A crazy high-scoring weekend with seven games, only two of which were settled by less than six goals. There were goals and hits and injuries and controversy. The Desert Dogs are an offensive powerhouse and the Bandits have suspect defense. The world has gone crazy.

Awesome

Rock offense

After I blasted the non-rookies in the Rock offense last week, they definitely stepped up. Matthews scored twice and added nine assists, which is tied for his best game in a Rock jersey. Boushy scored five goals. Dawick had 2+2 and Dan Craig had four assists. Plus Kirst and Hiltz combined for another eleven points. Suffice it to say that the Rock offense had their best night of the season.

It was also nice to see Justin Martin score a goal on Indigenous Heritage Night.

I know this entry is about the Rock offense, but shout-outs to Troy Holowchuk for another excellent game between the pipes and to Latrell Harris for returning from injury and for being Latrell Harris.

Desert Dogs + their fans

I’ve been around this league for long enough that I remember when the Desert Dogs were a pretty sucky team. No really, it’s true. But on Saturday night, they proved that those days are behind them. OK, well, that’s not entirely true, they still have the second-highest goals allowed per game ratio in the league, but they also have the highest goals per game ratio in the league. That’s damned impressive from a team that was 4–14 and tied for second-last in goals per game just last year. On Saturday they got 16 goals from seven different goal scorers, including four from Mitch Jones and hat-tricks from Cloutier and Killen. And that’s without Chase Fraser, who was injured early in the game and missed most of it (see the Not Awesome section below).

Obviously bringing in guys like Jones, Fraser, and Cloutier when you already have guys like Donville, Poitras, and Killen means you have a better-than-decent offense, and now that the team is getting used to each other, they are starting to gel. They still have questions in the back-end; Kells has had a couple of excellent outings and a couple of not-so-great ones. Nobody’s expecting 8 goals against and 84% save percentage every night, but if he can lean in that direction more often than not, the offence can get them some wins and boost that overall team confidence.

Saturday night’s game at Lee’s Family Forum was sold out, bringing in 5,997 people. This is the highest attendance for the team since moving to Henderson, though they had twelve games at Michelob Arena with higher attendance. As we’ve talked about before, less than 6,000 isn’t a huge attendance number, but a sell-out is a sell-out, and you literally can’t do any better than that. Congrats to the Desert Dogs for bringing in the fans – and getting a win in an exciting game is icing on the cake.

Calgary fans

They had over 13,000 at Friday’s game in Calgary, the highest attended game in the league this season outside of Buffalo. Props to the Calgary fans for showing up despite a 1–5 team. Now, it was against Saskatchewan so the rivalry likely brought a few more people in, and some drove in from Saskatoon as well. But even better, when Tanner Cook scored (shorthanded!) with 8 seconds left in the game, the fans still stood up and did their goal dance and made a ton of noise, even though that goal meant that they were going to lose by six rather than seven. Most teams that score when they’re down by seven that late in the game might get a scattering of applause by the fans who haven’t left yet. Win or lose, Calgary loves their Roughnecks.

Colorado

The Mammoth set a team record with 20 goals on the three-time champion Bandits, facing the GOAT of goaltending, and without Will Malcom, Ryan Lee, and Eli McLaughlin. Kew and Hannah combined for nine goals and twenty points, while seven other players had at least three points. Kew now has 33 points in four games or 8.25 points per game. That’s a pace for 148 in 18 games and is just shy of John Grant Jr.’s 8.29 points per game in 2012, the highest in league history. Can a player miss four of his team’s games and still win league MVP? That’s an incredible pace to keep up over the next ten games, so I don’t expect it to happen. But anyone on such a streak is fun to watch so enjoy, Mammoth fans.

I know it wasn’t easy at all but Dillon Ward looked like he had an easy time of it, and Nathan Whittom had a great outing in the fourth quarter. Both had GAA under 10 and save percentages over 80%, while both Buffalo goaltenders had GAA well into the double digits (Vinc’s was almost 24) and almost identical save percentages of around 65%.

Brett Dobson

Eight games into the season, Dobson has had one game with a save percentage below 80% and has only allowed double-digit goals in one game, and it was the same game, the first of the year. Minus that one game, his GAA is 5.92 and save percentage is 88.5%.

Even with that one game, a GAA of 6.91 and save percentage of 86.8% halfway through the season is absolutely incredible. For comparison, Christian Del Bianco had a GAA of 9.28 and save percentage of 81% in 2023 when he won Goaltender of the Year and MVP. Not only is Dobson the frontrunner for Goalie of the Year but at this point, it’s not even close.

Not Awesome

Hartley hit on Charbonneau

Not awesome is a huge understatement. I wrote about it here.

Chase Fraser injury

Shortly after a quick change of direction, Fraser was running towards the net when his left knee seemed to bend in a weird way, and he dropped to the turf. He couldn’t put any weight on it at all and was carried off the floor by two teammates and did not return. Fraser is an unquestionably skilled and exciting lacrosse player, but regardless of that, he’s a human being. You hate to see that kind of freak injury happen to anyone. I hope he recovers quickly so that non-Vegas fans can get back to “hating” him on the floor.

Halifax

In the last two games, Halifax has taken a total of eight penalties for nineteen minutes – one major (and that player is no longer on the team) and seven minors. It’s great that they’ve cut down on the dumb penalties that were plaguing them before that, but they’ve also scored a total of thirteen goals in those two games. The team has only hit double digits in goals twice this season. I imagine that Mike Accursi’s job is hanging by a thread at this point – either that or there will be some huge trades very soon. The Birds have a week off and then have to play the Bandits so things don’t get easier for them.

End-of-game shenanigans

It’s one of my pet peeves: A team that’s losing a game and in the last few minutes, once the game is out of hand, starts fights and gets rough and complains about everything. I get that playing this game at this level is intense and emotions can get high and you can get frustrated, and that leads to more rough play and such. But it just seems like sour grapes. We can’t score the way we want to or our defense isn’t as strong as we know it can be or whatever, so we’ll just beat up the other team. Of course you’re not going to be happy about getting beaten, especially when you’re beaten by six or seven goals in your own barn. But there’s something to be said for sportsmanship and losing with dignity.

This was originally about the Calgary / Saskatchewan game, but similar things happened at the end of the Buffalo / Colorado game. Eric Law asked a great question on that broadcast: “You’re losing 20–9. Why didn’t you use that toughness and physicalness for the first three quarters of the game?”

Early leads

On Friday, both Philly and Calgary took early leads. Calgary was up 3–0 and kept the Rush off the board for over 13 minutes, while Philadelphia had a 4–2 lead after the first quarter. But then Saskatchewan scored seven straight and ended up winning 14–8, while San Diego scored ten in a row and won 13–7. On Saturday, Oshawa also had a 4–2 lead after one quarter, and a 6–5 lead at the half, but lost to the Desert Dogs 16–13.

Technically, we should include Georgia and Rochester here as well, since each of them had a 1–0 lead in their games. Halifax lost by four and Rochester lost by ten.

This was not a problem for the Mammoth or Rock, neither of whom ever trailed in their big wins.

Penalties that are never called

In the NLL rule book, there is a rule 80.7, which states “A player who removes his equipment prior to or during a fight on his own accord shall be assessed a minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct”. I have never heard of a player being given this penalty, which is weird considering just about every fight begins with players dropping their gloves and oftentimes their helmets. I’m curious why this rule is in the rule book at all.

The weirdest part of this is the very next rule in the book, 80.8, which states “Any player who instigates a fight with a face mask on against an opponent who already has his facemask off will be deemed an instigator.” First off, the rule uses both “face mask” (two words) and “facemask” (one word). Secondly, anyone who instigates a fight is right away an instigator. But language aside, this rule says that if you want to start a fight, you can’t have your facemask on. But the previous rule says you can’t take it off. There have been 12 fighting majors handed out so far this season, but none for violating either rule 80.7 or 80.8.

Vegas ownership

When the Desert Dogs team was announced, I was cautiously optimistic that having big name ownership (Tsai to some extent but definitely Dustin Johnson, Steve Nash, and Wayne Gretzky) would get the Desert Dogs name out there a lot more, basically raising awareness of the team and the league throughout the sports world. But I haven’t heard Johnson’s or Nash’s names at all since that announcement. Wayne has been mentioned at the couple of Gretzky jersey nights they’ve held but hasn’t shown up – in fact, someone told me on Twitter that the “apologies for not being there” video from Wayne that they played might have been the same one as they played in a previous year.

As far as I know, none of them have made any appearances at Desert Dogs games. They’ve all been silent partners. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic but I have to say it’s a bit disappointing.