Author Archives: Graeme

Defense wins championships – or does it?

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Offense wins games. Defense wins championships.

I’ve heard that quote in relation to lacrosse, football, and basketball, and it’s probably been applied in other sports as well. I know that a lot of Toronto Rock fans from the early 2000’s believed it, but is it generally true? Let’s take a look at the NLL Champions from 1987 to 2011, covering 25 seasons. Don’t worry, this isn’t nearly the propeller-head stats-fest that my article on back-to-back games was.

I went through each Championship team and calculated their rank in the league that year in terms of both goals scored and goals against. Just so we’re clear, “first” in goals scored is the highest amount, while “first” in goals against is the lowest. That’s fairly basic and obvious stuff, but I wanted to spell it out to avoid any misunderstandings. I’m going to ignore the absolute value of goals for and against, mainly because a different number of games were played in different seasons. Using the rank rather than the value factors that out, as well as other differences like rule changes. I’ll look at goal scoring trends in the NLL in a future article.

The “rank” I’m using for a given team is “1 plus the number of teams that are ahead of the team in question”. So if two teams scored more goals than the team I’m looking at, they are ranked third. If another team scored the same number of goals, then the team I’m looking at was actually tied for third, but I’m ignoring that – tied or not, they still had the third-highest total.

Before we get to the general trends, here are the extremes. In the 25 years of the NLL, only once has the Championship winner been both #1 in goals scored and #1 in goals against – the 1994 Philadelphia Wings. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2003 Rock were ninth in goals scored (they scored 36 fewer goals than the #1 Bandits that year), but first in goals against. The 2007 Knighthawks were the exact opposite – first in goals scored (scoring 30 more goals than anyone else) but ninth in goals against.

If defense wins championships, then it stands to reason that most Championship teams would rank higher in goals against than they would in goals scored. But we don’t find that to be the case. Out of 25 seasons, 12 of the Champions (or 48%) ranked first in the league in goals scored, but only 8 (32%) ranked first in goals against. The average rank for goals scored is 2.6 while the average rank for goals against is 3.1. This means that on average, the Championship team is closer to the top of the league in goals scored than they are in goals against, i.e. most Championship teams are better offensively than they are defensively. Defense does not win championships.

But there was a period where it did. From 1998 to 2003, the Rock won four titles and the Wings won two. Only one of those teams – the 2001 Wings – was not first in the league in goals against, and only those same Wings were as high as third in goals scored. The Rock Championship teams in 1999-2000 and 2002-2003 were 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th respectively in goals scored. But before that period, the top defensive team had only won the Championship once, the 1994 Wings, and it’s only happened once since, the 2009 Roughnecks. On the other hand, from 1988 to 1996, every Champion except one (the 1990 Wings) was first in goals scored. It didn’t happen again until the 2005 Rock, but then it happened in five of the next seven years.

Here’s a graph of the ranks of the Championship teams in both goals scored (blue) and goals against (red). Notice how the blue line stays low until about 1997, then jumps up for a few years before dropping back down again. At the same time, the red line is higher during the 90’s, then drops down to the bottom while the blue line is high, then grows again when the blue one drops. That inversion was the Les Bartley era in Toronto.

GF-GA

Generally, the NLL Champions have been better offensively than defensively. But as we’ve seen, from about 1998 to 2003, that trend was reversed. Of those six seasons, the Toronto Rock under Les Bartley won four Championships – and lost a fifth to the Wings in a low-scoring defensive game. This is one reason Bartley was so well-respected – not only because he led the Bandits to the only undefeated season in NLL history, but because he bucked the trend and built a team that was a defensive powerhouse rather than offensive, and was exceptionally successful doing it.

This is not to say that you don’t need a good defense to win, of course you do. And it’s not to say that you can’t win with a great defense and adequate offense. It’s just happened far more often in the past the other way around.

Week 16 picks

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Two weeks ago, I went undefeated. This past weekend, I was nothing but defeated. Another 0-fer weekend, though it is only my second, and the first was only one game. But still. It’s no longer possible for me to finish at or above .500 on the season; the best I can do is 4 games under, and that’s if I win out.

Record: 25-38 (.397)

Game

Comments

Pick
EDM @ COL I had a bad feeling picking the Rock over the Mammoth last week. It’s like the “Rock fan” part of my brain kept yelling “Go Rock Go! We can do it!” and some of the “unbiased blogger” part said “The Rock do have the talent to beat anyone, and Nick Rose played really well in his first 3 starts, sure they could do it!” But there was another part yelling from the other room “HELLO?! John Grant – does that name ring a bell? Levis? Prout? Jones? Allen? Ten wins?” Should have listened to that guy. This week he’s yelling even louder. Mammoth
TOR @ WAS Nobody knows what to make of Washington. I keep hearing (and I agree) that they have too much talent to be losing this often, but it’s no longer a couple of bad games in row. They’re 4-10 and still in dead last. And yes, one of those four wins was a convincing victory against the Rock. But the Rock were without Blaine Manning and Colin Doyle and had Matt Roik in net. They’re a different team now. Rock
ROC @ BUF I’ve given up on the Bandits this year. During their six-game losing streak, I decided they’d have to show me that they could play good lacrosse before I’d pick them again. Then they did, and so I picked them again. And then they sucked again and I went back to not picking them. And then they kicked Philadelphia’s butt and I picked them against the Rush. But then they lost again. I can’t figure these guys out at all. I’m done. Knighthawks
CAL @ EDM Sorry Rush, you’re in for a rough weekend. First the Mammoth on Friday and then the Roughnecks on Saturday. The two best teams in the league on back-to-back days. Part of me thinks that after getting beaten by the Mammoth on Friday night, the Rush will be even more motivated to beat the Roughnecks in Edmonton. But then there’s that guy in the other room yelling “HELLO?! Shattler? Dickson? Ranger? Eleven wins?” If Mike Poulin returns to the net, this game is Calgary’s to lose. If he’s still out, the Rush could pull off the upset, but again I have to play the odds. Roughnecks
PHI @ MIN The Swarm went through a four-game losing streak in the middle of the season, including losing to the lowly Bandits and getting blown away by the Stealth. But they’ve rebounded nicely and have won two in a row, one of which was over these same Philadelphia Wings. The Wings, on the other hand, have lost three in a row with a stinker against the Bandits two weeks ago. The fact that the Swarm have already clinched a playoff spot will boost their confidence, and having Ryan Benesch back will boost them even further. Swarm

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4
Week 11 – 1-2
Week 12 – 1-5
Week 13 – 5-0
Week 14 – 2-2
Week 15 – 0-4

Separated at birth?

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My family enjoys the show Once Upon A Time, and we look forward to watching it together every Sunday evening. But when I first saw the show, I decided that David/Prince “Charming” James (played by Josh Dallas) looked a lot like John Grant. Now I can’t unsee this.

Josh-Dallas1 JohnGrant2
Josh Dallas John Grant, Jr.

A number of years ago, I noticed another similarity:

tobey josh
Tobey Maguire Josh Sanderson

Game report: Toronto 12 @ Colorado 19

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The Toronto Rock had some trouble getting to Colorado on Friday, after their flight to Denver was cancelled. After some scrambling, they managed to switch not only airlines but airports and made it on time. In retrospect, it might have been better if they hadn’t arrived at all. The Rock were smoked by the Mammoth 19-12 in a game the Rock were only really in for the first five minutes. Nick Rose did not have a great game at all, and Colorado was great in every aspect of the game. They were scoring, played great defense, had fantastic goaltending, and a loud crowd. Even the girls in the hot tub were great. Of course, they’d be great even if all they did was just sit there wearing bikinis with their feet in the hot tub. Which is all they did do. But they were great at it. I digress.

The game was broadcast live on the CBS Sports Network, with former MLL player Matt Damon Mikey “Don’t call me Mike” Powell doing the colour commentary and (I think) Jason Knapp doing play by play. Knapp was pretty good, though he made a few newbie mistakes, getting names wrong (“Jesse Campbell” instead of “Gamble”) and such. I’ve seen far worse watching the NLL on TV, believe me. But I thought Mikey Powell was very good. There were a few “um”s and “uh”s but for the most part, he sounded like a natural and obviously knows the game well enough. He’s been a big field lacrosse star for years but never played the indoor game, though his brothers (Ryan and former NLL MVP Casey) did. He did talk about the field and college experience of many of the players a lot more than was likely necessary, because that’s what he knows. Powell even explained why he never played the indoor game – he needs a lot of room to run around to play the way he does, and that’s just not possible in the indoor game because of the confined space. Makes sense, I guess. Still, you’d think with his level of skill, he’d be able to adapt pretty quickly and even if he couldn’t play exactly the same way as in field, he’d still be pretty good.

GrantDoyle

But back to the game itself. The Rock led off the scoring, with Stephan Leblanc scoring his first of four on the night only 22 seconds into the first quarter. Exactly four minutes later, it was 4-1 Mammoth. The Mammoth scoring their goals in bunches was a trend that would continue all night – they had streaks of 2, 3, 4, and 5 goals while the Rock scored two in a row only twice. There was only one case where the Rock scored two goals within two minutes, and in that case the Mammoth scored in between them. The Rock were desperately trying to get on a four- or five-goal run of their own, but Chris Levis was stellar in the Mammoth net and shut down any attempts at momentum. By the end of the game, it was obvious that the Rock were becoming desperate – a couple of times while shorthanded, they’d come rushing down on a possession change and try for a quick transition goal. Um guys? You’re killing a penalty, remember? Unless you have a breakaway or damned good transition chance, you want to take full advantage of your shot clock to kill time. Instead, the time they killed was the time it took to run down the floor and back. Some of the defensive players didn’t even have time to get off the floor.

So Nick Rose. What can I say about him? His first three games were great, though I wouldn’t say he was really tested much. In the Buffalo game he made some big saves, gave up some big rebounds and then made the second save as well, though I might have preferred that he not give up the big rebound in the first place. In Saturday’s game, there were few rebounds because most of the shots went in the first time. He couldn’t make the second big save because he didn’t make the first one. I do remember one great save with a big rebound, which someone (Lincoln?) easily grabbed and converted. He just didn’t seem to be seeing the ball very well at all. Rose was pulled in the first for Pat Campbell, who always makes me nervous when he plays. Not because I have no confidence in him, because I do, but because he makes seemingly routine saves look less routine. He seems to flop around and sweep his hand behind him and fall on the ball and such more often than many other goalies. But hey, if it gets the job done, go nuts. Rose was brought back in in the second and finished the game. He was actually starting to look pretty good in the third and fourth, and only allowed two goals in the fourth quarter. But it was a little late by that point.

It’s gotta be tough being Kasey Beirnes. First, you get pounded on a lot because you get into the corners digging for loose balls and setting picks for your teammates who score the big goals. Second, you’d likely be a top 3 or 4 scorer on half the teams in the league, but you end up behind the likes of Leblanc, Billings, Doyle, Sanderson, and Manning. Hey Kasey, just so’s ya know, you are appreciated.

There was an interesting play by Chris Levis – a Rock player ran around behind the net, and Levis left the crease to slam him into the boards. Levis’ helmet managed to get knocked off and luckily, he’s smart enough not to get back in front of the net without a helmet. This led to an easy Rock goal. The rule book says that:

When a player loses his helmet, the player must immediately either re-assemble his helmet while in the game or leave the floor. 

Levis did neither. He just stood behind the net, seemingly unsure what to do. I imagine he would have been given a penalty if he picked up the ball.

Other game notes:

  • At one point, Mac Allen was chirping at Colin Doyle, and Doyle cross-checked him across the chest a number of times. Allen never backed away and never stopped yelling at Doyle, who hit him a few more times. Eventually the two separated, but this was a smart play by Allen. Didn’t throw a punch or swing a stick, so there was no chance of his getting a penalty, but he almost forced Doyle to take one.
  • Gavin Prout ranks just above the Evans brothers for me. Great player, lots of skill, wouldn’t mind having him on our team (I guess), but he’s a bit of a prick. He scored a goal in the first to tie up the game, and then did this idiotic swagger behind the net. There are situations where I can see a player doing that – if he’s been frustrated all night and then scores a meaningful late goal perhaps, or if his team comes back from a huge deficit and has been listening to trash talk all game, but this was less than a minute into the first quarter.
  • When the Rock changed goalies, there were what sounded like chicken sounds being played over the PA. I’m all for fun jabs at the other team over the PA, but that seemed, I don’t know, less than classy somehow. Playing Yakety Sax while the Rock were on offense was pretty funny though. 
  • Colin Doyle tied Gary Gait on the all-time points list with 1165. Only 450 to go to catch John Tavares! Except JT is still playing. And has more points than Doyle this year.
  • What was with all the face-offs away from centre? Did the refs lose track of the ball that many times?

Other broadcast notes:

  • Mikey Powell did a little on-field demonstration of playing near the net – with a long cable trailing behind him. Surely CBS could have splurged for a wireless microphone.
  • “Prout, in his second year in a Mammoth uniform”. Yeah, in this go-round. You missed the six seasons he spent previously with the Mammoth.
  • They need to get rid of the little mini-interviews with players during play. Nobody is going to watch the interview rather than the game (listening to it would have been fine) so the little video window is not only useless but distracting and covered up part of the play. Also in most cases the player was out of breath anyway, and in at least one case (Sean Pollock in the first) it looked like the player would rather have been watching the play than just giving the standard “yeah, I scored a goal but we’re still looking for the W, that’s the main thing” answer.
  • Nick Rose was described as “he’s a stopper. He stops the ball.” As opposed to what? Maybe “stopper” is one form of goalie, while there are other forms, like a “power pitcher” vs. a “finesse pitcher” in baseball, but I’ve never heard this term.

Week 15 Picks

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I had it. I freaking had it. I originally picked Minnesota to beat the Wings last week, and then realized that Ryan Benesch was still hurt, and I changed my pick. I was all ready for a last minute “Benesch is in the lineup after all!” win by Minnesota, and what happened? The Swarm still won without Benny. I guess the Swarm found my lack of faith disturbing. I have paid the price for my lack of vision.

Of course, what are the odds that someone took a screen shot of my picks from last week and timestamped it, showing the way the page was at game time? I could easily change and re-publish the article, then claim that I changed it back before the games. But I won’t do that. Damn you, integrity, damn you all to hell. You’re always getting in the way.

All four games this week are brutal. There isn’t a single game this week that’s even close to an easy pick. I thought Calgary over Rochester was a relatively easy one last week, but Rochester made it close which makes their rematch this week in Rochester tougher to pick. Toronto and Colorado are both near the top of their divisions, while the games in Edmonton and Minnesota involve four teams fighting for a playoff spot.

Record: 25-34 (.424)

Game

Comments

Pick
TOR @ COL This will be a tough game for both teams, no question. With Grant on one side and Billings on the other, don’t expect a 8-7 final. This will be the first real test for Nick Rose as a starter. But the Rock are healthy, firing on all cylinders, and have tons of confidence. When they play like that, the defending champs can beat anybody. Rock
BUF @ EDM I have no idea what to do about Bandits games. They either play really well or really badly, but Cosmo’s performance last weekend (and that of the whole team) has to give them some confidence. They held Philly to only 7 goals, and Philly has a better offense than Edmonton. Edmonton has a better defense than the Wings, but Buffalo shouldn’t need 17 goals to win. Bandits
WAS @ MIN I waffled on this one the most. In their last 6 games or so, the Stealth have been playing a lot more like I expected them to at the beginning of the year. They kicked the Swarm all over the place a couple of weeks ago, and lost a close one to the Roughnecks the week after. I’ve only picked Minnesota in 3 games this year, but they have yet to win when I pick them. Sorry Swarm. Stealth
CAL @ ROC As I said, a much harder pick this week based on last week’s game between these two, but I still think Calgary’s #1 in the league so I gotta go with them. Roughnecks

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4
Week 11 – 1-2
Week 12 – 1-5
Week 13 – 5-0
Week 14 – 2-2

What you need to know to win in the playoffs

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Only one team can win the Championship and given both the parity in the NLL this year and the one-and-done playoff format, it’s possible for anyone who makes the playoffs to win it all. So far, nobody has been eliminated from the playoff race, and it’s looking more and more like that outcome won’t be decided until the final weekend. Every team has their strengths and weaknesses, and opposing teams will be focussing on how they can exploit those weaknesses. What will it take for each team to reach the pinnacle of the NLL, and what will it take to shut each team down?

Calgary Roughnecks

The Roughnecks have to make sure their offense isn’t neutralized by a tough defense. Because all you have to do to be successful against the ‘Necks is shut down Shattler and Ranger and Dickson and Veltman and Evans and Dobbie and Conway and Toth and Snider and Cornwall. Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is score a bunch of goals on the best defense in the league and you’re golden.

Colorado Mammoth

Obviously, this year’s MVP favourite John Grant needs to be the focus for opposing teams. The Mammoth have proven that they can win without him but in the playoffs, his presence is vital. This is, of course, assuming that he’s not out rescuing kittens from trees, reducing crime in the greater Denver area, performing delicate life-saving surgery, or leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

Edmonton Rush

If you’re defending against the Rush in the playoffs, get near the Rush player with the ball. Then remind him that he plays for a team based in the “City of Champions” and as such, he has a high standard to uphold. His uncontrollable laughter should allow you to strip the ball from him for a quick transition chance.

Minnesota Swarm

Many people picked the Swarm to miss the playoffs because of all the unproven rookies on the team, but those rookies have played better than anyone expected. Now they have to see if they can handle the pressures of the NLL playoffs. But first they have to get their social studies homework finished and get some work done on those science fair projects. Good thing the games don’t happen on school nights.

Washington Stealth

Whispering “Bruce Urban” when standing close to Athan Iannucci should get him rattled and reduce his effectiveness. Also, if the game goes to overtime, pretty much your only chance is to go all Tonya Harding on Rhys Duch.

Buffalo Bandits

John Tavares is 43, and so this may be his last season in the NLL. I’m sure his teammates would love to see him go out the way Bob Watson did, winning a Championship in his last game, so they’ll be playing extra hard for JT. Of course, many people have wondered “Is this Tavares’ last season?” for about five years now, and the way he played this year, the pressure to win now “for JT” is reduced. They might consider “win now for Darris”. Actually, they might want to think about “Win now for everyone but JT” because if they don’t win this year, he may be the only current Bandit left on the roster next season.

Philadelphia Wings

Shutting down the strong right side of the Wings’ offense is the key to beating the Wings, so you need to send your biggest, strongest defenders out against them. When they’re facing the likes of Crowley, Dawson, and Westervelt, have your defenders just pound on their kneecaps until they fall down, then tie them to the ground with ropes.

Rochester Knighthawks

The Knighthawks have five players listed at 175 pounds or less. Kedoh Hill is listed at just 150. Mounting a strong fan behind your goalie should keep them from getting in too close, but NLL regulations may prevent that. Just get out there and use your body against them, they should be easy to push around. Unless you get too close to Sid Smith or Craig Point or, God forbid, Tim O’Brien. Note: if using this strategy, stay the hell away from Jake Henhawk.

Toronto Rock

I know I’m a Rock fan, but I’m going to be completely objective here. The key to shutting the Rock down is Stephen Leblanc. He was the 2010 Rookie of the Year and also had a great 2011 campaign, and if John Grant wasn’t having such a great season, who knows how many MVP votes Leblanc might have gotten this year. He’s the real backbone of the Rock offense, and all opposing defenders should really focus on him and ignore everyone else. Especially Doyle. And Billings – totally leave him open alone.

Game Report: Edmonton 8 @ Toronto 12

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The Edmonton Rush had never won in Toronto going into Saturday night’s game. But the Rush that played on Saturday was quite different from those previous teams, including a new captain, new forwards, new defenders, and a new goalie. None of those changes was enough to break the streak though, as the Rock beat the Rush 12-8 to clinch a berth in the playoffs.

The game featured the return of two of Toronto’s offensive stars: Josh Sanderson, who had missed two games with an upper body injury, and Blaine Manning who has missed most of the season after breaking his collarbone in the second game of the year. Both were involved in the scoring, Josh with a goal and Manning with a goal (his 800th point in the NLL) and an assist. But then again, almost everyone was involved in the scoring – there were ten different Rock goal scorers and four others got assists. Garrett Billings, who would be a strong MVP candidate were it not for one John C. Grant Jr. in Colorado, scored the Rock’s first goal and added six assists, and Colin Doyle continued his strong play after returning from injury with a hat-trick (Toronto’s only multiple-goal scorer) and two assists.

While it was awesome that Billings was involved in every Rock goals in last week’s game, it did mean (and Billings pointed this out himself in an interview) that there were zero transition goals scored by the Rock in that game. That changed in a big way this week, as the Rock scored four on transition, all in the second, including three in a row. Rob Marshall’s was a beauty, as he and Blaine Manning came in on a 2-on-1. It looked like Marshall was just waiting for the right moment to pass to Manning and then he shot it himself, top corner. Manning didn’t get an assist because he didn’t touch the ball, but he deserved a virtual one.

Nick Rose allowed two goals in the first 4 1/2 minutes of the game, and I’m sure that was not how he wanted to show the Toronto fans what he could do in his home debut. But he settled down nicely after that, only allowing one more goal until over half way through the third quarter. But I’m sure I heard a few boos from the crowd on the Rush’s third and fourth goals (at 7:35 of the 2nd and 8:13 of the third respectively). Rose has allowed four goals in 3 1/2 quarters (after allowing less than 10 goals in each of this first two games, both wins), and you’re booing him? WTF, people? He (and the defense, it wasn’t entirely Rose’s fault) did allow the Rush to get back in it, as they scored five in a row. But those five took place over more than a quarter of play, so it’s not like he fell apart. The five straight Edmonton goals were as much a fault of the offense as the defense – Toronto went over 19 minutes without scoring in the third and fourth.

In the second and early third, the Rock scored nine straight to go from losing 3-2 to up 11-3. But before and after this streak, the Edmonton defense was stifling. Nobody could get near the net or get any decent shots on Bold. The Edmonton transition was pretty impressive as well, though not as successful as Toronto’s. Derek Suddons scored the opening goal, and Chris Corbeil scored from Bold in the third. And man, that Jeff Cornwall is fast. Didn’t see much of Steve Toll in the first half and just as I pointed out to someone that Toll hadn’t played much, we saw him on the floor and he intercepted a pass (one of at least five for both teams on the night), a skill he has always excelled at.

Every team makes errant passes now and again; nobody has pinpoint accuracy 100% of the time. But there were at least two made by the Rock to which”errant” just doesn’t do justice. Phil Sanderson had the ball in his own end and started up the floor. Brenden Thenhaus came off the bench and expected the pass, but it never came. Then Billings came off the bench and didn’t expect the pass, but Sanderson passed to him anyway. But even if Billings had been paying attention, the pass was ten feet away from him. Chris Corbeil grabbed it, passed to Derek Suddons, who passed to Ryan Ward who scored. Later on, Colin Doyle passed across the floor to Stephan Leblanc and again, even if Leblanc had seen the pass it still would have been way too far away for him to catch. Those are the kinds of plays you expect to see in the first game of the year, not the thirteenth by a team battling for first place.

Special teams didn’t come into play much. There were only six power plays by both teams all night, with the Rock scoring two PP goals and the Rush one. One of the Toronto goals could be attributed directly to Tyler Codron; Codron was hit by (I think) Billings, who was called for a moving pick. As the possession change occurred, Billings turned around and ran towards the Rock bench, only to be blatantly cross-checked from behind by Codron. It was a selfish retaliatory penalty by a team that had been disciplined all night, and 16 seconds later, Blaine Manning made him pay by scoring his first goal in almost three months.

It was announced before the game that the Rock needed to win and Buffalo needed to lose in order for the Rock to clinch a playoff spot but later on (after the Bandits won), the Rock tweeted that they had indeed clinched a spot. I’m guessing that somehow, a scenario that would allow them to clinch without a Buffalo loss was missed. Edmonton has a more difficult road to the playoffs – they basically have to keep pace with the Stealth as they own the tiebreaker with Washington. But Edmonton has the tougher schedule remaining, with games against Buffalo, Colorado, Calgary, and another against Toronto while Washington takes on Minnesota, Toronto, and Buffalo.

Other game notes:

  • After the debacle with the anthem at the last game, the Rock went with a sure thing this time, bringing out a 7-year-old girl to sing the anthem. Who’s gonna boo a 7-year-old? Sure enough, there was no booing, and the little girl did a very good job singing in front of 14,000 people. While she was walking off the floor after the anthem, Colin Doyle ran up to her to tell her she did a great job. Classy move by the captain.
  • Former Rock players on the Rush: Williams, Wilson, Codron, Suddons, Steve Toll, Dilks, Quinlan.
  • There were three guys sitting about 7 rows ahead of me with three different NLL jerseys – Ravens, Blazers, and one from an All-Star game. Don’t remember the last time I saw a Ravens jersey.
  • Holy crap, is Brodie MacDonald big. When standing in front of the net, the top of the net was at his elbows.
  • One fight in the game: Rookie Jesse Gamble and Aaron Wilson?!
  • There was one goaltender equipment check, shortly after Brodie MacDonald replaced Aaron Bold in the Rush net. A few minutes later, Bold was back in. A tweet I saw presented without comment: “Did Edmonton pull Bold just for the equipment checks?”
  • I’ve read this about hockey, but it seems to apply even more so to lacrosse. We always hear about lacrosse players being one big family and there’s so much respect among the players, and everyone is just overflowing with integrity. So why do they use the intentionally-vague terms “upper-body injury” and “lower-body injury” so often? Other than avoiding embarrassment, (“Joe Quicksticks is out of the game tonight because of hemorrhoids”), the only reason to use those vague terms is to avoid targeting: If everyone knows that Joe’s left shoulder is hurt, they might try to hit him extra hard in that shoulder. But surely these players with so much integrity wouldn’t try to intentionally hurt their “brother”, would they?

Week 14 picks

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Wow. A week after saying “Do I ever suck at this game prediction thing”, I had my first above-.500 weekend of the season, a 5-0 sweep. I checked each game with my predictions several times to be sure. So reaching .500 on the season is still possible, and I only have to go 13-4 the rest of the way to do it!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. I just gotta take it one game at a time. While I’m at it, I’ll give it 110%, step up my play, and make sure bring my A-game because you know there’s no I in team!

Record: 23-32 (.418)

Game

Comments

Pick
ROC @ CAL Calgary is now the #1 team in the league, and they are fighting for home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Rochester could still miss the playoffs, but they are in less danger of that than the Bandits, Rush, or Stealth. Going with the ‘Necks here. Calgary is just too strong. Roughnecks
MIN @ PHI I had a really tough time on this one. In fact I originally posted this article with the Swarm logo in this spot. But I was then reminded about Ryan Benesch’s injury – he missed last weekend’s games with a concussion and I somehow forgot that. My original prediction said that “I imagine Evan Kirk will be starting … and he’s been simply awesome this year” which is true but without Benesch, the Swarm will have a tougher time getting by the strong defense of the Wings. Wings
PHI @ BUF As always, it depends which Bandits team shows up. If it’s the one that pounded the Rock a couple of weeks ago, then they can beat Philly. But if it’s the one that we’ve seen more often than not this year, this should be an easy win for the Wings. Wings
EDM @ TOR The Rush have never won in Toronto, and have been struggling to find offense all season while the Rock seem to have found a groove and have won two straight. Rock

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4
Week 11 – 1-2
Week 12 – 1-5
Week 13 – 5-0

Could happen…

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As of now, three teams have already clinched playoff berths: Colorado, Calgary, and Philadelphia. But given the parity in the NLL this season, it’s far from settled who else will make it. Here are a few scenarios that could still happen:

Bandits win the East

Buffalo is having one of the worst seasons in its history but unbelievably, they could still win the East Division. If the Bandits win their four remaining games, they end up at 8-8. They already own the tiebreaker with the Rock and if they win out, they’ll own the Knighthawks one as well. As long as the Rock win no more than twice and the Knighthawks don’t win out, the Bandits finish no worse than second. The Wings own the tiebreaker with the Bandits so if they win even once more, the Bandits can’t catch them. But if they lose out, the Bandits win the east outright. Not bad for a pathetic stupid team with no heart.

Knighthawks win the East

If the Knighthawks win out and Philly loses twice, they end up tied at 9-7, with Rochester owning the tiebreaker. As long as the Rock don’t win three times, the Knighthawk win the East.

Rock miss the playoffs

If the Rock lose their last four, they end up 6-10. As long as Buffalo and Rochester each win twice, the Rock finish last in the East. If Minnesota beats Philly twice, Edmonton beats Toronto twice and Calgary once, and Washington beats Minnesota, Toronto, and Buffalo, they all finish at 7-9 and the Rock are out.

Philly finishes last in the East

If Philly loses out, they end up 7-9. If the Rock beat Edmonton twice, they have 8 wins. Rochester will get a win against Philly and if they beat Calgary twice, they’ll also have 8 wins. If Buffalo wins out, they finish with 8 wins too, and the Wings are last. As I said, the Wings have already clinched the playoffs; in this scenario, Edmonton will lose three more games, putting them at 6-10.

The Wild Wild West

Calgary and Colorado have locked up first and second in the West – each has 10 wins and nobody else can end up with more than 9. But I think there are scenarios where each of Edmonton, Minnesota, and Washington can come in third, fourth, or fifth, and in some of those cases, fifth place will cross over and make the playoffs.

Are back-to-back games a disadvantage in the NLL?

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In a recent article on IL Indoor, Teddy Jenner examined the teams that have played back-to-back games this season. He discovered that more than two thirds of the teams that had two games in a weekend won the second of those games. The results were better for teams playing at home on the second night and less so if playing away.

Those are pretty interesting numbers, but they only cover three-quarters of one season. If only we had such statistics on previous seasons – but for that we’d need information on all previous NLL games. But wait! We have that! Let’s fire up Graeme’s Super-Amazing Magic NLL Statistical Database-inator™!

I did some queries looking for two games involving one team played within 3 days of each other. This will include not only games on consecutive days, but also games played on Friday and Sunday of the same weekend. I ended up doing four queries: the team in question plays at home both games; away both games; home first and then away; and away first and then home. I then combined these numbers for the aggregate record. We’ll deal with home-and-home series (i.e. both games involved the same two teams) below.

If you’re not interested in the raw numbers or statistical analysis, click here to skip to the conclusions.

The Numbers

From 1987 to 2011, I found 394 instances where a team played more than one game in a weekend. Here are the numbers:

Type Games Win-Win Win-Loss Loss-Win Loss-Loss
Home-Home 5 1 1 2 1
Home-Away 166 44 44 33 45
Away-Home 148 45 26 38 39
Away-Away 75 12 18 20 25
Totals 394 102 89 93 110
Totals (%)   25.9% 22.6% 23.6% 27.9%

Strangely, teams have played two home games in the same weekend only 5 times, but teams have played two away games 75 times. The percentage totals show that when a team played two games in a weekend, the most common scenario is that they lost both games. Winning the first and losing the second is the least common.

Looking at the numbers a different way:

Type Wins first game Wins second game
Home-Home 2 3
Home-Away 88 77
Away-Home 71 83
Away-Away 30 32
Totals 191 (48.5%) 195 (49.5)
Home Totals 90 (52.6%) 86 (56.2%)
Away Totals 101 (45.3%) 109 (45.2%)

So 48.5% of the time, the team won the first of back-to-back games, and 49.5% of the time, they won the second. Unsurprisingly (?), the numbers are better at home.

But the real question is not “what was the most common outcome of such series?” but “can we make inferences or predictions based on past behaviour?” To answer that question, we must do some statistical analysis.

Statistical analysis

Here’s where we get into the stats stuff a little more. Don’t worry if you’re not a stats geek, I’m not going to describe the tests I did in great detail or describe how or why they work, primarily because I have no idea. (Or more accurately, I don’t remember since it’s been over twenty years since I studied this stuff.)

Our default assumption, or “null hypothesis”, is that each of the four outcomes of a two-game series (win-win, win-loss, loss-win, loss-loss) is equally likely. Basically, we make no assumptions that there are any patterns of any kind, and let the numbers tell us if we’re wrong. Our observed values are shown in the chart above, so we want to see whether the differences between those values and the values that our null hypothesis would predict are statistically significant.

As an analogy, say we flipped a coin 100 times. Our null hypothesis is that each outcome is equally likely (i.e. our coin is fair), so we’d expect 50 heads and 50 tails. If our actual results were 52 and 48, that’s likely to be close enough for us to conclude that our null hypothesis is probably correct. If our results were 70-30, we’d reject our null hypothesis and decide that one outcome is more likely than the other, and so we likely (the numbers can’t conclusively prove anything) have a rigged coin. But what if the numbers were 58-42? Is that close enough to 50-50 for the differences to be insignificant, or is it more likely that your coin is unfair?

We can use a test called the chi-squared test to calculate the probability that the differences between a group of observed results and the expected results are due solely to chance, or if it’s more likely that there’s something else involved causing the differences. I calculated (well, Microsoft Excel calculated) this probability using the chi-squared test, though I omitted the Home-Home row because all of the expected values were too low. (Chi-squared doesn’t work very well for expected values below 5.) The p-value calculated was 0.059793, or about 5.98%. What this means is that the probability that the values we observed would have been observed if our null hypothesis was true is almost 6%. To be considered statistically significant enough to reject our null hypothesis, this value should be less than 5%.

The long and the short of is it that we cannot reject our null hypothesis. The numbers do not indicate that playing two games in a weekend has an effect on the likelihood of winning either one. Playing two games in a weekend is no different than playing two games a week apart.

Home-and-home

Now let’s look at home-and-home series. Note that there has never been a weekend where two teams played each other twice in the same location, so we’re only dealing with each team playing one game at home and one away. There are four possibilities here: a split where the home team wins both games, a split where the away team wins both games, a sweep where the home team wins the first game, and a sweep where the away team wins the first game. There have been 53 such series’ in NLL history (1987-2011):

Type Games
Sweep – Home, Away 16
Sweep – Away, Home 16
Split – Home wins 12
Split – Away wins 9
Totals 53

The most common occurrences have been sweeps, but after applying the same chi-squared test as above, I came up with the p-value number of 0.453534, or about 45.4%. This is way over the 5% required to be statistically significant so these numbers really tell us nothing, likely because of the small sample size. Similarly, the numbers do not indicate that any outcome of a home-and-home series is more likely than any other.

Conclusions 

To summarize the conclusions I’ve drawn above:

  • The evidence does not indicate that playing two games in the same weekend affects the likelihood of winning either game.
  • The evidence does not indicate that any of the four possibilities of a home-and-home series is more likely than any other.

A team playing two games in a weekend is no different than that team playing two games a week apart. The numbers tell us that it simply doesn’t matter. There are always going to be outliers, but for every team that loses the second game because they’re tired, there’s another team that’s energized from playing the night before.

Just to be clear, these numbers don’t tell us that there is no pattern. They simply say that the data does not indicate a pattern. It also tells us that we can’t use the numbers to make predictions; in the past when a team played two games in a weekend, the most common outcome was that they’d lose both games. This does not mean that in the future when a team plays two games in a weekend, they are more likely to lose both than any other outcome.

Many thanks to Dan Shirley from In Lax We Trust (and a math undergrad at Washington State University – go Cougars!) for his help in interpreting the statistics.