Week 2 is in the books, and now every team has played at least one game. Of the top eight teams in the standings right now, four of them did not make the playoffs last year, including the team at the very top. In fact, the Mammoth went from last in 2024 to first, while the Rock went from #1 in 2024 to last place this year. Yes, it’s only been two games for some teams (and only one for most) so it doesn’t mean much but it’s still surprising.

Awesome

Colorado Mammoth

Sure, they’ve beaten two teams that missed the playoffs last year. But Vancouver is much improved and yet the Mammoth were able to come back from five goals down to win. Las Vegas is also much improved but the Mammoth spoiled their debut in their new arena, and also managed to keep the Desert Dogs to a single goal in over 22 minutes from the first quarter to the third, and then scoreless for almost 21 minutes in the third and fourth.

Their offence looks great, their defence looks great, Dillon Ward looks like Dillon Ward again (i.e. great), everything looks great in Colorado. Of course they’re not going to go 18–0 so things won’t be this perfect all season. They will lose sometime but until then, enjoy yourselves, Mammoth fans.

Dillon Ward

Calgary Roughnecks

Calgary was not given much of a chance by many NLL writers or broadcasters this season, despite the return of Curtis Dickson and Dane Dobbie. Adding those two is obviously a big positive to the offense, but the loss of Christian Del Bianco was seen as a bigger negative. I said in my NLL preview article that to be successful, the Roughnecks would have to win a bunch of 16–15 games. Well, they did win an 18–17 game, is that close enough? I know it’s only been one game. Similar to the Mammoth mentioned above, it may not be this good all season but until then, enjoy yourselves, Roughnecks fans.

Buffalo Bandits

Yeah, I know. They were expected to be awesome, and after one game, they are indeed awesome. Not much to say here (other than Matt Vinc has officially inherited the term “ageless” from his coach) but people would have yelled at me if I hadn’t included the Bandits here.

Not Awesome

Toronto Rock

I covered much of this in my game report for the Rock’s loss to Albany. Yes, they are banged up and missing lots of key players but it’s not like the healthy players they have on the roster are scrubs or don’t have much experience. I get that their systems work differently when Tom Schreiber is in the lineup instead of Luke Robinson, but they should have the experience, leadership, and coaching to handle those kinds of changes. That said, every team goes through some rough patches where they don’t play like they’re capable. Even a team this good has a game like that now and again, so it’s a bit concerning that the Rock have had two of them in a row. Rock fans are just going to have to be patient and wait for that experience to kick in. But speaking as one of those Rock fans, that’s hard to do.

Halifax Thunderbirds

Halifax led for more than 50 minutes in this game. They had two different seven-goal leads in the second quarter, but allowed Calgary to tie it in the third. Then the Thunderbirds took three different three-goal leads after that and lost those as well, allowing the Roughnecks to score five straight in the fourth to win the game and break the hearts of over 5,000 fans in the Nest. What’s worse – to lose a game the way Halifax did (dominate for a while and then cough it up) or to lose a game the way Toronto did (just get completely dominated from start to finish)? I’m really not sure. But like Toronto, it’s still early in the season and as they say, there’s a lotta lacrosse left. Plenty of time to right the ship.

Odd: In a weird twist, the losing goalie actually had a better save percentage and a better GAA than the winning goalie.