Gavin Prout – the Knighthawk?

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Graeme

Gavin Prout spent two seasons in New York and then six in Colorado, the last five as captain of the Mammoth, averaging 84 points per season. So it was a bit of a shock in Colorado, and throughout the NLL world, when he was traded in 2009 to the Edmonton Rush. He played with the Rush for the 2010 season and about half of 2011 before being traded back to the Mammoth. But something that many people, myself included until recently, don’t remember about Prout being traded from the Mammoth to the Rush was that it never happened.

Prout, along with Andrew Potter, was traded from the Mammoth to the Rochester Knighthawks in 2009 for Ilija Gajic (some draft picks were involved as well). Potter had been sent to the Mammoth from the Knighthawks the previous year in the deal that brought Gary Gait out of retirement. Interesting that a guy that played all of five games in his NLL career was involved in two such significant trades. Anyway, two weeks later, the Knighthawks sent Prout and Dean Hill to the Rush for a first round draft pick. But the fact that Prout was a Knighthawk for a couple of off-season weeks is usually forgotten.

A number of other players also spend time on teams for which they never played. Here are just a few:

After the Boston Blazers folded, Anthony Cosmo and Josh Sanderson were both selected in the dispersal draft by the Minnesota Swarm. Before the first round of the draft had even ended, Sanderson had been traded to the Rock, while Cosmo sat out half of the next season before being traded to the Bandits.

Shawn Williams is another player who, like Sanderson, can measure the amount of time he spent on the Minnesota roster with a stopwatch. In July 2012, Williams was traded from the Rush to the Swarm for two second-round draft picks. The same day, he was sent off with Brendan Doran as well as the #5 overall pick in the 2012 draft and two other 2012 draft picks to Buffalo for the #3 overall pick. That seems to me like an expensive way to move up two positions – and in fact, it really only moved the Swarm up one position since they went from having picks #2, 4, and 5 to having picks #2, 3, and 4.

Paul Rabil might be the only player to have joined two separate organizations consecutively and never play for either of them. But this story begins six months before Rabil got involved. In the summer of 2011, the Wings traded Athan Iannucci, Alex Turner, Brodie MacDonald, and three first round draft picks to the Rush for Brodie Merrill, Dean Hill, Mike McLellan, and a couple of later draft picks. Nooch never signed with the Rush, and a month into the 2012 season, he was traded to the Stealth for Paul Rabil. Rabil also refused to sign with the Rush and sat out the rest of the 2012 season.

Almost a year after the original Iannucci trade, the Rush sent Rabil to the Knighthawks for Jarrett Davis, but Rabil never reported to Rochester either. Only a couple of weeks before the 2013 season began, he was sent to Philadelphia along with Jordan Hall, Joel White, and Robbie Campbell in exchange for Dan Dawson, Paul Dawson, and a first round draft pick. Rabil is now happy in Philadelphia, and I’m pretty sure the Knighthawks were OK with what they got out of the deal.

But not every player was traded to a team they never played for. Here are some players who were drafted by teams they never played for:

Ilija Gajic, Rochester, 2009
Joel Dalgarno, Toronto, 2009
Craig Point, Boston, 2007
Ryan Benesch, San Jose, 2006
Blaine Manning, Calgary, 2001
Geoff Snider, Vancouver, 2001 (he opted to return to university and was drafted again by the Wings in 2006)
Tom Marechek, Buffalo, 1992
John Tavares, Detroit, 1991 (and not until the third round!)

I’m sure there are plenty of others. Leave a comment if I missed any!

The top 10 one-team NLL players

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Graeme

Last week, Down Goes Brown did a post (actually on Grantland.com) called The 10 Greatest One-Team NHL Players. Since DGB is unlikely to cover lacrosse anytime soon, I decided to do it myself. Given that there are fewer teams in the NLL, the history is much shorter, and there has been far more team movement than the NHL, there really aren’t all that many such players. If we restrict ourselves to players with more than 50 games in their NLL careers, all with a single team, we find that there are only 54 of them. But there are still some pretty good names on this list.

Incidentally, DGB is one of the funniest sports blogs anywhere. If you’re a hockey fan, I strongly recommend it.

So without further ado, here are the top 10 players who spent their entire NLL careers with one team. The number of games listed includes playoff games. I’m restricting the number of games played to 100 or more, since it’s not quite fair to put people like Cody Jamieson (54 games) or Garrett Billings (72 games) on this list so early in their careers.

10. Jeremy Hollenbeck, Rochester Knighthawks (127 games)

Hollenbeck played ten seasons with the Knighthawks, winning a Championship in 1997. In 2011, he was inducted into the Rochester Knighthawks Hall of Fame.

9. Dan Ladouceur, Toronto Rock (150 games)

In the early 2000’s, Laddy was one of the anchors of the best defense in the NLL, along with guys like Jim Veltman, Glenn Clark, Terry Bullen, and Pat Coyle. He even scored a goal or two here and there (I distinctly remember a breakaway where he ran up the floor frantically looking around for someone to pass to, then buried it himself), including one in the 2002 Championship game. At about 6’6″ he was an imposing figure and a good fighter too (see above, having a chat with Shawn Evans), though I did once see him dropped with one punch. In a 2002 fight in Toronto, Matt Green hit him with a shot to the jaw that knocked him unconscious.

I have heard rumours that the Rock were not allowed to trade Ladouceur because of his job as a Durham Regional police officer (I believe he’s on the SWAT team), but I confirmed with Laddy himself that it’s not true. He said they could have traded him at any time but they were a classy organization and worked with him.

8. Peter Jacobs, Philadelphia Wings (158 games)

As good a face-off guy as Geoff Snider is, he’s only matched Peter Jacobs’ high of 318 face-off wins in a season once. (The all-time record is 319 by Bob Snider in 2012.) Jacobs is also the only person not named Snider to ever have a face-off percentage above 70% for a season. Jacobs played 12 seasons for the Wings, winning just shy of 60% of almost 3,000 face-offs. He didn’t finish a single one of those seasons with a percentage below 50%.

7. Jake Bergey, Philadelphia Wings (142 games)

Bergey played ten seasons in Philly and won two Championships. He scored 50+ points six times, including 86 in 14 games in 2001. He’s currently second all-time in Wings goals, assists, and points.

In the 2007 expansion draft, he was chosen by the Boston Blazers, but was traded back to Philly before the season started. Then the Blazers sat out the 2008 season so there was another expansion draft. Bergey was chosen by Boston again, and again was traded back to the Wings. He has to be one of the few players who played for a single team his entire career and yet was traded twice.

6. Andrew McBride, Calgary Roughnecks (185 games)

McBride has played 11 seasons in Calgary, and has been the captain since Tracey Kelusky was traded after the 2010 season. He’s a defender, transition player, a fighter, an outstanding team leader, and you’ll never hear a more well-spoken guy during an interview. And when is Movember time of year, he is look like Borat.

5. Rich Kilgour, Buffalo Bandits (225 games)

Darris’ big brother was captain of the Bandits for 12 years, won four championships, had his number retired by the Bandits and is in the NLL Hall of Fame. Only one player personifies the Bandits better than Richie Kilgour and, well, we’ll get to him later.

4. Regy Thorpe, Rochester Knighthawks (217 games)

Regy Thorpe was a big tough defender who played an amazing fifteen seasons with the Knighthawks, beginning in 1995, the team’s first season in the league. He won two Championships and was captain of the 2007 Championship team. But most interestingly, he was the first player-GM in NLL history when he took the reins of the team and played in the 2009 season. His tenure as a GM only lasted one season before owner Curt Styres took over, but much to the chagrin of NLL scorers, Thorpe played one more season before retiring in 2010.

3. Blaine Manning, Toronto Rock (199 games)

Blaine Manning had a pretty successful start to his NLL career, winning championships in 3 of his first 4 seasons (2002, 2003, 2005) with the Toronto Rock. It kind of went downhill after that for a couple of years, but after The Rock GM Who Must Not Be Named was fired and Terry Sanderson was brought back, Manning was a big part of the rebuilding process that resulted in the 2011 NLL Championship. Long before Dan Dawson arrived in Boston, Manning was one of the original Big Three along with Colin Doyle and Josh Sanderson in Toronto. They peaked in 2005 when Doyle finished first overall in scoring, Manning tied with John Grant for second, and Sanderson tied with John Tavares for third – and all five of them finished with over 100 points.

I went on and on about Manning in an article right after he retired, so I won’t rehash all his stats here. Suffice it to say that Manning should be a lock for the NLL Hall of Fame once he is eligible.

2. Tom Marechek, Philadelphia Wings (161 games)

Tom “Hollywood” Marechek won four championships in 12 NLL seasons and was inducted into the NLL Hall of Fame in 2007. Marechek is the all-time Wings leader in both goals and assists, and is 8th all-time in the league in goals. But of the top goal-scorers in league history, only one player in the top 10 (and two in the top 25) have played fewer games than Marechek. The only players who averaged more goals per game than Marechek are Gary Gait, Paul Gait, John Grant, and John Tavares. Not bad company.

Hard to believe he’s only the third-best lacrosse player from Victoria, BC.

1. John Tavares, Buffalo Bandits (313 games)

No-brainer. Tavares is one of the best players ever to play in the NLL (many argue he is the best), and after 22 seasons with the Buffalo Bandits, there’s no argument who’s at the top of this list. Or most lists, for that matter.

Tavares owns pretty much every offensive NLL record, most of them by a mile. As of the end of the 2013 season, he has 778 career goals, ahead of second-place Gary Gait by 130 and ahead of third-place (and the closest still active player) John Grant by over 200. He has 887 assists, 108 more than Colin Doyle. He has 1665 points; if he retired today, second place Doyle couldn’t catch him even with four more 100 point seasons. He’s scored an amazing 5.95 points per game over his career, second only to John Grant’s 6.37. (Technically he’s also behind a guy named Gary Edmands with a career average of 6 – he scored 6 points in his only NLL game with the Bandits in 1996.)

Since Tavares is still active, the amazing numbers will just continue to climb.

Honourable mentions

Billy Dee Smith, Buffalo Bandits, 149 games
Pat McCabe, New York Saints, 119 games
Mike Carnegie, Calgary Roughnecks, 105 games
Kyle Sorensen, San Jose / Washington Stealth, 105 games (I know, two different teams but they’re the same franchise so it counts.)

Just under the radar

These guys didn’t quite make the 100 game limit, but I wanted to acknowledge them anyway.

Devan Wray, Calgary Roughnecks, 99 games
Jeff Zywicki, San Jose / Washington Stealth, 99 games
Sal LoCascio, New York Saints, 95 games

The Benesch trade: could both teams lose?

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Graeme

As you’ve heard by now, the Buffalo Bandits have acquired sniper Ryan Benesch and transition man Andrew Watt from the Swarm for two first round draft picks (2015, 2016) and a third round pick in 2017. This looks to be a great deal for the Bandits, who lose nobody from their roster while picking up two solid players including Benesch, a former rookie of the year and league scoring leader. It could also be great for the Swarm, who just love their first round draft picks. But it could also be a disaster for both.

The Swarm had four first round draft picks in 2012, and they have four more in 2013, including one of Buffalo’s (from the Cosmo deal). Now they have Buffalo’s first round picks for 2014 (Cosmo again), 2015, and 2016 as well as their own. This, plus Philadelphia’s 2015 pick from the Kevin Ross trade, gives them at least eleven first round picks over the next four drafts.

This is a bit of a strange deal for the Swarm, on the assumption that Benesch didn’t ask for a trade. As I said, they certainly love acquiring first round picks, but I’m not sure it makes sense to give up someone who’s a star now for draft picks. I get that first round picks are important and can change a franchise entirely (right Edmonton Rush and Pittsburgh Penguins? Or the 2013 Swarm for that matter), but the best-case scenario for the Swarm is that they are able to draft someone as good as Benesch. If Benny was 34 and one of those “still pretty good but on the downside of his career” players, it might make sense, but he’s only 28 and could easily be at or near the top of the league in scoring for the next five years or more. Even if the first of the draft picks they got results in the next Mark Matthews, they still have 2 full seasons of no Benesch and no Watt before then.

Ryan Benesch They do have four first-round picks this year, and if they want to get them all on the roster, then four players from last year have to go. They’ll likely want Andrew Suitor back in the lineup, so that’s one more. But I don’t think Benesch and Watt were at the top of John Arlotta’s “list of players who can be dumped in favour of rookies”. In addition, this trade has made the Bandits better, so it’s unlikely that the Bandits’ first round picks will be all that high anyway.

Meanwhile the Bandits have no first round picks for the next four years. It’s now safe to say that the Cosmo deal was a bust, in that Cosmo has only shown glimpses of the former Goaltender of the Year the Bandits hoped they were getting. Indeed, 2012 and 2013 were the worst seasons of Cosmo’s career in terms of both GAA and save percentage. The Bandits have not yet given up anything for Cosmo – this year’s draft will be the first of the two first-round picks they gave up. But unless Cosmo recovers in a big way next season, the next two drafts might be tough to swallow for Bandits fans.

If the Benesch deal doesn’t work out for whatever reason, the two drafts after those might be just as tough. There would be nothing worse for Bandits fans to head into a draft knowing you have no first round pick this year or next because of a trade for a player that hasn’t played for you for two years, but if Benesch is traded again, that could be the case. But Steve Dietrich knows this. With this trade, the Bandits are going all in with Benesch as their offensive leader for the next half-decade. Obviously losing John Tavares will hurt, whether he retires now or after another season, but with Benesch as the new offensive go-to guy, the Bandits can handle it. That’s something they’ve never really been able to say before. Not saying Benesch is on a par with Tavares, arguably the best NLL player ever, but if you’re looking to replace a strong lefty scoring threat, you could do far worse.

I have no reason to believe that Benesch won’t be successful in Buffalo. If he does take over John Tavares’ spot as the offensive leader of the team, the trade may work out very well for the Bandits. And if the Swarm’s 2013 draft picks work out as well as their 2012 ones did (Matisz, Jackson, Sorensen, Crepinsek), they may be able to survive the loss of Benesch and Watt pretty well.

All trades take time to determine who the real winners were, in some cases a few years. If it takes that long to decide the winner of this deal, it’s likely the Bandits came out on top. But if Dietrich’s bet on Benesch doesn’t work out, things could be pretty bleak in Buffalo for a long time.

2013 NLL season wrap-up

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Graeme

Well, that’s it for one of the most exciting and entertaining NLL seasons ever, thanks in part to the parity in the league. Almost every game was unpredictable, and there wasn’t a single game all year where anyone would have been honestly shocked if the losing team had won. Incidentally, that’s my excuse for finishing below .500 in my predictions.

A lot of interesting things happened in the 2013 season, some of which were expected, some of which were not. Let’s take a look at a few of each.

Five things we expected

Parity. As I mentioned above, the parity in the league is unprecedented. The Bandits only won 6 games, but four of them came against the Champions, the Championship runners-up, and the Rock, who had the best record. The team with the best record was ahead of the team with the worst record by only 4 wins (10-6 vs. 6-10), the smallest that number has been since Detroit finished 6-2 and four teams were 3-5 back in 1992.
The Stealth didn’t suck. Nobody expected their 2012 season to be as bad as it was, but I’m pretty sure that nobody realistically expected it to happen again.
Garrett Billings cemented himself as one of the top offensive players in the NLL with his second-straight 100-point season.
After one of the best offensive seasons ever, John Grant returned to earth with a pedestrian (for him) 91 points.
Matt Vinc won his third Goaltender of the Year award. Another few years of this type of performance, and the “best of all time” argument between Watson and Eliuk will become a three-way conversation. In fact, it’s almost there now.

Five things we didn’t expect

Sophomore slump? Never heard of it. If you look at the top rookies of 2012 – Kevin Crowley, Adam Jones, Jordan MacIntosh, Tyler Carlson, Evan Kirk, Johnny Powless – only Kirk dropped off significantly from his rookie performance. Powless dropped from 50 points to 40, but he had to start sharing the ball with the likes of Dan Dawson and Casey Powell. The rest all stayed about the same or got better.
Getting rid of Casey Powell won’t hurt your offense. The Knighthawks averaged 11.1 goals per game before the trade, 11.3 after. Cody Jamieson and Dan Dawson both saw their points/game averages go up to make up for the loss of Powell, Dawson from 4.2 to 5.1, and Jamieson from 5 to 6.3.
Mike Poulin had a distinctly un-Poulin-esque season. His 12.70 GAA was the highest of his career, almost 2.5 points higher than 2012. The only starters who finished with higher GAAs were Evan Kirk and Anthony Cosmo. But his performance in the Roughnecks’ 12-11 OT victory over Edmonton at the end of the season was outstanding, and he played well against both the Mammoth and the Stealth in the playoffs.
Shawn Evans has been a very good player for years, and taking his game to the next level wasn’t wholly unexpected. But this year, Evans jumped the next level and went to the one after that. He bested his career high in points by 33 and won the scoring title by 12. His 112 points is tied for the 5th best season ever, putting Evans among the Gaits, Grants, and Tavares’.
The Knighthawks started the year 0-3, were never above .500 at any point, and only two teams scored fewer goals. But they are the Champions. Actually, we should have expected it, since it’s almost what they did last year.

So there’ll be no more NLL games until at least December when training camps open. Don’t worry folks, it’s only… um… seven months. (sigh) Until then, we still have the MLL for outdoorsy types, and the MSL and WLA for people who like sweating in arenas in July. There may or may not be other American indoor leagues as well, such as NALL, PLL, MILA, and possibly others; so many of them started up so fast I kind of lost track of which ones still exist.

So enjoy your summer and fall, whether it’s filled with lacrosse or not! NLL Chatter will be more or less quiet over the summer, but we’ll publish the odd story as things unfold: the new CBA, trades, the entry draft, rule changes, the 2014 schedule, things like that. And we’ll be back next season with the usual mix of relevance and irreverence. See you then!

Week 16 picks

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Graeme

In the penultimate week of the regular season, I went 3-2 – extending my .500-or-better streak to 6 weeks. I can’t hit .500 overall this year – 4-for-4 this weekend will put me at 35-37, or .486. On the upside, the worst I can do this year is 31-41 or .431, which is what my prediction record was last year.

People have worried that eight of nine teams making the playoffs means there are fewer “meaningful games”, but nothing could be further from the truth this weekend. All the games have playoff implications for all the teams – even the Rock, who aren’t playing.

Buffalo is fighting for their playoff lives, as are Rochester and Colorado. In fact, Buffalo and Rochester are fighting each other for their playoff lives. If Rochester wins, Buffalo’s out. If Buffalo wins, Rochester’s fate depends on the Mammoth-Swarm game. The Mammoth can clinch with a win, but also if Rochester wins.

The rest of the teams are playing for their playoff seedings – I think the Swarm and Mammoth are the only teams who can’t host a playoff game. I won’t go over all the possibilities in the west since they’re complicated. They’re all listed on nll.com anyway. Suffice it to say that all the remaining games are crucial and nobody’s going to be mailing it in this weekend.

If I get my picks right, we’ll have Colorado crossing over to play the Rock and the Wings playing in Rochester. In the west, Edmonton will host Minnesota (with the Swarm ready for some payback for last year’s embarrassing playoff loss) and Calgary will play in Washington.

Record: 31-37 (.456)

Game	Comments	Pick
ROC @ BUF	Who shows up this weekend – the Bandits from last week or the Bandits from the previous six? Either way, Matt Vinc is in the running for Goaltender of the Year and as much as I’d hate to see John Tavares finish his career (not that that is a sure thing either) on a losing note, I’m giving this one to the Knighthawks.
CAL @ EDM	The Rush have only won twice at home this year, but Calgary will be without Dane Dobbie. The Rush would love the “first overall” title to go along with their first-ever home playoff game(s). I think Bold returns from an off week to shut down the Roughnecks – at least, as much as they can be shut down. As a Rock fan, I’d love to see the Rush lose this one so the Rock can clinch first overall, but I’m picking Edmonton.
COL @ MIN	The Swarm are averaging over 16 goals in their last six games, and Callum Crawford has been the league’s best player over the last several weeks. The Mammoth have been playing fairly well, beating the Rush and Wings in recent weeks, and they beat the Swarm back in February, but they’re no match for the new and improved Swarm.
PHI @ WAS	I took forever to make this pick and changed my mind a few times. Both teams have strong goaltending but have been inconsistent all season. But the Stealth have a better offense, and if Iannucci returns this weekend, he’ll be itching to show his stuff after being benched for two weeks. I know they’re 4-5 when I pick them and 4-2 when I don’t, but I have to go with the Stealth again.

Week 15 picks

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Graeme

3-3 record last week thanks to Tye Belanger keeping the Rush offense to only 7 goals and the Wings remembering how to score goals. The only way I can finish at or above .500 this season is to go 8-1 or 9-0 in the last two weeks, so that is the plan. If it doesn’t happen, it’s not my fault – blame the players for not going along with the plan.

Record: 28-35 (.444)

Game	Comments	Pick
ROC @ CAL	Rochester will very likely make the playoffs, which wasn’t certain only a few weeks ago. Calgary already has but would like a home playoff game. Both teams have won 3 of their last 5 (for Calgary, it’s actually 3 of their last 4). Matt Vinc hasn’t given up as many as 12 in a game since January 19 and has held the Wings, Rock, Bandits, and Stealth to single-digits since then. Mike Poulin has only kept opponents below 12 four times this season.
MIN @ COL	Minnesota seems to have become the team I thought they were going to be at the beginning of the season, though it took them a long time to get there. Callum Crawford is on fire (7+ points in 5 straight games) and Tyler Carlson has a GAA of 6.00 and save % of 88% in his last two starts. Since Minnesota keeps swapping starting goalies and Kirk lost in Philly last week, this is Carlson’s game.
TOR @ PHI	The Rock really want that top seed overall, but the Wings aren’t guaranteed a playoff spot quite yet, and they always seem to give the Rock trouble. When Brandon Miller is “on”, he’s almost untouchable (though you could say that about almost all of the starting goalies in the league), and with Mundorf back from injury, the Wings offense just got stronger. The Rock currently have the best record in the league, so picking them is not a homer pick. I’m sticking to that.
BUF @ WAS	The Bandits seem to have lost interest in the 2013 season, while the Stealth still have a chance at a home playoff game. Buffalo is this close to being eliminated from the playoffs, so either they’ll pour on the energy this weekend in an attempt to stay in the race, or they’ll fold, figuring they have no chance. I didn’t see much fight in them last week or the week before, so I don’t expect much this weekend.
ROC @ EDM	The Rush are 1-5 at home and 7-1 on the road, so maybe they’re not playing for home-floor advantage in the playoffs. The Rush looked too good in their games against Buffalo and Toronto the other week to bet against them. Every team had bad games, which is what they had against Colorado last week, but I think they’ll bounce back.

NLL Annual Award short lists and prediction recap

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Graeme

There are still a couple of weeks left in the season, but here are some early player award possibilities as well as a look at my predictions from the beginning of the season. Some of them were pretty close, others… not so much.

The front-runners are the few people, in no particular order, who I think have the best shot of winning the award. For the most part, I haven’t made my actual selections yet, so these are just my short-lists. In most cases, I put a dark horse as well; someone who probably won’t win the award but should be considered.

MVP

Prediction: Dan Dawson, Garrett Billings. Dawson has been good but not outstanding. Billings has been outstanding.

Front-runners: Garrett Billings, Shawn Evans, Mark Matthews

Dark horse: Callum Crawford

Goaltender of the Year

Prediction: Anthony Cosmo, Aaron Bold. Cosmo hasn’t been great, though I wouldn’t blame the Bandits lousy season on him. Bold is 3rd among starters in GAA but 8th in save %. He has been very good, though not as good as last year.

Front-runners: Matt Vinc, Nick Rose, Tyler Richards

Dark horse: Tye Belanger has been excellent though has half the minutes of the other starters (other than the Swarm’s dynamic duo).

Transition Player of the Year

Prediction: Jordan MacIntosh, Paul Rabil. MacIntosh is on my short list. Rabil has been good but not Tranny of the Year good.

Front-runners: Geoff Snider, Jordan MacIntosh, Jesse Gamble, Jeremy Thompson, Jordan Hall

Dark horse: Brad Self

Defensive Player of the Year

I’ll admit it: I suck when it comes to evaluating defensemen. Part of it is because I’m a stats guy, and there are no really useful stats for defenders. But a lot of it is that I have no formal training – I’m self-taught in the art of watching lacrosse. I’m a fan who’s never actually played the game. When I’m watching a game, I’m watching the offensive players and the goalie. I will notice when a defender makes a great play or if a team seems to hear the shot clock buzzer an awful lot (implying a good defensive unit), but I don’t generally notice individual defenders. That said, I have made a point to watch Kyle Rubisch and Chris Corbeil because you hear about them so much, and Sandy Chapman has always been one of my favourite Rock players. I remember watching Paul Dawson shut people down (and occasionally beat the snot out of them) with the Blazers.

It’s weird though – I can look at a list of transition players and have general feelings on how they’ve been playing without looking at the stats. I have no idea how many points Brad Self has, or Jordan Hall, or Jeremy Thompson, but I know they’re having good seasons. I have no such impressions with pure defenders.

Prediction: Kyle Rubisch, Paul Dawson

Front-runners: Kyle Rubisch, Chris Corbeil, Paul Dawson, Scott Self

Dark horse: I got nothing.

Rookie of the Year

Prediction: Mark Matthews, Kiel Matisz. Woo, nailed it on this one. Unlike everyone else who also predicted Matthews as ROY.

Front-runners: Mark Matthews, Kiel Matisz, ~~Tye Belanger~~, Mitch McMichael, Kyle Belton, Curtis Knight, Dhane Smith

Dark horse: Anyone but Matthews, really.

Update: Can’t believe I forgot Dhane Smith on the original list. Also, apparently Tye Belanger is not considered a rookie.

Les Bartley Award

Prediction: Troy Cordingley, Joe Sullivan. Again, nailed it.

Front-runners: Troy Cordingley, Chris Hall, Joe Sullivan, Derek Keenan

Dark horse: Mike Hasen if the Knighthawks continue playing well in the last two weeks.

GM of the Year

Prediction: Curt Styres, Steve Dietrich. The Knighthawks and Bandits both made significant offseason moves and I thought at least one of them would be successful. The offseason Rochester moves didn’t seem to make the team appreciably better, but the Powell-for-Sullivan, Self, and Purves moves were all good. The Bandits moves made the team worse and other than Dhane Smith, didn’t really set them up for the future either (though the Cosmo trade that lost them next year’s first round pick was Kilgour, not Dietrich).

Front-runners: Derek Keenan, John Arlotta

Dark horse: Johnny Mouradian. Dawson+Dawson for Rabil+Hall isn’t nearly the disaster I thought it might be.

Careers cut short

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Graeme

Again this year, the NLL has been hit by the worst kind of injury bug – the one that takes a player out of the league permanently. It’s been almost two months since Knighthawks defender Ryan Cousins was forced to retire due to persistent injuries. Cousins is a former two-time Defender of the Year and was captain of the Minnesota Swarm for seven years. Now, he also played in the league for eleven seasons so it’s not like his career was cut short after only a few years, but at 31, he could easily have played 5 or 6 more years and possibly more than that.

As an aside, while looking for details on Cousins’ retirement, I came across this article by Rochester fan (and NLL employee) Alex Hinkley and was stunned to read that Hinkley believes Cousins should not have retired. Cousins makes what is likely one of the most difficult decisions of his life and Hinkley has the gall to say he shouldn’t have retired? Yes, he was injured last year and came back to play, but he says himself that he had yet another injury before this season began. Normally when a player retires due to injury, it’s not because he can’t be bothered to do the work required to get back in shape, it’s because their doctor has told them that any further injuries could do irreparable damage. Cousins might have decided that playing one more year of lacrosse wasn’t worth spending the rest of his life walking with a cane. It’s possible, even likely, that Cousins may come to regret retiring. But I think it’s more likely that Cousins, along with his family and doctor, decided that he’d much rather retire and wish he hadn’t than not retire and wish he had.

Cousins wasn’t the only player who retired this season because of injury. Dan Carey, also 31, announced his retirement just before the season began after suffering a concussion near the end of the 2012 season. Carey also missed half of 2009 and all of 2010 due to concussion. Phil Sanderson, another concussion victim on the Rock, hasn’t officially retired, but he missed the last two games of 2012 plus the playoffs and has yet to play in 2013.

If you go over the list of NLL players who have had to retire early due to injuries, a few pretty big names show up:

Merrick Thomson accumulated 124 points in two seasons with the Wings (and was an MLL star as well) before concussions ended his very promising career in 2011 at the age of only 27.
Ken Montour, the 2009 NLL goaltender of the year, experienced a concussion during a game in 2010 (also at age 31) and never played again. Montour (as well as Thomson and Tracey Kelusky) talks about his experiences in a must-read interview with IL Indoor’s Stephen Stamp from back in 2011.
Paul Gait retired after the 2002 season (during which he scored 114 points, the third highest total ever) at the age of 35 due to knee injuries. We’ll ignore the four games he played with the Mammoth in 2005. His twin brother Gary played 3 more full seasons with the Mammoth before retiring, and then unretired in 2009, played 24 more games with the Knighthawks, then retired again.
Mark Miyashita was the first overall draft pick of the Vancouver Ravens in 2003 but only played 46 games over 5 seasons with Vancouver, Colorado, and Minnesota before multiple ACL injuries forced him to retire.

The quintessential example of an athlete forced to retire early because of injuries is Bobby Orr. Orr, considered by some as a better hockey player than Wayne Gretzky, played nine full seasons in the NHL and then parts of three more before retiring at age 30 because of repeated damage to his knees. Now Sidney Crosby is in danger of being added to this list, having missed much of the last couple of seasons due to a couple of serious concussions. Last week, he was hit in the head with a puck, breaking his jaw. He’s reporting no concussion symptoms from that, but we all know that if he suffers one more concussion, his career is likely over. Crosby won’t even be 26 until this summer.

There has been a lot of research and a lot more discussion on head injuries in sports in recent years, which will hopefully reduce the number of concussions and early retirements. But due to the nature of sports, particularly contact sports like football, hockey, and lacrosse, you will never completely eliminate the possibility. It’s something the athletes know and a risk they’ve accepted. When you see a freak accident like the one that ended Andrew Suitor’s 2013 season, you start to appreciate the ability of players like Colin Doyle, Shawn Williams, and John Tavares to be able to play for so long. How do they do it? There’s some conditioning involved – being in top physical shape can help you avoid some injuries and recover more easily from others. Being a smart player, and therefore being able to avoid situations that could result in injury, is another advantage these guys have. But Suitor is also a professional athlete, in top shape, and is unquestionably a smart lacrosse player.

Sometimes, as they say, shit happens. Part of the “secret” to a long playing career is just to be lucky.

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Week 14 picks

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Graeme

Last week I went 3-2, my fourth straight week of .500-or-better predictions. I guess I’m settling down as we get deeper into the season. You know what they say, particularly in the NLL – you don’t want to peak early. Much better to get hot near the end of the season. Right, 2012 Knighthawks?

Record: 25-32 (.439)

Game	Comments	Pick
WAS @ CAL	Tough one. Washington can clinch a playoff spot by beating the Roughnecks, so they’re hungry. The Roughnecks know they were one T-Rich penalty away from losing to the Stealth last weekend, and they’re playing to clinch a home date. I’ll take Calgary at home, but in a close one.
COL @ EDM	How can you bet against the Rush, the way they’ve been playing? Sure they’re 1-4 at home, but haven’t played there in over a month and have since won five straight including beating both the Rock and Roughnecks handily.
BUF @ MIN	The Swarm have won their last two by 7 and 9 goals. The Bandits have lost five in a row. The Bandits certainly have the talent to win this game, and you’d think that having their backs to the wall playoff-wise would spur them on to play better. But I didn’t see that last week in Toronto. Coach Darris Kilgour questioned their heart last year, but this year might be worse.
PHI @ ROC	Rochester seems to have found their groove after trading Casey Powell. Not that he was the cause of their problems, but moving him freed up the rest of their offense. That seems to have helped, adding Scott Self made a pretty good defense better, and Matt Vinc has been great all year. If anyone other than the Rush are getting hot at the right time, it might be the Knighthawks.
MIN @ PHI	I had little confidence in the Wings before the season began, and there have been times where they’ve surprised me with how well they’ve played. But they’ve also had 20 goals scored against them twice this year and other than their early-season win over the Rock, all of their wins have come against teams below them in the standings. Like I said before, I’m still bullish on the Swarm – and that was before they destroyed the Wings last week.
ROC @ TOR	Rochester played well in their game against the Rock last weekend, and as I said they seem to be getting hot at the right time. But the Rock really wanted to clinch the Eastern division title last weekend and the Knighthawks prevented that. They won’t want to let that happen again, particularly in their own building.

Game report: Buffalo 11 @ Toronto 18

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Graeme

The Rock and the Bandits really don’t like each other. This is not news to anyone who’s ever watched them play, and may be surprising considering the Bandits have eight former Rock players in their lineup plus their GM while Roger Vyse, former Bandit captain Chris White, and both the Rock coach and GM are former Bandits. We thought we’d be in for a long game during the first, with penalty after penalty after penalty, but eventually things settled down and we actually saw some good lacrosse for a while. Most of the really rough stuff was over halfway through the first, but the penalties continued all game.

If you read the NLL Message Boards, there’s a thread that starts before every game in the Bandits forum called Keys to the Game. Every week, someone comes up with three ways the Bandits can win – shut down the opponent’s star player, minimize opponent’s transition goals, grab an early lead (or prevent the other team from grabbing an early lead), that kind of thing. For the last ten years, #3 on that list has always been “NO DUMB PENALTIES”. Apparently the Bandits don’t read the message boards. The Rock have the best power play unit in the league, something you’d think Darris and the boys might have paid a little more attention to, but they didn’t. Special teams weren’t exactly root cause of the Bandits downfall, but Toronto’s four power play goals didn’t help.

That said, not all of their penalties were dumb. I’m not generally one to complain about reffing, but there were a number of phantom calls in this game, going both ways:

Alex Kedoh Hill was given a penalty for knocking Josh Sanderson down, though (a) Sanderson had just punched him in the head, and (b) Hill barely touched Sanderson, who dropped like a soccer player.
No less than eight players got roughing penalties at the same time after the first Bandits goal. It all started with some rough stuff between Josh Sanderson (!!) and Mark Steenhuis.
Anthony Cosmo gave Doyle a smack on the back with his goalie stick and although it wasn’t that hard a hit, Cosmo was penalized. Perhaps the refs thought it was too close to the head. I actually thought it did hit Doyle in the head, but on viewing the replay, it did not.
Just a couple of minutes later, Derek Hopcroft had possession when the Bandits were called for a moving pick. The whistle was blown and play stopped but Hopcroft did not drop the ball. Jesse Gamble tried to get it from him but he pulled away. Hopcroft should have gotten two minutes right there for delay of game – you must drop the ball as soon as the whistle is blown. Chris White then hit Hopcroft’s stick away (getting a slashing penalty in the process), and Gamble and Hopcroft had words. At this point Bill Greer stepped in which might have been a mistake, since Hopcroft immediately pulled Greer’s helmet off and just laid a beating on him. This was one of the most one-sided fights I can remember. I counted sixteen punches by Hopcroft and zero by Greer.
Just two minutes after that, Luke Wiles hit Patrick Merrill in the face, getting a slashing penalty. This was a good call.
But later on Wiles had possession when the whistle was blown and he dropped the ball right away. Perhaps it didn’t go straight down and stop – it did roll a little, but it seemed obvious to me that there was no intent to roll it away from the Rock player who was right there. Wiles was given a delay of game anyway. People around me were confused, wondering why I was complaining about that penalty since it was against the Bandits. Simple – it was undeserved.

All of that was in the first quarter.

The game did settle down after that. There were still lots of penalties (4 in the second and 5 in each of the third and fourth) but other than Luke Wiles double-minor for slashing and facemasking, most of them were fairly innocuous. I kind of held my breath near the end of the game, waiting for the Bandits to explode and start more fights (the “go down swinging” attitude that seems prevalent in some lacrosse people) but it never happened.

Cosmo wasn’t great but I wouldn’t place the blame for this loss on him, or on Kurtis Wagar. The problem was Buffalo’s defense. The Rock got a lot of chances in close, and when you have Colin Doyle with the ball standing just outside the crease and no defender within ten feet of him, he’s more than likely going to score. Give him and Kasey Beirnes a few of those types of chances each, and that’s a recipe for a blowout. Nick Rose had a pretty good game, but much of his success on Friday came because the Rock defense was preventing the Bandits from getting clear shots at the net. There is no video of the game highlights up on nll.com yet, but from what I remember, the bounce shot was not Rose’s friend.

As expected, it was an entertaining and exciting game, and I’m glad the rough stuff was taken care of early in the game. Nothing pisses me off more at a lacrosse game than a team starting fights near the end because they’re getting blown out. If your team is getting destroyed, tough. Man up and regroup for your next game, learning from the mistakes you made. Starting fights because you’re losing is just an adult temper tantrum.

Other game notes:

It was Kids Night, so there were some special promotions and events and such for kids. What better way to celebrate Kids Night than with 14 roughing penalties, six slashing penalties, and a fight? Maybe pick the Mammoth or Stealth next year for Kids Night, not the Bandits.
On a similar note, the song called Dance With Me (which contains the inane lyrics “if you’re sexy and you know it, clap your hands”) may not have been the best choice for the cheerleaders on Kids Night.
As I mentioned last week, the Rock were pretty slow on the offense-to-defense transition. This week was much better – no lollygagging.
There was a guy sitting behind me who called for Nick Rose to be pulled at least two or three times in the first half. The last time he said “They gotta put Boychuk in. Get Rose out of there” as if it was 15-0 Bandits or 5-0 after three minutes. But this was near the end of the second quarter and Rose had given up 5 goals. He did allow another goal with a second left in the half, but then kept the Bandits off the board for the next sixteen minutes. Didn’t hear any complaints about the goaltending in the third quarter.
Also overheard from someone behind me: “That #9 [Steenhuis] is out there an awful lot, isn’t he?” Yes. Yes he is.
Nice to see Rock captain Colin Doyle and Bandits alternate captain Shawn Williams going out of their way to get the game ball from the ref after Roger Vyse and Kevin Brownell scored their first goals of the year – Vyse’s was his first as a Rock (that must have felt good, especially against the team that released him before the season) and Brownell’s was the first of his career.
Shawn Williams’ nine-year-old daughter Dylana sang O Canada and did an outstanding job.
Great to see Roberto Alomar doing the opening face-off. I recently watched a game from the 1992 World Series on TV and I think I had forgotten just how much fun Alomar was to watch.

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