We’re back! The NLL is back, NLLStats.com is back, NLL podcasts are back (though some like Lax Class never left), and of course NLL Chatter is back. Every week I cover things that were awesome from the previous week and things that were… less awesome. Let’s jump right in.

Awesome

NLL+

Last weekend was the debut of NLL+, the new NLL streaming service. The result: excellent. I had zero problems with the stream, sound, or video. The stream stayed up 100% of the time, and the video and audio quality was excellent. Last year we had many games where the stream quality would gradually degrade over time, and then suddenly be perfect again, only to start degrading again. I saw none of that. I didn’t watch every minute of every game, but I saw zero times when the stream dropped or even paused. I did see one period of a few minutes during the TSN broadcast where the video went wonky and they had to cut to commercial. So last weekend, NLL+ had better quality overall than TSN.

The rewind button was great and I could re-join the live feed instantly. I got 5-10 minutes behind in one game but didn’t want to skip directly to the live broadcast for fear of missing stuff, so I kept watching but skipped forward during replays and TV timeouts and such. That part was a bit more difficult since I had to grab the slider and drag it forward; finding the right place to resume was a bit tricky, but it wasn’t a big deal.

I was at a Christmas party on Sunday and mentioned NLL+ to a bunch of my friends who are casual lacrosse fans but not to the point of paying to watch games. I told them that now they didn’t have to. We all live in Canada so we can watch all games on NLL+ except the ones that are on TV anyway, so there’s no reason not to sign up, and I think some of them will.

After writing about NLL+ a couple of weeks ago, I talked to Joel Feld, the NLL’s EVP, Broadcast and Media, and Ed Derse, SVP, Technology and Broadcast Operations, in more detail about this service. I will summarize that conversation in a future article.

Zach Higgins and the Black Bears

Adding Zach Higgins was one of the big changes the Black Bears made in the offseason; in fact, it was probably the biggest one aside from moving from New York to Ottawa. His debut was everything the team could have wanted: he held the Rock scoreless until five minutes into the third quarter, he made all the saves you expected him to make and a bunch you didn’t, he held Tom Schreiber, Mark Matthews, Corey Small, and Dan Craig to zero goals, and he did all of this in front of the home town fans in their inaugural game, making himself an instant fan favourite. Ottawa fans were told they have the best lacrosse player in the world on their team, and now the fans are all “You were right! This Higgins guy is amazing!” Sorry Jeff Teat.

Or maybe they think we meant Jacob Dunbar. Or possibly Connor Kearnan. That’s not to say that Teat had a bad game, but it was a full team effort and everyone played well enough that Teat didn’t stand out quite as much as he usually does. I’m sure Teat will soon have one of those games where the Ottawa fans will say “Oh you mean that guy. Yeah, he’s pretty good too.”

Colorado comebacks against Vancouver

It was inevitable. Before this game, the Mammoth and Warriors had met twelve times (since the Vancouver Stealth rebranded in 2019), with Colorado winning nine of those games. But four of those nine wins were comebacks, as the Mammoth came back from being down by 8, 7, 6, and 4 goals. Last weekend, the Mammoth added the 5-goal comeback to that list. The Mammoth were down 6-1 at halftime, but Vancouver came out as flat in the second half as Colorado did in the first, while the Mammoth came out flying. They got seven straight goals by either Zed Williams (3) or Connor Kelly (4), with one single Vancouver goal in the middle, the only Warriors goal of the second half.

Over the last few years, this would have sparked a bunch of “Vancouver gonna Vancouver” comments as the Warriors/Stealth have been either disappointing or downright terrible for a very long time. But there was a lot of optimism around these Warriors, so to see this happen again is a little surprising. Nobody is writing the Warriors off; every team has a bad night here and there. It was just unfortunate that it happened to them on their opening night and against the Mammoth again. Or maybe they just cannot beat the Mammoth, which would be good news for the Warriors: they don’t face them again this season so 17-1 is still possible.

New guys in San Diego

Six of the top seven scorers for San Diego in this game were not on the team last season. Benesch, McIntosh, Hellyer, Noakes, Currier, and DiCicco combined for 15 of the Seals’ 18 goals and 36 of their 46 points. Wes Berg was the only returning Seal with more than two points. Of course, when you retool the majority of your offense in the off-season, that’s what you want. But it’s impressive how quickly the offense seems to have gelled.

Actually, the Wings weren’t far behind in that respect as three of their top six scorers (Crawford, O’Neill, and Malcom) weren’t Wings in 2024.

Not Awesome

Rock offense

As I mentioned above, Zach Higgins kept Matthews, Schreiber, Small, and Craig to zero goals. Two of the five that the Rock did score came from defenders Harris and de Snoo, so the actual offensive players contributed all of three goals on Friday night. Hot take: this is not a recipe for success. I thought the Ottawa defence played very well, and Higgins obviously had a great game, but a lot of this was on the Rock. Passes were missing targets, passes on target were being dropped, and a couple of times a pass went to where the passer must have expected someone to be, but there was no Rock player within ten feet of where it went. The Rock offense looked better in the preseason than in this one.

But similar to the Warriors, nobody is deciding that the Rock won’t be playoff contenders this year after all. They had a lousy game. They’ll be better.

Goaltending in San Diego, until the fourth quarter

Thirty-three goals were scored in this one. Only one game in all of 2024 had more than that. Deacan Knott saved 100% of the six shots he faced in 8½ minutes, but the other three goalies were all 70% or worse. There were no clinics being put on here. That said, things were noticeably better in the fourth quarter. There were still six goals scored, but Origlieri, who returned after being pulled for Mike Poulin in the third quarter, looked much better than in the first half. Similarly, Nick Damude was pulled earlier but returned in the fourth looking better.