Wow, what a week in the NLL! Close games, overtime, blowouts, records set and reset, milestones hit… so much awesome. There’s a lot to get to so here we go.

Awesome

Bandits

What else can we say about the Bandits? Defending back-to-back champs, great at everything, GOAT in net, GOAT behind the bench, Dhane Smith is a possible future GOAT, 2–0 start to the season, best attendance in the league. The Bandits are unarguably awesome in just about every respect.

Goaltending in Vancouver

Personally, I was expecting the Vinc/Higgins matchup to be more of a goalie battle, but the Bandits offense was just too strong. But out west, Aden Walsh and Riley Hutchcraft put on a bit of a clinic. They allowed 7 and 9 goals and had save percentages of 85.7% and 83.6% respectively. Both goalies were making the saves they needed to make to keep their teams in the game, and there were certainly a number of “Wow, what a save” calls at both ends. I like a good defensive game like this but I always feel bad for the goalie who gives up 10 or fewer goals and still loses the game.

Dane Dobbie

Going into the fourth quarter of this game, the Roughnecks were down 8–5 and Dane Dobbie had no points. Will Johansen scored off the opening face-off in the fourth to give the FireWolves a 9–5 lead, and then Dobbie took over. He scored seven goals in 13:35, the first-ever seven-goal quarter. No other Roughnecks scored in that quarter. Three of those goals tied the game, the last with under a minute to play and sending the game to overtime.

I barely recognize Dane Dobbie without a beard, so I went with an older picture.

And then who scored in overtime? Of course, it was Dane Dobbie. This gave him the record for fastest eight goals in a game, at 15:16. The previous record for fastest eight goals was 30:31 by Callum Crawford last season. Dobbie literally cut that record in half.

What’s even more amazing was that goals 1–7 set the record for fastest 7 goals in a game, at 13:37, breaking teammate Curtis Dickson’s record of 18:50. Dobbie held that record for a minute and 39 seconds before he broke his own record with his eighth goal, since goals 2–8 were scored in only 10:44.

There are only two words for that performance: IN. SANE.

Zach Manns

On any other week, Zach Manns’s performance would easily be the best of the week. Two minutes into the fourth quarter, the Rush were down 8–3. Manns already had a goal and two assists at this point, but scored four goals in 5:27 to get the Rush within one before Levi Anderson scored his first career NLL goal to tie the game and send it to overtime.

And then who scored in overtime? Of course, it was Zach Manns. I hate to say it was similar to Dobbie’s performance with slightly smaller numbers, because that minimizes Manns’ accomplishment, and it really was an amazing performance. It’s almost too bad that it happened on the same night as one of the only other performances in recent memory that could have overshadowed it.

Toronto Rock

OK, no, they were not awesome on Saturday night. They didn’t even win. But compared to their first couple of games, this one was really good. The defence was much improved, they had some transition going on, they were 2–4 on the power play, their penalty kill was really good as the Swarm were only 1–6 on the PP, Jake Darlinson scored his first-ever NLL goal, and a non-rookie other than Josh Dawick actually scored a goal. The game went right down to the wire, with Lyle Thompson scoring his second “ohmygod how did he do that” goal of the night. This one was Thompson running straight at the net, spotting a ball-sized hole between Rose’s right side and the post, and simply putting the ball there.

One controversial call came in the fourth quarter, as Aaron Woods scored his first goal as a Rock player but the goal was waved off and play continued, and Andrew Kew immediately scored at the other end. Matt Sawyer threw the challenge flag and the play was reviewed but the call was upheld due to inconclusive evidence. I’m trying to take off my Rock fan hat here and be impartial, but I thought the evidence that a Swarm defender was touching the crease, not Woods, was quite conclusive. See this picture that Rock GM Jamie Dawick posted. Though to be fair, the refs likely didn’t have access to that picture at the time. That goal would have tied the game at 8, but instead the Swarm took a 9–7 lead. I’m not one to say the refs decided the outcome of the game (there were still about eleven minutes left in the game for the Rock to score), but that really was a game-altering call.

On the not-awesome side, Mark Matthews is still snake-bitten, having gone three straight games without scoring a goal, something he’s never done before in the NLL.

Being interviewed by John Gurtler

You may or may not know that the Bandits broadcast all of their games, home and away, on the radio in Buffalo. I don’t know if other teams do that, but that’s pretty awesome right there. (Update: Rochester does, and has for a couple of decades.) John Gurtler, the voice of the Bandits on TV, also does the radio games and during halftime of this past Friday’s game against the Black Bears, I was honoured to be his guest on the halftime show, talking about nllstats.com. I enjoy talking about the site, a true labour of love for me, and John clearly enjoys the site as well, so it was a fun conversation. And of course, it was awesome to talk to the NLL broadcasting legend.

Michael Sowers signs with Philadelphia

The Wings announced last week that they had acquired PLL superstar Michael Sowers in a trade with the Albany FireWolves, who drafted him in 2020. He never reported to Albany, but I’ve never heard any reasons why he didn’t. A number of other PLL stars have been drafted or signed by NLL teams in recent years. Tom Schreiber and Matt Rambo are probably the biggest names, but recently there have been a few face-off guys like Connor Farrell, Joe Nardella, and TD Ierlan.

Some were signed but only played a little:

• Justin Guterding, 4 games with Philly in 2019
• Jules Heningburg, 1 game with San Diego in 2019
• Brad Voigt, 5 games with Georgia and Rochester in 2022

and still others were drafted but have ignored the NLL entirely:

• Ryder Garnsey, drafted by Buffalo in 2019
• Grant Ament, drafted by New England in 2020, in their next pick after drafting Sowers
• Asher Nolting, drafted by Colorado in 2021

My first thought was that Sowers had been on the NLL’s radar for several years already and we’d heard nothing about it, so he’d likely be in the third list above, or best-case, in the second list. Thus, this trade was no big deal.

But Sowers has since been signed to a contract and added to the practice player list. He is on record saying he’s excited about picking up the box game again (he has played in the past, just not in the NLL) and suiting up for the Wings. If he does play, this is very big news. Obviously for Wings fans, who get to see another strong offensive player added to the roster, but also for growing the popularity of the league among PLL fans. The PLL is doing jack to help the NLL grow (and to be fair, vice versa), but if PLL fans who aren’t NLL fans see that another big PLL star is excited about playing in the NLL, maybe they’ll check out a game or two.

And hey, maybe he can convince Matt Rambo to come back to the NLL. Philly fans would likely appreciate that too.

Not Awesome

Callum Crawford released

This was a really weird move. Crawford surprised everyone by signing with the Wings on November 18 (after requesting a trade to Panther City, to be closer to his home in Oklahoma, in 2023). But after playing a game on December 1, picking up a goal and four assists, he was released on December 4. This means he was a Wing for two weeks and two days. The reason the Wings GM Paul Day gave for releasing him was:

He was a great teammate and helped the younger guys, but we have a right and a left who will handle the ball most of the time and we need more off ball players, and LeClair and Caputo are naturals at those positions.

The confusing thing to me is that everything he said there was true the day they signed Crawford. So why did they sign him? Just to be a great teammate and help the younger guys for two weeks?

Regardless of what happened in Philadelphia, it sucks that Crawford is currently not on any roster, since he’s such a dynamic and exciting player to watch.

Attendance in Saskatchewan

The Rush averaged over 13,000 per game for their first five years in Saskatchewan. Then, you may remember, there was this pandemic and we lost a season and a half. On the NLL’s return, Rush crowds were down about 5,000 from pre-pandemic, though that happened to a lot of pro sports teams. But the Rush crowds never rebounded and have dropped every year since. Saturday’s game had an announced attendance of 5,661, the lowest crowd in Saskatchewan Rush history (by over 1,300), and fourth lowest in Rush history, including the Edmonton years.

Of course, during the high-attendance years, the team was incredible, winning two Championships in three years; three in four years if you include the Edmonton Rush’s title in their final season. During the lower-attendance years, the team wasn’t so good, finishing 8–10 and out of the playoffs in each of the last three years. But the team is improved this year, and are now 2–0. Hopefully if the winning continues, the fans will come back.