This week’s report combined weeks 13 and 14 since I was away on vacation last week. The Bandits are no longer undefeated but are still in first place, the Rush and Thunderbirds are hot, the Wings and Rock are not. We’re more than halfway through the season now and the playoff picture looks vastly different than last year’s. Three of the top four teams in 2024 are currently out of the playoffs and two of the bottom three teams last year are currently in. Of course, there are still 51 games left to play and things can and most likely will change.

Awesome

Bandits loss

I’m not saying this as a Rock fan, but I think the Bandits losing in week 13 is actually good for them. There has been a lot of talk over the years about the amazing Bandits streak of 22 straight wins from 1992–1994, including the entire 1993 season, and of course that’s an incredible achievement. But now, every time a team gets to around 10 straight wins, that streak is inevitably brought up. The Bandits had won 16 straight going back to last season, now tied for the second-longest winning streak in NLL history. The team was 7–0 this season and five of those wins were by five or more goals, so talk had already begun: could they run the table? Could they break their own record for the longest winning streak ever? Can anyone stop them from doing both of those things?

So now we have our answers. The possibilities of running the table or breaking the record are gone and everyone, including the Bandits, can move on. As much as a perfect 18–0 season would be great for the Bandits, it would likely become a distraction as the end of the season approaches. It affects the coaches too – if you’re 17–0, obviously you want to win that last game, but how much energy do you spend making sure you get that win, vs. resting some vets or getting some rookies more playing time before the playoffs begin? The latter would be the traditional smart move, but you have to be OK with potentially losing the streak. If there is no streak to worry about, that helps the decision-making process.

Now that the streak is over, they can ignore all of that and focus on their real goal which is making the playoffs and then winning the championship. Of course, they still have nine games left to play so if last Saturday’s win was the start of a new streak…

Georgia vs. Toronto OT

This was an entertaining game, lots of back-and-forth action, lots of great goaltending, and lots of solid defence on both sides. Kudos to the Swarm D and Brett Dobson for keeping Tom Schreiber and Dan Craig to ZERO goals. Lyle Thompson continues his “how did he do that” streak of <does calculations> every game he’s ever played. Georgia had five different leads, while the Rock only had two, though one of two lasted half of the second quarter, all of the completely scoreless third, and two minutes of the fourth. But the Swarm grabbed the lead back in the fourth and held it for most of the quarter, until Corey Small scored two of his five with less than three minutes to play to tie the game up.

The excitement level was even higher in overtime, as you would expect, and both goalies were up to the task for more than six minutes. But then Miles Thompson (pictured above) took a shot from an almost-impossible angle which beat Rose and the Swarm emerged victorious. Overtime in the NLL is always exciting and this was no exception. I was sure that every shot was going to be the game winner but none went in, until the one shot I didn’t think could go in actually did.

Calgary

Not many people picked the Roughnecks to be a strong playoff candidate this season, obviously because of the goaltending situation. You can’t replace a former MVP goalie with a rookie with roughly four full games of NLL experience and expect the defense to be unaffected. And Cam MacLeod hasn’t been fantastic this season, but he’s been solid in most games and very good in a couple. Definitely good enough to give his team a chance to win every night, and you can’t ask much more of him than that.

With the return / resurgence of Dobbie and Dickson, Calgary may just be able to score their way out of some defensive problems. I’m not sure that’s a great long-term strategy, though it’s likely slightly more sustainable than not scoring and hoping your goalie can steal you a bunch of wins (see Ottawa below). But with a season only 18 games long, the Roughnecks might be able to ride it out and make the playoffs, and then of course, anything’s possible.

New lacrosse podcasts

There are a bunch of lacrosse podcasts out there, and honestly, I don’t listen to all of them. This is solely a matter of free time. I got used to listening to Off the Crossebar and Lacrosse Classified every week for years, so those ones stay, and I added Lacrosse Matrix and Coaches Calls more recently. But since the pandemic, I work from home three (or more) days a week instead of one, so my commute time (which is also my podcast time) has been cut significantly. There are a few others that I just don’t have the time to listen to.

A couple of brand new ones just launched within the last couple of weeks, so I did check them out. First was “NLL Box Out with Maki and Coop”, featuring hosts Maki Jenner and Cooper Perkins. I’ve only listened to the first episode thus far, but I enjoyed it. Obviously Maki and Cooper know their stuff, and they play well off of each other.

One thing Maki said that I really liked was about the Rock and Bandits rivalry. She said that the two teams “bring out the best and worst in each other”, and I loved that. Each team always pulls out all the stops to beat the other, but the two teams really don’t like each other, and so each can be sloppy or undisciplined against the other as well. That one phrase captured this rivalry perfectly.

The other new podcast is Morning Shootaround, featuring Tino Fera, Christian Del Bianco, and Tyler Pace. Tino was previously a co-host on Lacrosse Classified, and I think he’s very easy to listen to, also very knowledgeable, and not afraid to call players out if they played badly or aren’t playing up to expectations. Christian and Tyler have different perspectives than most podcast hosts (Back of the Bird would be an exception) since Tyler is a current player and Christian is a former (and very likely future) player, but they’re both fun to listen to as well. I’m only halfway through the second episode of this one, but they’ve already told some pretty funny stories and I’m looking forward to hearing their thoughts on the league.

Not Awesome

Black Bears offense

There’s no sugar-coating it – the Black Bears offense was terrible over their first eight games. They were held under ten goals in five of those eight, and averaged just 8.75 goals per game. Somehow they managed to win four of those games (thanks Zach Higgins!), but that’s just not sustainable for an entire season. Then Reilly O’Connor returned from injury and they scored 18 against Albany. People started calling O’Connor “the Jeff Teat whisperer” since Teat was held to three points or less in three of the five games O’Connor missed, and then he exploded for six goals and three assists once the two were reunited.

But the reunion party was short-lived, as the team was held under 10 again a week later. I can’t tell you what they need to change, but they need to change something. Having the best offensive player in the world on the worst offensive team in the league is just baffling.

Time clock not updating

This is very minor, but a bit annoying. The time clock in Toronto was acting weird when there was less than one minute left in each quarter. Before the 14:00 mark, it was updating every second like you’d expect. But once it got below 1:00 left, it would only update every two seconds, not every tenth of a second. It would show, for example, 23.3 seconds left then two seconds later it would change to 21.3, then 19.3, 17.3, 15.3, 13.3, etc. I’m normally at Toronto home games so maybe this happens all the time in broadcasts from that arena, but you look more at the time clock in the last minute of each quarter than any other time so having this problem was frustrating.