scored 14 against New England and 17 against Calgary, and we thought they had adjusted. Well if they did, they adjusted right back on Friday night.

Most aspects of the Rock game were pretty good: Nick Rose was solid for the most part, the defense was also strong, and the transition was excellent. Anytime you get five transition goals and two from defenders you put yourself in a good position to win – assuming the offense does anything. But if they don’t…

In what might be an NLL first, not a single Rock offensive player scored a goal on Friday night. Kieran McArdle picked up one assist as did Reid Reinholdt (both on the same Challen Rogers goal), but that was it. Adam Jones, Rob Hellyer, Brett Hickey, newcomer Dan Taylor, and Phil Caputo combined for ZERO points. Props to the Mammoth defense who were exceptional at preventing many shots from occurring at all, and to Dillon Ward for stopping those that made it through.

I don’t know if there is a scouting report on Ward saying “shoot 5-hole!” but if there is, it was inaccurate on this night. The Rock seemed to be shooting there a lot (if they weren’t hitting Ward in the chest), and he stopped every one of them. It looked as if the Rock forwards were snakebitten again – shooting opportunities would come up and they’d pass instead. Lots of shots were taken from a fair ways out. I won’t say they weren’t trying to get inside but when they did try, the Mammoth D wouldn’t let them.

Meanwhile the transition guys were hitting the top corners. It got to the point where the Rock were down by two with three minutes left and I wanted them to send Rogers, Merrill, and Harris out instead of the regular O guys.

There was a comment on Facebook from a guy who complained about Nick Rose and suggested that the loss was his fault. Was Rose fantastic in this game? No, there were one or two goals that he probably could have stopped, and a couple of times he made a save though it seemed clear that he had no idea where the ball was. But he played well enough to keep his team in the game which is all you can ask from your goalie. The same commenter said later that sometimes a goalie can “steal” a game for you and Rose didn’t. While that’s true, we don’t get to decide when a goalie should steal a win for you. If your team only scores seven goals, blaming the goalie for allowing more than six is a little unrealistic. Blaming Rose for a loss like this smacks of “I don’t like Rose so I’ll blame him for everything”.

So as of right now (Saturday morning), we have four 7-7 teams in the East, and one 6-7. The West playoff picture is mostly set – it’ll very likely be Rush, Mammoth, Roughnecks in that order. The Mammoth could still catch the Rush for first, so something could change there. But in the East, we still have no idea and probably won’t for a couple of weeks. It wouldn’t surprise me if the very last game of the regular season (Georgia @ New England on April 29) decides the playoff fate of the entire East division.

Other game notes:

Right at the end of the first quarter, a Rock player took a last-second shot on Ward. Mammoth defender Jordan Gilles grabbed the rebound and shot on the Rock net from his own goal line and scored. Top left corner. No bounce. The buzzer went while the ball was in flight so it didn’t count, but it was a beautiful shot nonetheless.
The shot clock at one end of the floor was broken for most of the game, so the PA announcer gave teams 10 and 5 second warnings when the clock was running down. It’s the first shot clock problem I remember seeing at Rock games for a number of years, but it did remind me of a few games in one season a long time ago where shot clock problems were relatively frequent.
Another weird stat: a week after I wrote an article on unassisted goals, four of the Rock’s seven goals were unassisted. Two more had only assist, and only one goal had two. This means that the Rock had more goals (seven) than total assists (four) in this game.

Illegal equipment: Do the crime, do the time

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Graeme

It’s not unusual for a player to be given a penalty that fans of his team disagree with. In fact, it’s unusual if they don’t. But this past weekend, Shawn Evans was given a penalty that a lot of people disagreed with, and not just Bandits fans. That’s because it had nothing to do with anything that happened on the floor.

Evans is one of the growing number of pasty-legged NLL players who have taken a liking to wearing leggings during games. In the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Swarm/Bandits game in Buffalo, Evans was given an “Illegal Equipment” penalty for wearing leggings with the Nike swoosh on them. The NLL is sponsored by New Balance, and there is a rule in the rule book that specifically talks about using clothing and equipment from someone other than the league sponsor:

26.3 SPONSORSHIP EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENTS – Only
NLL sponsored equipment shall be worn unless prior
approval by the League and only authorized Official NLL
Suppliers’ logos/marks must be displayed on the
player’s uniform and/or equipment, which also includes
the shaft and head of the stick.

Any player or goalie in violation with this rule shall be
assessed a delay of game penalty immediately. Should
the player or goalie be unable to comply immediately
after the signal of the penalty, the in-home shall serve
the penalty. The player who was assessed the penalty
shall not be permitted on the floor until the penalty
expires.

Any player who has been found to have marked up,
blocked, or misrepresented any logos or marks shall be
reported to the League office and is subject to a fine.

It’s a little weird that he was given an “Illegal Equipment” penalty rather than the “delay of game” penalty stipulated in the rule, but whatever.

There was a lot of talk on twitter about this being a “bush league” move. There were two main problems that people had with this:

Nothing that happened on the floor was affected so Evans didn’t deserve a penalty at all, and
Such a violation shouldn’t result in a penalty anyway, i.e. something that affects game play – a fine would be more appropriate.

I also saw people using the hashtag “#GrowTheGame”, though I’m not sure why.

#1 is nonsensical. The coach swearing at the ref doesn’t affect the play on the floor either, but it’s a penalty nonetheless. Same with a player given a penalty who slams the door of the penalty box or bangs his stick against the glass in anger – both will get you an additional two minutes for Unsportsmanlike Conduct.

The remainder of this article covers #2. In my opinion, the penalty was deserved and entirely appropriate.

Do the crime, do the time

The penalty was deserved for two reasons. The first is simple: Evans broke the rule so he deserves the penalty. Every player in the league knows about this rule (and if they don’t, well that’s too damn bad because it’s in the rule book). Evans knew full well what he was doing. He’s probably gotten away with it in previous games, so he gambled that he’d get away with it again, and this time he lost. That’s not a negative judgement of Evans; all players do that all the time. A large percentage of the penalties called are for things that other players have done in the same game and gotten away with.

This is not some obscure rule that nobody remembers; others have been given this penalty in the past. You may remember Colin Doyle wearing Nike shoes during a game a couple of years ago. The opposing coach pointed this out to the ref late in the fourth quarter (I’m sure the timing was deliberate – even if he knew about it the entire game, what coach wouldn’t wait until then?) and after his penalty, Doyle had to go back to the locker room and borrow someone else’s shoes (which were a couple of sizes too small). He assisted on the winning OT goal so it worked out for Doyle, even if he had sore feet.

Follow the money

Secondly, it makes sense that the league wants to prevent players from wearing non-sponsored equipment. Full disclosure: I know nothing of the deal between New Balance and the NLL so this paragraph is all speculation but it’s logical. New Balance is providing all 180+ NLL players with equipment and clothing, and there may be money provided to the league as well. Even the hosts of NLL ReLax have worn New Balance hoodies during the show, and I doubt that’s coincidence. In exchange, the deal likely states that the league will air their ads during games, mention their sponsorship here and there, and make sure that players don’t wear clothing or use equipment featuring logos of New Balance competitors. (Again, I don’t know the details of the deal but if New Balance doesn’t have that kind of clause included, they’re nuts.) The rule does say that league approval for exceptions is possible, likely for those players who have personal endorsement contracts with other companies.

The last thing the league wants is for New Balance to say “players are wearing stuff with Nike ~~or Under Armour~~ logos and you’re not doing anything about it, so we’re out” and pull their sponsorship. If you’re worried about growing the game, that’s exactly what the league is doing by making sure their sponsors are happy.

Update: Under Armour is also a sponsor of the NLL.

Make it count

Should a violation of this rule affect the games themselves, or should the league simply fine players who wear the wrong company’s equipment? Let’s say they decide that directly affecting the outcomes of games is not appropriate, so no penalties or suspensions or anything like that will occur. Players will be fined for violations of the rule, and maybe fines will increase for multiple violations.

In that case, what’s to stop Nike from contacting Shawn Evans and saying “wear our stuff, and we’ll pay whatever fines you get”? Evans can wear what he wants to wear, so he’s happy. Nike gets publicity and their logo is visible on one of the league’s best players, and it probably costs them less than sponsoring the entire league (and it kind of looks bad for New Balance), so they’re happy. The NLL fines Evans over and over and the fines get paid, but guess who’s not happy? New Balance is not happy. Again, the league is not preventing Evans from wearing their competitor’s clothing. But if he knows he won’t get a penalty or a suspension, what incentive does Evans have to comply with the rule? And what if a dozen or more players make the same deal with Nike?

Perhaps the league could increase the fines until the other companies would refuse to pay them. I saw a tweet suggesting fining players $10,000. I guess if a rookie player making $8,000 a year could get fined $10,000 for wearing the wrong equipment, he’s going to make damn sure he doesn’t. But if he makes a mistake, he’s not going to just say “Oops, my bad”, pay a fine of more than a year’s salary, and move on. He’ll retire to avoid the fine and we’ll never see him again. Should this kind of mistake cost a lacrosse player his career? That amount seems unreasonable considering what the players make. Still, a huge company like Nike might look at that as a drop in the bucket anyway.

Even if Nike doesn’t want to pay the fines, some of the owners might. If Cody Jamieson wants to wear Nike and he gets fined, Curt Styres may decide that keeping Cody happy is worth a few bucks – it’s the cost of doing business. (Shawn Evans is a bad example here because the Pegula family haven’t shown nearly the interest in the Bandits as other NLL owners do in their teams.)

It’s in the NLL’s best interest to make sure the players abide by this rule. To do that, they have to make a point of enforcing it and they have to make the punishment matter to the players. Affecting the actual game itself is the best way to do that. A player may be willing to pay the fines himself, but he’s less likely to be willing to negatively affect his team.

By enforcing this rule and making it count, the NLL is making sure their players honour the contract they have with their sponsors. That way the sponsor wants to stay with them, and future sponsors will also know that the league doesn’t take this lightly.

If a company is willing to give your league money, pissing them off is not the way to grow the game.

Various musings lacking statistical correlation: Week 14

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Graeme

Once again, it’s time for an article with a few ~~random thoughts~~ short things I wanted to talk about but haven’t had the chance. For various reasons, I haven’t blogged much recently and our most recent episode of Addicted to Lacrosse was cancelled due to a couple of schedule conflicts, so I’ve got a mini-backlog of stuff. I’ll make ’em quick.

Deep

We did talk about Steve Fryer’s excellent game on the last A2L but I wanted to get back to this because I think his play will have a huge impact on the Mammoth. There’s more here than just “our backup goalie played a great game, good on ya Steve”. I think confidence is a huge factor in sports. Obviously hard work and talent are critical but having confidence in yourself and in your teammates is just as important. I’ve said this before on the show, but if you see a player who’s playing with confidence, he may be a little more aggressive and take a few more risks because he knows that if they don’t work out, he and his teammates can recover. A player without confidence is just the opposite: more likely to play it safe. Sometimes you’ll see a top scorer who’s having a rough game – sometimes they can play through it but other times they have lost confidence and appear “snakebitten”. At that point, they’re more likely to pass to a teammate even if they have a clear shot. If I’m a coach (or a fan!) and it’s near the end of a close game, I want my best players out there saying “Give me the ball”, not “Yeah, you should probably give someone else the ball cause I’m having an off night”.

Playing in front of Dillon Ward, arguably the best goaltender in the league, will give anyone confidence. I’m sure the team all had some confidence that Fryer could get it done if called upon. But now they know that Fryer can get it done because they’ve seen it happen, and that cannot be overstated in my opinion. Now the Mammoth hit the floor thinking “To beat us, you guys have to get by one of the best defenses in the league, then face Dillon Ward and if he’s having an off-night, you have to face Steve Fryer. Regardless of who’s back there, we got this.” That makes the Mammoth dangerous.

That said, Tyler Carlson did the same thing for the Rush back in February so unfortunately for Colorado, the Rush are equally dangerous. Speaking of dangerous…

Dangerous

A few weeks ago, I tweeted about how weird it was that Dan Dawson was a healthy scratch for the second straight week. Then he got traded because they weren’t going to play him. Who would ever have predicted that Dan Freaking Dawson would ever get traded because he was riding the pine? Even more weird is that the Knighthawks got better after the trade. Is this a case of addition by subtraction? In my opinion, yes.

That’s not to say that Dawson couldn’t get it done on the floor. He may not be what he once was, but even if he’s 3/4 of what he once was, 75% of former Dan Dawson is still damn good. And it’s not to say that he isn’t a good locker room guy, in fact I’ve never heard anything but the exact opposite about Dawson. By all accounts, he’s a great leader, a great locker room guy, a great teammate, and a pretty decent lacrosse player as well. But his style of play wasn’t fitting with the new-look Knighthawks and they decided not to adapt their style to fit Dawson in. Cody Jamieson is looking like the old Cody Jamieson again and Cory Vitarelli is Cory Vitarelli, but everything else is different. Joe Resetarits is having an outstanding season, and 24-year-old players Jackson, Shanks, Currier, Fannell, and Withers are all having great seasons as well. With that many young players playing this well (and Jamieson’s only 30 and Resetarits 28), there was no real need for Dawson so why not get a couple of draft picks for him?

But once again, it’s a confidence thing. If you’re a 24-year-old lacrosse player from Ontario, you grew up watching Dan Dawson in the NLL (and likely in the summer as well), so playing with him on the Knighthawks is an honour and a privilege. But when your coach tells you “you guys are good enough that we don’t need Dan Dawson“, imagine what that does to your confidence.

The East is so tight that it’s hard to predict, but even if the Knighthawks don’t progress far into the playoffs this season, their offense is young and talented enough that they are set for a few years to come.

Definition

OK, I said I’d be quick and thus far I haven’t been. Here’s a quick one.

I’ve talked many times in the past about the bad video quality coming out of Rochester. Well, I am happy to give credit where it’s due. The Twitter game of the week from Rochester this past weekend was beautiful. The video was high definition and not jaggy (yes, that is a real computer graphics term) at all, you could read the names on the jerseys, and the ball didn’t look like a big white square being thrown around. The video quality was better than that coming from Colorado the same night, and Colorado is generally pretty good. I don’t know if that’s a permanent upgrade to the arena’s hardware or a temporary thing just for the Twitter game, but I really hope it’s the former. It would be nice to be able to add Rochester to the list of NLL arenas with great video quality.

Devastating

Maybe “devastating” is too strong a word to describe the impact of Tom Schreiber’s injury on the Rock offense, but not by much. Plus I needed a d-word for the heading.

As others have pointed out, the Rock averaged 15 goals per game with Schreiber this season while without him, they’re averaging just nine. He may or may not be returning soon but with the trade deadline looming next week, Jamie Dawick may decide to play it safe and make a move. One of the most popular rumours seems to be bringing Dan Dawson in from Saskatchewan, which makes some sense since Dawson is an Ontario boy – in fact he’s from Oakville, where the Rock train. (Note that he’s from Oakville. I don’t know where he currently lives.) This could be good for the Rock, in that they’d get a solid righty forward to take Schreiber’s place while he’s out. It does make the Rock a little right-heavy when Schreiber returns, but Dawson is also good enough and versatile enough that they could change his role a little. It probably means that Phil Caputo would return to defense and Dan Lintner, already a healthy scratch for half the Rock’s games so far, would never be seen in a Rock uniform again. It could also be good for Saskatchewan, in that the Rock are kind of desperate so Dawson may fetch a higher price than the two draft picks they gave up for him just two weeks ago. Maybe they’d receive Dan Lintner as well which would probably be good for Lintner’s career since he might actually see the floor.

Also potentially in play is another Ontario boy, Corey Small. The Stealth forward has already announced that he’ll be returning to Ontario to play in the MSL this coming summer, after several years with the Victoria Shamrocks of the WLA. Even if Small hasn’t requested a trade from the Stealth, he probably wouldn’t say no to one given his family situation. He’s a lefty so replacing Schreiber with Small would require a few more changes to the system, but I’m sure the Rock coaching staff would welcome that extra work.

The question is what goes back the other way in either of these cases? The Rush don’t need anything, and they already own Toronto’s first round pick this year and next in the Adam Jones deal. The Rock do have a second and fourth in this year’s draft, which is what Dawson was worth two weeks ago.

Small was worth two first round picks when he arrived in Vancouver three years ago, but would he still fetch that much? After an MVP-candidate season last year, quite possibly. But the Rock have to hope not unless the Stealth are happy with 2020 and 2021 first round picks. Those won’t help the Stealth if they’re trying to rebuild now. The Stealth might be interested in young BC boys like Challen Rogers or Reid Reinholdt. Is Small worth Reinholdt plus a second round pick? As a Rock fan, I’d be OK with that but what do I know? I’m no GM. Doug Locker might be thinking Rogers and Reinholdt for Small. Personally, I think giving up Rogers would be too much, but does Dawick need offense enough to overpay?

Dammit Graeme, shut up

So much for making ’em quick. That might be my longest article of the season.

Lacrosse 101

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Graeme

If you’re new to the National Lacrosse League, it can sometimes be difficult to watch a game on NLL TV or Twitter Live because the broadcasters use terms you might be unfamiliar with. Many of the terms are similar to hockey or basketball and those ones are usually obvious. Sometimes a broadcaster will explain lacrosse-specific (or NLL-specific) terms, rules, and strategies, but not always.

If you’re in that category, don’t worry. At NLL Chatter, we’re here to help. I’ve done research on some lacrosse terms to find out what they mean so we can all be informed viewers.

Continue reading →

Game report: Georgia 12 @ Toronto 7

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Graeme

Well, that game had a different outcome than what I was expecting, in a number of ways. First off, I predicted a Toronto victory though I can’t say I was shocked that Georgia won. Secondly, the last three times these two teams met saw OT so I was expecting a closer game, which it was until Toronto stopped scoring. And third, given the first two minutes of the game, I didn’t expect it to be a defensive battle.

Two minutes into the first quarter, it was 2-1 Rock with the shot count sitting at 2-1 Rock. My dad came with me to this game and we joked that the game might end up 27-26. It settled down after that, and we only saw two more goals the rest of the quarter. A few minutes into the second, Toronto scored a couple more within a minute and while I wouldn’t say the Rock were in control, all facets of the team were doing well. Unfortunately for them, all facets of the Swarm game were also doing well. Then Georgia began to score and Toronto stopped. It would be over 32 minutes before the Rock scored again and by that time, the Swarm had scored six straight. The Rock scored two in the first two minutes, and then five in the next fifty eight.

The three goal deficit was certainly not insurmountable given that there was almost nine minutes left, but Mike Poulin was on his game and there was no way he was going to let the Rock back into it. Poulin was excellent, particularly in the second half, stopping almost everything that got to him. However a lot of shots never got to him, either because they were blocked or because they were never taken in the first place, and that was because of the D in front of him. I don’t know how many times a Rock forward, mostly Adam Jones, reared back to fire a bullet at the net only to pull up at the last second and pass instead because he couldn’t see the net at all.

Kudos must go to three parties on the Rock side as well:

Nick Rose
The Rock D
The posts and crossbar

There were one or two goals on Rose that you might have expected him to stop, but for the most part, he was very good. He made a few sliding stops to prevent quickstick goals, something he’s getting very good at, and threw his arms up at least once to prevent a goal from behind the net. Toronto’s defense was very good as well; perhaps less effective than Georgia at actually blocking shots, but there were a lot of ball-dislodging stick checks and quick transition. However, the transition seemed to lead to a lot of ill-advised shots, perhaps from defenders trying to spark the struggling offense. No Rock transition players scored at all so the only effect it had was a lot of five-second possessions.

For the second straight night, I lost count of how many times the Swarm forwards hit posts or the crossbar. If the net was an inch wider or higher, this would have been a much higher scoring game – probably on both sides, since the Rock hit a few as well. What that means of course is that there were a bunch of shots that Nick Rose will get credit for saving even though they actually beat him. But I think the bigger problem for the Swarm is that they were putting those shots in last year and just missing them this year.

The biggest missed opportunity for the Rock was the power play. They had six power plays, scoring on none of them. In the third, they had a 5-on-4 for 45 seconds, then 5-on-3 for a minute and a half, and then 5-4 again for about three and a half minutes. They had a bunch of shots but the Poulin Wall held.

I’m a big fan of Brock Sorensen and I think he’s had a good season but he had a frustrating night. First, he had an early breakaway but while running (lumbering?) up the floor, it really looked like it took every ounce of strength he had just to continue running, and he wasn’t running that fast. It looked like he was in pain but he kept going. Then he took two penalties at the same time early in the fourth – as Pat Gregoire said on the broadcast, the holding one was fine, preventing a scoring chance, but the illegal crosscheck was unnecessary. Once he got into the penalty box, he smacked his stick against the glass in anger, which could have been another penalty (unsportsmanlike conduct – there’s a rule that specifically addresses hitting the glass with your stick in the penalty box) but the ref either didn’t see it or chose to ignore it.

Then right at the end of the fourth, Bryan Cole and Phil Caputo each took roughing penalties and while those were being announced, Ethan O’Connor was heading from the Swarm bench out onto the floor and out of nowhere, Sorensen cross-checked him to the ground. There was no obvious reason for the hit, and O’Connor stayed down on the ground for a while until he ran the ten feet to the bench and heaved his pregame meal over the boards. That’s not a good sign. The game was mostly over by that point so Sorensen’s five minute penalty didn’t matter but I wouldn’t be surprised if the league reviews that one. Sorensen may have to sit another game and think about what he did.

Other game notes:

I saw a fan wearing a Bandits jersey – a bit weird at a Rock/Swarm game. But then I saw that it said “Orleman” on the back. Must have been a fan or family member of the Swarm’s backup goalie.
Jordan Hall was given a game misconduct for a ~~nasty crosscheck~~ illegal bodycheck to the head of Damon Edwards. If that seemed out of character, it was: it was the first game misconduct in Hall’s career. He hadn’t even had a major penalty since 2012. Update: I watched the replay and I got the penalty wrong – it was an illegal bodycheck, not crosscheck. The word “nasty” is probably not accurate either. Hall led with his shoulder, which is totally legal, but hit Edwards in the face which may be why he got the penalty. I don’t think it was worth a game misconduct though.
Did anyone notice that when the ball was lodged in Poulin’s equipment during the fourth quarter, the clock continued to run? A good 30 seconds was lost because of that. I didn’t see it but my friend Steve noticed. Oddly though, I was unable to find it on the replay. Perhaps it was in the third quarter.
At one point in the second quarter, Lyle Thompson must have played about five consecutive shifts. Played offense, then got caught on defense, then back to offense, another quick transition meant another defensive shift, then another on offense before he finally made it to the bench. Luckily for the Swarm he’s a very good defensive player, but I’m sure he was gassed after that.

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Game report: Colorado 11 @ Toronto 7