A light week in the NLL with only four games, and all ended up fairly close. The Swarm took out the Rock in OT, the Seals came back to beat the Wings by two, Vancouver led 10–3 in the second until Ottawa surged but couldn’t get closer than three back, and Oshawa got within two with a few minutes left in the fourth before Colorado had a couple of Owen goals (Rahn and Down) to put it away.

Awesome

Halifax makes some moves

Halifax looked like they were on the verge of a great season, after starting the season 2–0 including one where they only allowed two goals to Oshawa and then an OT win over the defending Champion Bandits. But then their offense went on a bit of a slide, only hitting double digits once in their next five games (six if you include the Bandits game). This past week, they made a couple of changes (not blockbusters, but not insignificant either) to try to help shake things up a bit.

First they sent Dawson Theede to Oshawa for a 2028 first round pick. Theede is from Brooklin, just north of Oshawa, so I’m sure he’s happy to be playing at home. Then later the same day, they signed free agent Stephen Keogh to the practice roster. Keogh has played twelve seasons in the NLL, including two seasons with the Thunderbirds, so he is familiar with many of the players and coaching staff. Keogh can score some beautiful goals but is also a great off-ball player, good at clearing space in the middle and digging in the corners for loose balls. Basically any place near the net where you, as a forward, generally don’t want to be, that’s where you’ll find Stephen Keogh.

Stephen Keogh

Defense in Philly

Another game where the winning score was in single digits. Both Nick Damude and Chris Origlieri were very good on Friday night, and both defences were very strong, which meant that both offences had trouble all night. San Diego didn’t have a great start, with only one goal in the first 39 minutes, but then scored four in the third quarter and four more in the fourth to complete the comeback. I wouldn’t say the Wings started strong, with only four goals in the first half, but only scored one in the last nineteen minutes of the game. And the Wings only had one goal by a Canadian in the game! Checking the rule book now to see if that’s allowed.

Christian Del Bianco’s 100 points

On Friday night, Christian Del Bianco picked up his 100th career assist, making him the fourth NLL goalie ever to reach that milestone. This is really quite an amazing accomplishment. Only two goalies in the history of the league (Pat O’Toole at 0.81 and Devin Dalep with 0.77) have a higher points-per-game average than Del Bianco (0.76). 0.76 points per game means that on average, he picks up a point in three out of every four games. Goalie assists are a lot less rare than goalie goals, but getting at least one in three of every four games is really impressive. He’s also had four assists in a game three times.

Every goalie in NLL history with more than 60 points has played more games than CDB, in some cases more than twice as many. Plus two of the three goalies ahead of him in the career points list are only barely ahead – Rob Blasdell finished his career with 103 points and Dallas Eliuk ended up with 107. Del Bianco will likely be in second place overall by the end of the season, only trailing Pat O’Toole and his 166 points (which itself is pretty incredible).

Del Bianco is only 28 years old so barring injury, he could easily play another ten years (or even fifteen, right Matt Vinc?) and will likely blow O’Toole’s record out of the water. He’ll be back on my awesome list then, and probably dozens of times in between. For now, congratulations to CDB on 100 points.

Troy Holowchuk

Yes, he lost on Saturday night after giving up the OT winner to Lyle Thompson. But Holowchuk played a very good game, holding Georgia to a single goal in the first 21 minutes and only ten in the game (remember Georgia scored 19 last week). He made a good number of excellent saves and I don’t remember seeing any Swarm goals where I thought “yeah, he really should have stopped that one.”

Holowchuk had a spell in the third and fourth quarters where he gave up 3 goals in about 3½ minutes and then another goal three minutes after that, and that spell allowed the Swarm to get back into the game and even take the lead. But I certainly wouldn’t blame the loss on him – Brett Dobson also played very well, and the Rock scored a single goal in the last 26 minutes of the game (see below).

Not Awesome

Rose injured

Last Saturday, Nick Rose was removed from the Toronto/Rochester game with an injury. Troy Holowchuk finished the game and got the win. Only two days later, the Rock traded for Steven Orleman, implying that Rose’s injury was more than just a day-to-day thing. Then later in the day they announced that Rose was on the IR list and would be out for at least a few weeks. I don’t remember Rose ever being injured for any significant length of time before now, but Holowchuk proved last year (and on Saturday night as well – see above) that he can be a better-than-serviceable NLL starting goaltender, so the Rock are in good hands until Rose’s return.

Toronto offense

What’s with the Rock offense? The longer your career, the less you’re scoring. On Saturday, rookies CJ Kirst and Owen Hiltz had three goals each, Rogers, Dawick, and Boushy had one each, and Matthews and Craig did not score at all. It’s great when rookies are leading your team in scoring, but not if the reason is because nobody else is scoring. Here are the Rock’s top offensive players from last year and their scoring this season:

• Dawick: 42 goals and 75 points last year, he’s on pace for 18 and 51.
• Boushy: 40 and 72 last year, he’s on pace for 21 and 39.
• Matthews: missed most of last year but had 31 and 97 in 2024. He is on pace for 15 and 66, which would be the lowest scoring full season (excluding 2020) of his career.
• Craig: 12 and 46 last year, he’s on pace for 7 and 28.

These aren’t just small drops either. Dawick is down 32% in points, Boushy 46%, Craig 39%, and Matthews is down 32% from 2024. Kirst and Hiltz are picking up the slack from losing Tom Schreiber and Corey Small, and we can’t say enough about how well they are playing. Challen Rogers is playing out the front door this season, so his numbers are up. But the rest of the offense really needs to step up if they want to see the post-season from anywhere other than their big comfy couch.