A light week in the NLL with only three games, and yet thanks to the holidays I’m still getting this article up several days late. Apologies for my tardiness but on the upside, there are no Not Awesomes this week! I mean, there were things that weren’t awesome from this past week – for example, Colorado’s offense, but much of that was Georgia’s defense and goaltending. I didn’t think it was bad enough to warrant a whole Not Awesome section. Similarly, Panther City’s attendance was not awesome (in fact, it sucked) but that’s a dead horse I’m kinda getting tired of beating.
Awesome
LaxMetrics Premium
Just after Christmas, Cooper Perkins will be expanding the data available on his NLL stats web site laxmetrics.com. The stuff that’s already there will stay free, but a bunch of new stuff will be available for about $6/month, and I’m intrigued about what it will contain. He sent out an introductory email giving examples of what kinds of information you will be able to find and of the four examples, I have enough information on nllstats.com to calculate two of them. This actually provides a bit of a dilemma for me: do I add new features to nllstats.com if they’re in the paid portion of laxmetrics.com, or do I restrict my changes to stuff that’s not there? It seems a bit scummy of me to add something to my (free) web site that I know Cooper provides on his (paid) site.
Now, there’s going to be a ton of information on that site that will never be on my site because gathering that data requires watching every minute of every game and manually keeping track of stuff that’s not in the league-provided game sheet. Things like:
- unrealized, pick, first order, and second order assists
- shots defended
- goals allowed on contested shots
- breakaway chances and breakaway goals
- saves over average, goals prevented over average
- plus all of the other metrics based on these – averages per quarter or per game, most other ratings, scores, or ratios, or anything with the word “expected”
None of that information is available on nllstats.com. Everything I have is based on the game sheets, so if it ain’t there, I don’t have it – other than things like birthdate, home town, height, weight, etc. Those are usually available on the team’s web site, but I only need to do that once per player so no big deal.
How many goals has Zach Manns scored in the first quarter of games in December? In his entire career, five. That information is not immediately available on nllstats.com right now – you’d have to go through all of the December games on his player page, one at a time, and count the first quarter goals. Doable but a bit of a pain, particularly if you wanted to do it for, say, Ryan Benesch, who’s played 17 seasons. But I could add a page that allows those types of ad-hoc queries and gives the results immediately.
Which goalie has been the best at stopping 1-on-1’s in the fourth quarter of games? I have no idea and there is no possible way to dig through the data I have to find out. Cooper is putting in a significant amount of manual work to get those types of numbers and that’s what you (and I) will be paying for.
Panther City
I’m writing this during the fourth quarter of the Panther City game against Toronto. Even if PCLC gives up twelve goals in the fourth quarter and loses the game, they still deserve to be in the Awesome category for how they’ve played in the first three. Nick Damude has been solid, the Panther City defense has been really good at preventing and blocking shots as well as causing turnovers, and the offense led by Callum Crawford (who is anything but washed up) has looked every bit as dynamic as Crawford himself has for a million years. Jonathan Donville doesn’t just score and get assists, he picks up loose balls, causes turnovers, and works as hard as anyone.
The game is now over and Panther City lost. But in the late third and early fourth quarter, they managed to keep Toronto off the board for over twenty minutes while scoring five of their own to take the lead. The lead only lasted a minute and a half before Mark Matthews scored twice in 21 seconds to give the Rock the lead back again, and this time there was no comeback. Panther City played very well but simply lost to a very strong Toronto team.
Brett Dobson
I have a feeling Brett might just become a regular here in the Awesome section for a number of years to come. Dobson had another great outing last weekend against Colorado, allowing 8 goals on 50 shots, giving him an 84% save percentage and a GAA just over 8. These are outstanding numbers, but the most amazing part of this game was a couple of saves he made early in the fourth quarter. The first was a fairly “routine” save on a shot to his lower right where he stopped the ball but fell and lost his stick. The ball was swept out to his left and then passed to rookie Ben McDonald right in front. McDonald shot on a mostly open cage but Dobson, sitting down without a stick, reached up and made the second save with his hands. Unbelievable.
NLL Chatter 