Monthly Archives: March 2019

Could happen…

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I love doing this every year. There are only a few weeks left in the season, so it’s time to look at the possible-but-unlikely playoff scenarios. In most cases below, I’ve listed a single way that the specified outcome can happen, but there may be more than one.

Just for clarification, “win out” means a team wins all of the rest of their games (also known as “runs the table”), while “lose out” means that a team loses all the rest of their games (also known as “defecating in one’s sleeping apparatus”).

Swarm and Bandits tie for first

Swarm win out, and the Bandits win out except they lose to Toronto. Then Georgia and Buffalo finish tied for first and tied 1-1 in the season series as well. The Swarm would end up with a 10-3 division record while the Bandits would be 9-4, so the Swarm finish first.

Rock win the east

Rock win out. Bandits lose any one game and Georgia loses any two. Then the Rock are 13-5, the Bandits are at best 13-5 (and Toronto owns the tiebreaker), and the Swarm are at best 12-6.

Photo credit: Rene Johnston

Black Wolves win the east

Black Wolves win out. Bandits lose out, Georgia loses three and Toronto loses one. Then the Bandits and Black Wolves are both 12-6, 1-1 against each other, and 8-5 in their division. The tiebreaker in this case is head-to-head goal differential. The Bandits beat the Black Wolves 15-5 in January, so the only way the Black Wolves win the division is if all those things listed above happen and they beat the Bandits by more than ten goals on April 20.

Four-way tie at 12-6 in the east

New England wins out, Buffalo loses out, Georgia wins one and loses the other two, and Toronto wins out except for a loss to New England. Then those four are all 12-6. Georgia wins the first tiebreaker, New England wins the second, and Toronto wins the third, leaving Buffalo in fourth.

Three-way tie at 8-10 in the east

Toronto loses out, Philly wins out, and New England beats Toronto but loses all the rest of their games. Then those three are tied for third at 8-10 while the Bandits and Swarm finish first and second in some order. New England wins the three-way tiebreaker and finishes third, and Toronto wins the tiebreaker against Philadelphia and takes fourth. The Wings and Knighthawks are out.

Rush finish last in the west

If the Rush lose out (including one to Vancouver) and the Warriors win two of their other three games, the Rush are last. Let me say that again: at the end of March, it’s still possible for the Saskatchewan Rush to finish last in their division. I think the Rush clinched a playoff berth in February last year.

Warriors win the west

OK, this one is complicated. Vancouver wins out. Rush lose to Philly and twice to Colorado but beat San Diego and Calgary. San Diego loses out. Calgary beats San Diego and Philly but loses to Georgia and Saskatchewan. Colorado loses to Vancouver, San Diego, and Rochester but beat Saskatchewan twice. In that case, the Warriors win the west at 9-9, while the other four teams are all 8-10. That completes the proposed scenario but we still need to find out what happens, so we need to break the four-way tie.

The first tiebreaker is each team’s record against the other teams involved in the tiebreaker, but that doesn’t help here. Colorado and Saskatchewan would be 5-4 while San Diego and Calgary would be 4-5. The second tiebreaker is each team’s record within the division, in which case Saskatchewan wins at 9-3. Thus the Rush finish second, and we go to a three-way tiebreaker.

Again, the first is not helpful as each team is 3-3 against the other two. Back to the division record where the Seals are 8-4 and so they come third. The final tiebreaker is won by Colorado with a 2-1 record over the Roughnecks. Colorado finishes fourth and Calgary is out.

Seals finish first in the league

If San Diego wins out, that would put them at 14-4 and give them a win over Buffalo, which means the best Buffalo could do is also 14-4. With that win, San Diego would own the tiebreaker, so all San Diego has to do to finish first overall is to win out. No other conditions need to be met.

Four way tie for first in the west

San Diego loses out except they beat Georgia. The Rush beat Vancouver, San Diego, and Calgary but lose to Colorado twice and Philadelphia. Calgary beats San Diego and Philly and loses to Georgia and Saskatchewan. Colorado beats Saskatchewan twice and San Diego but loses to Rochester. Then all four are 9-9 while the Warriors are at best 7-11. Interestingly, the tiebreaker scenario listed above (under “Warriors win the west”) works out exactly the same way, so we have Rush, Seals, Mammoth, Roughnecks, and Warriors.

 

The Crawford suspension: dangerous

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You probably haven’t heard much about this issue – it’s kind of flown under the radar. Well, other than being talked about by just about every lacrosse writer and fan (and many players) on social media. Of course I’m talking about Callum Crawford’s suspension.

In case you missed it, Black Wolves forward and potential MVP candidate Crawford was given a major penalty for a high hit on Toronto’s Brad Kri back on February 24. The week after the game, the penalty was upgraded to a match penalty by the league, which gives Crawford an automatic one-game suspension. He appealed, allowing him to play in New England’s next game against Colorado (in which he scored four goals and added seven assists), but the match penalty was upheld the week after that, and he sat out last weekend’s game.

Rule 41.4 in the NLL rule book is called “Repeat Offender” and states: “Any player who is assessed a second match penalty, a second Dangerous Contact to the Head penalty (Rule 77), or a combination thereof within a two year period shall be assessed an additional five (5) game suspension.“

Very clear and unambiguous. This matters because in January of 2018, Crawford was given a match penalty for a similar hit on a Roughnecks player. That’s two match penalties within two years, so Crawford gets an automatic five games, right? Not this time. The same arbitrator who was brought in to decide on the match penalty announced that he was not ruling on the extra five games until later, though nobody could figure out why. Then on Friday, the answer came down: Crawford will sit out one game rather than five.

Photo credit: Garrett James

The PLPA released a statement from the arbitrator on why, but the statement is puzzling. The arbitrator, Andrew Brandt, mentions a similar situation two years ago when Calgary’s Greg Harnett received his second match penalty in two years, and was given a five game suspension by that arbitrator, a Mr. McGuire. Brandt says “Mr. McGuire correctly concluded that the league had no other choice than to impose an additional five game penalty. However as the rule was unilaterally adopted by the league and not a part of the CBA, it was not binding on an arbitration officer.“

Why would rules in the rule book not be binding on an arbitration officer? I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that by agreeing to play games (more than half the season so far) with this rule book, the PLPA has implicitly agreed to all of the rules in the rule book. This is not a rule that was added mid-season without the PLPA’s knowledge or consent. If there are rules in there that they don’t agree with, that should have been ironed out long before the season started. And yes, I do remember that they were busy trying to make sure there was a CBA so that the season could happen, but I have not heard any complaints from the PLPA since then (before this incident) that this rule was unfair and should be changed.

Mr. Brandt also states “And in his testimony for the league, Mr. Lemon [Brian Lemon, NLL VP] explained how he did not believe the foul should result in a two-game penalty, one reserved for more severe infractions.” I agree, that one hit by itself does not deserve a multiple-game suspension. But the five game suspension is not for that one hit, it’s for the fact that there were two such hits within two years. A subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.

He continues: “The decision to lessen Mr. Crawford’s additional five-game suspension in no way diminishes the league mission to eliminate reckless and endangering play, nor does it undermine the league’s authority.” In my humble opinion, wrong and wrong. The rule says that receiving two match penalties within two years will get you a suspension. It was written that way intentionally, even clarified this past off-season, to say that this behaviour will not be tolerated regardless of who the player is. The arbitrator’s decision says that this behaviour may or may not get you a suspension and thus it may or may not be tolerated, depending on… what? It’s not clear what. How long you’ve been in the league? How many points you have?

It also says that some of the rules in the rule book don’t hold if someone else decides they shouldn’t. I wonder what other rules are not in the CBA and are thus of questionable value?

The PLPA did everything they could to stand up for Callum Crawford. That’s their job, to represent the players, and I get that they did not explicitly make this decision. But who stood up for Brad Kri? Who’s out there trying to make sure that these kinds of hits don’t happen again?

I love watching Callum Crawford play lacrosse. He’s fast, skilled, dynamic, and exciting. I don’t think he’s a dirty player. But he made two bad decisions resulting in two dangerous hits. Those hits were close enough together in time to trigger rule 41.4, so he should be sitting out for five games. Yes he’s a veteran and yes he’s having an MVP-type season, but suspending him anyway would have sent the message that the NLL will not accept these types of hits regardless of who you are. Now, the message they are sending is that if you are a veteran or a great player, you can get away with stuff that other players can’t.

Not only does this make the league look unprofessional, it’s a very dangerous precedent to set.

Rochester’s trade frenzy

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Wednesday was a bit of a crazy day in the NLL – more trades happened on that day than the rest of the season combined, and all of them involved the Rochester Knighthawks. According to sources, they’re not even done.

It began with Joe Resetarits being sent to the New England Black Wolves in exchange for a couple of draft picks – a second round pick this year and a first in 2022. Perhaps Joey Res was uninterested in playing for a Halifax-based team. Maybe they were having trouble deciding who they would protect in this summer’s expansion draft and figured they could get a couple of draft picks for him and help make the decision easier. Either way, it’s a great deal for the Knighthawks on the assumption that they are admitting defeat for this season.

The deal makes a ton of sense for the Black Wolves, who will likely be without Callum Crawford for most of the rest of the season. Crawford was on pace for another hundred-point season before his six-game suspension, so bringing in another righty who got 100 last season is logical and makes the Black Wolves that much more dangerous once Crawford returns. If Resetarits can help the Black Wolves even go .500 for the six games Crawford will be out and then they get to have Resetarits and Crawford for the playoffs, that’s easily worth a couple of draft picks.

Joe Resetarits

The next deal announced was defender Paul Dawson being sent to play with his brother Dan in San Diego. The Knighthawks get another two draft picks for Dawson, and the Seals get a big, strong, tough veteran defender to help in their playoff push. Another good deal for both teams, again assuming the Knighthawks are building for next year.

The third one was more surprising. The Knighthawks send Cory Vitarelli to the Mammoth in exchange for Ryan Benesch, one for one. No draft picks going in either direction. Another great deal for the Knighthawks, who get one of the top scorers in league history. However I’m not sure of the incentive for the Mammoth to make this trade. Vitarelli and Benesch are both lefties and they’re about the same age (Vitarelli is five months younger). Vitarelli is a very good player who can score some acrobatic goals, but he’s no Ryan Benesch. Think of it this way: Vitarelli’s best season by average was 2015 when he scored 39 points in 12 games. That’s 3.25 points per game. Benesch has only had one season in his twelve-year career as low as Vitarelli’s best, his lone season with the Edmonton Rush in 2009. His career average (4.95 points per game) is almost double Vitarelli’s (2.68).

Of course, numbers aren’t the only thing to use to compare players. Vitarelli generally serves a different purpose than to be the primary scorer, so you don’t expect 90 points from him. You expect hard picks, digging in corners, making space for the primary scorers, and scoring the occasional jaw-dropping goal, and he excels at those jobs. But they just traded away Stephen Keogh, who also excels at those jobs. It’s puzzling.

Here’s one possibility: Vitarelli is listed as 5’10” but a very solid 220 pounds. That’s an inch taller and forty pounds heavier than Benesch. If you look at the other forwards on the Mammoth, there’s a pattern: McLaughlin and Ruest are 185 pounds, Lee and Wardle are 175, Noble is 170, and Kyle Killen is only 150. Vitarelli is thirty five pounds more than biggest forward the Mammoth have. Perhaps they decided that they really needed some more size up front but if that’s the reason, I still think they overpaid. But when you’re 3-7, maybe you have to overpay.

As for the Knighthawks, was this a fire sale because they’re most likely out of the playoffs, or more of a moving sale because they’re heading to Halifax after the season? Probably a bit of both. My guess is that Matt Vinc didn’t want to move to Halifax or be a fly-in, so he opted to leave Rochester. Maybe Vitarelli and/or Resetarits were in the same boat and Rochester GM Curt Styres decided he could get something for them now rather than have them leave later.

The Knighthawks are 2-8 and the odds of them making the playoffs are not great. Trading players for picks is an odd (and likely ineffective) way to improve your team enough to rebound and make the playoffs, so it’s likely that Styres is indeed building the best team he can for next season in Halifax. If there are more Knighthawks deals coming before Monday’s trade deadline, perhaps those will help to reveal his strategy.