Category Archives: Buffalo Bandits

The world before John Tavares

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The Buffalo Bandits just re-signed John Tavares to a one year contract, ensuring that JT returns for his twenty-second season in the NLL in 2013. The Bandits acquired JT by trading Brian Nikula to the Detroit Turbos in October of 1991. This was before the Bandits had ever played a game in the NLL, so there has never been a Bandits team without Tavares on the roster. What was the world like back then?

  • State of the artOf the current NLL teams, only the Philadelphia Wings were in existence. The Colorado Mammoth franchise existed: the Baltimore Thunder would play eight more years in Baltimore before moving to Pittsburgh for one year, Washington (D.C.) for two years, and then finally Colorado in 2003.
  • The world wide web had not been invented yet. The cell phone pictured here was the state of the art.
  • Freddie Mercury, Audrey Hepburn, Kurt Cobain, and Frank Zappa were still alive.
  • Growing Pains, Who’s The Boss?, The Cosby Show, and Johnny Carson were still on TV.
  • The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia still existed, George Bush (Sr.) was the US President, and Brian Mulroney was the Canadian Prime Minister.
  • Apartheid was still in effect in South Africa.
  • Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were still playing in the NBA.
  • The San Jose Sharks were playing their first season, as were Nicklas Lidstrom, Adam Foote, and Martin Brodeur.
  • The Buffalo Bills had lost two Super Bowls in a row (something they would later repeat).
  • Tyler Seguin, Taylor Lautner, Miley Cyrus, Johnny Powless, and at least two of the writers over at In Lacrosse We Trust were not yet born.

Offseason Report #3: Trade frenzy

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Just nine days after the NLL and the NLLPA agreed to a deal that will allow the 2013 season to go forward with the same CBA as 2012, there have been all kinds of moves involving every team in the league. The Bandits named Steve Dietrich their new GM, the Stealth re-signed head coach Chris Hall and signed a five-year lease with Comcast Arena, the Roughnecks and Mammoth announced a pre-season game in Langley BC,  the Rush re-signed GM and coach Derek Keenan, and there were no less than five trades involving seven teams in only two days.

The first trade was the Rock sending holdout Aaron Pascas to the Roughnecks for a third round draft pick. This is one of those deals that looks worse than it is – in an ideal world, Pascas is worth more than a 3rd round pick. But he’s a BC boy who has already missed an entire season due to work commitments, and so perhaps the Rock decided that getting a pick was better than the nothing they may get if he can’t play in 2013 either. The Roughnecks get a scorer for the left side who is young and yet has won a Championship. If Pascas has scheduling issues with his job as a firefighter, it’s more likely that he’ll be able to make games in Calgary than in Toronto, so it’s a good deal for him as well.

Jarrett DavisA few hours after the Pascas deal, the Swarm sent forward Kevin Ross to Philadelphia for a first round pick way off in 2015. Swarm owner John Arlotta said that Ross will “get the chance to play closer to home”. Home for Ross is London Ontario, which is nine hours from Philadelphia and fourteen from St. Paul. (Note that I am Canadian, and in Canada we measure distances not in miles or kilometres, but in driving time.) Cutting down your commute from 14 hours to 9 is not much of an advantage, really. Perhaps the flights from southern Ontario to Philly are shorter than to Minnesota, though I can’t imagine it’s much of a difference there either. Anyway, Philly is pretty happy with the trade, especially when you consider that Ross scored 9 points against them in one game and 5 in another last season. Swarm fans were less thrilled since they lose Ross’s 59 points and get nothing in return for over three years.

A day later, three trades rocked the NLL, as the Edmonton Rush finally made the trade that everyone has been waiting for since February, sending Paul Rabil to Rochester for Jarrett Davis. The Rush finally have something to show for Brodie Merrill – but the whole Merrill / Iannucci / Rabil drama has been done to death so I won’t give all the details again. Davis is a very good player even if he’s no Merrill or Rabil, so at first blush it would seem that the Knighthawks clearly win this trade. Adding someone of Rabil’s calibre makes the reigning Champions a far better team, and that’s not something that Rock, Bandits, or Wings fans want to hear. But then again, Davis may actually put on a Rush uniform at some point, which is more than Rabil ever did, so the Rush are up one transition player and down nothing. This is a pretty good deal for both teams.

Well, in that trade they’re down nothing. Associate captain Shawn Williams will not be returning to the Rush, so they are down a scorer as well. The Rush traded Williams, who was a few days away from becoming an unrestricted free agent, to the Minnesota Swarm for draft picks. But Williams’s career as a member of the Swarm was just as long in terms of games played as that of Anthony Cosmo or Josh Sanderson, as he was immediately shuffled off to Buffalo along with Brendan Doran and more draft picks for Buffalo’s first round pick this year. The Swarm now have the #2, #3, and #4 picks in this year’s entry draft. The Bandits pick up Doran, a “young gritty defenseman” says Steve Dietrich, as well as the veteran Williams. Willy is fresh off a season in which he reached the finals, scored his 1,000th NLL point, and set an NLL record for most consecutive games played (190+ and counting). The move reunites the 38-year-old Williams with 43-year-old John Tavares, who played together in Buffalo in 2000 and 2001, and gives the Bandits another legitimate scoring threat. I wouldn’t say the move immediately propels the Bandits into first place in my 2013 NLL East division rankings, but it certainly raises some eyebrows for anyone looking at how the Bandits might recover from the 2012 season, which was terrible disastrous horrific less successful than they might have liked.

So all of those trades happened in just two days. The 2013 NLL season doesn’t start for over five months. It could be a busy summer.

Offseason report #2: Kilgour’s title cut in half

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The other day, I covered the first major NLL personnel change this offseason, the firing (actually, non-re-signing) of Dave Pym. The other move that was made was the Bandits removing the “GM” title from Darris Kilgour’s business cards, leaving him with just “head coach”. The Bandits’ press release plainly stated that they were unhappy with how the team has performed over the last couple of years. Midway through the 2012 season, I wondered if Darris’ days in Banditland were numbered and I guess Bandits ownership agreed with me, though I did say it was unlikely that he’d be fired from one of his roles and not the other. In that article, I concentrated on Kilgour’s tenure as head coach and didn’t really look at his record as a GM, so let’s do that now.

In terms of drafts, it does appear that he’s been less effective in the past few years than at the beginning of his tenure. In his first five NLL drafts, Kilgour drafted Billy Dee Smith, A.J. Shannon, Delby Powless, Jeff Shattler, and Brett Bucktooth in the first rounds. Shannon was a bust because of injury problems, through no fault of Kilgour. Powless never became the star some expected him to be, but he was an effective player for a while. Bucktooth still is an effective player for the Stealth after Kilgour gave up on him this past year. But Kilgour hit gold twice, even if the Bandits only benefitted once – Smith has been Defender of the Year and Shattler was the league MVP in 2011 for the Roughnecks.

In his last five drafts, he’s only had two picks. In 2010 he picked Kyle Clancy right before the Rock took Stephan Leblanc. In 2011, Kilgour chose Travis Irving who is a decent defender (and notched the second-most penalty minutes on the team last year), but is hardly what you’d call first-round material. Of course, it’s easier to see all of this with our 20:20 hindsight.

As for trades, when was the last time the Bandits were involved in a blockbuster trade? They’ve been involved in trades for big-name players like Tracey Kelusky, Luke Wiles, and Anthony Cosmo, but they’ve been acquired for draft picks. In fact, the most recent Bandits trade I can find that involved players going both ways was back in July of 2009 when they sent Phil Sanderson to the Rock for Chris Driscoll. Why have the Bandits only had two first round draft picks in the last five years (and none for the next two)? Because they traded their picks away for Phil Sanderson, Mike Accursi, Tom Montour, Tracey Kelusky, and Anthony Cosmo. There’s nothing particularly wrong with any one of those deals; in particular, the Accursi deal was fine and Cosmo started shaky but played great down the stretch. The Kelusky deal looked good at the time – in fact many people thought the Roughnecks got hosed. The Bandits couldn’t have known that the next two seasons would be the worst of Kelusky’s career.

But when you trade away that many first round picks, all for established players, it’s clear that you’re not interested in getting younger. And indeed, the Bandits are one of the oldest teams in the NLL. But the weirdest move was the trading of Chris Corbeil to Edmonton for draft picks, all the while saying they did want to get younger. You don’t trade away a 23-year-old budding star for a draft pick when the best case scenario is to draft someone as good as who you traded away.

At the end of the day, the Bandits needed this change. They have been known for years as a gritty, tough, physical team – not surprisingly, traits that we associate with Kilgour himself. This worked really well during the middle part of the last decade, but the Bandits are aging and their style was less effective last year than in the past. If the league continues to crack down on head shots, their often undisciplined system will continue to decline in effectiveness.

Would Kilgour be likely to pass on drafting a big strong tough defender in favour of a smaller, faster transition guy? Probably not, just ask Damon Edwards. Would he trade long-time Bandits like Mark Steenhuis, Chris White, or Billy Dee Smith? Again, probably not , but a new GM might. Not saying that these players need to be traded, but a fresh view of the Bandits and some outside-the-box thinking might be needed to make the Bandits successful for years to come.

Team summaries and projected changes: East division

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Now that the 2012 season is behind us, each team will be looking to 2013 and trying to decide what changes need to be made. Let’s look over each team and see what changes may be in store. We’ll start with the East division, and get to the West in a few days.

Buffalo Bandits

There will be lots of changes coming for the Bandits this offseason, if you believe what Darris Kilgour said a number of times during the season. I don’t know how much of that was said in the heat of the moment, but I don’t imagine his strategy for 2013 will be “Hope everyone plays better”.

Goaltending is not a problem assuming Cosmo stays in Buffalo, and I have no reason to believe he won’t. As good as John Tavares was this year, surely he has to slow down sometime, doesn’t he? Maybe, but I’ve been asking that question for five years. Tracey Kelusky has said that he was pretty unhappy with his own play in the 2011 season, and his point total dropped by half in 2012. Considering the impact he’s had on the league over the last ten years, it would be kind of sad to see a sure-fire hall-of-famer like TK retire after two such lacklustre seasons, but I’m not sure I can see the Bandits taking another chance on him.

In a nutshell, the Bandits need to get younger – though ironically, the Bandit least likely to be traded is 43-year-old John Tavares. They have one first round pick (third overall) in the next entry draft thanks to the Chris Corbeil trade, but their own pick – second overall – was sent to Minnesota for Anthony Cosmo. Their first round pick next year belongs to the Swarm as well. I’d look for a number of players to be moved out for draft picks.

Philadelphia Wings

I’m not sure what to think about the Wings. They had periods where they played really well, and periods where they played really badly. Their defense played well against the Rock in Toronto, allowing 8 and 10 goals in two games, and then allowed 13 or more in five of six straight games (and 12 in the sixth). They were in first place in mid-March and then collapsed, losing their last five.

Dan Dawson was obviously not the problem here. Dawson had yet another great season, but in the NLL one player cannot pull a LeBron and lift a team to greatness pretty much by himself. A quick glance at the individual numbers seemed fine, with Dawson over 100 points and Crowley, Mundorf, Westervelt, and Hominuck all over 50. By comparison, the champion Knighthawks only had four players over 50 points, and the Bandits only had three. But after that, things drop off significantly. Brodie Merrill had 32 points, and Siebald and Crotty had 14 each. Nobody else had more than 8. Of their nine losses, they scored fewer than ten goals in five of them (and exactly ten in two more). Only the Edmonton Rush scored fewer goals than the Wings.

And nobody gave up more goals than the Wings. It seemed that for the most part, when the defense had a bad night, they had a bad night. The Wings gave up 15 or more goals six times, though they won one of those six. This seems odd considering there were people voting for both Merrill and Paul Dawson for Defensive Player of the Year. Brandon Miller didn’t have his best season ever, and yet Kurtis Wagar and Steve Fryer played only 71 minutes combined all season.

The decade-long rebuild of the Wings continues. I’m sure Dawson isn’t going anywhere, nor are Crowley or Merrill. But you gotta wonder if anyone else’s job is safe. Considering the Wings don’t have any first round draft picks for the next couple of years, their best hope for improvement is through trades and free agency. They made a big move last off-season to bring in Merrill, and then had Crowley and Dawson dropped in their laps. I’ve thought all along that Philadelphia would be a good fit for Paul Rabil (can you imagine transition studs Rabil and Merrill on one team?) so it wouldn’t surprise me to see another big trade with Edmonton this off-season. Perhaps the Wings should start looking into what players on their team might consider playing out west. Interestingly, Kevin Crowley is from BC.

Rochester Knighthawks

They won the damned championship, so the Knighthawks obviously don’t need an overhaul. They have a mix of young and veteran talent up front, lots of veterans and a couple of kids on D, and an outstanding goalie with many good playing years in front of him. So what are they in desperate need of? Nothing. What could they use? My only thought here might be to get a little younger on the defense. It’s not like their defense is old and creaky, but McCready, Laverty, and Cousins have all been around for a while, and they also have Campbell, Travis Hill, Smith, and Glaves. The only real young players on the D are Dylan Evans, Tyler Burton, and Mike Kirk.

But I don’t think this is a huge hole that really needs filling. If someone offers the Knighthawks a trade, that may be where they want to focus, but if they do nothing at all, Rochester will be poised for more successful seasons to come.

Toronto Rock

Jamie Dawick said that Nick Rose is their goalie of the future, though Dawick also had nothing but good things to say about Matt Roik – right up until he was released. That said, I’d be surprised if Rose wasn’t the starting goalie for the Rock in 2013. It has been implied that Pat Campbell may hang ’em up, in which case the Rock need a new backup goaltender. Dawick also said that Phil Sanderson may have to retire after the concussion he suffered this season. That would be a huge loss for the D.

The offense looks set, except for one position where there was a bit of a problem. That would be the “Stephen Leblanc” position. The guy playing there had some good nights, but wasn’t nearly as effective overall as in 2010 or 2011, so that needs to improve. Dan Carey didn’t have a huge impact on the offense but like Flip, he suffered a season-ending concussion. Seeing as this was the second time in his career he’s missed significant time because of a concussion, Carey may have to walk away as well.

I think they could use a little more size and toughness from their defense. Considering the firepower up front, could the Rock send one of their O guys off for a big D guy and backup goalie? Doyle and Sanderson aren’t going anywhere, and they’re not likely to trade Billings after the season he just had. Could one of Manning, Leblanc or Beirnes be on their way out? Or will the Rock look to the free agent market to shore up the back end?

Game Report: Buffalo 6 @ Toronto 7

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For the third straight year, the Rock have bumped the Bandits out of the playoffs. This game was very similar to the last Bandits game in Toronto, where the first half and the second half seemed like completely different games. In the first half of Saturday’s game, the Rock put forth a pretty uninspiring performance while the Bandits played solid defense and Anthony Cosmo was excellent. In the second half, the Rock finally came alive (if you can call five goals in a half “coming alive”), and the Bandits forwards were shut down by a great goaltending performance by Nick Rose. The final score was 7-6, making this game the second-lowest scoring playoff game in NLL history. The NLL later tweeted that 7 is now the lowest winning score of a playoff game in history, and ties the all-time (i.e. non-playoff) record.

The Rock were shut out entirely in the first quarter, while Buffalo scattered four goals. The second quarter wasn’t much different from the first, though the Rock did get on the scoreboard. But John Tavares scored 30 seconds after the first Rock goal and 3 minutes after the second, each time deflating the crowd and taking the wind out of the Rock’s sails. The Rock offense was starting to get some good looks though, and at one point beat Cosmo but not the posts and crossbar about four times within two minutes including three shots in a row. Cosmo never touched any of them, and may not even have seen them, but according to the rule book he’s credited with a save for each one. In general though, Cosmo played unbelievable in the first half, and only allowed five in the second half as well. Buffalo’s defenders played very well, but Cosmo was easily Buffalo’s game MVP.

At the other end, Nick Rose was good in the first quarter despite the four goals allowed. He was even better in the second – I don’t fault him for the two goals in the second quarter either, since they were both from John Tavares who was left open. No goalie can be faulted for giving up goals to Tavares when he’s open. The Bandits didn’t figure, however, that JT’s goal at 10:57 of the second was the last they’d score in the game. Rose was positively Watson-esque in the second half, and there’s no higher compliment from a Toronto Rock fan. The Bandits were held scoreless for a little over 34 minutes.

The crowd started to get into the game by the end of the third, and even when the Rock were still down by two, the volume was continually growing. Once folks realized that Rose and the defense were playing well enough to keep the Rock in the game and that they really did have a chance to win this, it got even louder. Garrett Billings scored to get the Rock within three, and then Kasey Beirnes (who’d be the Rock game MVP if it weren’t for Rose) scored a few minutes later to get the Rock within two to end the third. Beirnes scored again a couple of minutes into the third, and then completed the natural hat-trick by tying the game three minutes later. But it took until there was only 1:35 left in the game before Brenden Thenhaus scored to give the Rock the lead for the first time in the game. By this point, the crowd was going insane, possibly as loud as I’ve heard the ACC all year.

With less than ten seconds in regulation time, Bill Greer took a penalty for holding the stick, which he vehemently tried to argue but to no avail. His argument was valid… sort of. On watching the replay, Stephen Hoar knocked the stick out of Culp’s hands with a legal check, and then Greer crosschecked Culp in the back of the head. I didn’t see anyone holding anyone else’s stick. Greer certainly could have gotten two, or five, for the crosscheck though. And Stephen Hoar could have gotten two for yanking on Kelusky’s jersey a few seconds before.

At this point, there were 7.5 seconds left on the clock, and my son says “Ha! Only 7.5 seconds left! It doesn’t matter anyway!” I responded “Oh yes it does. This is lacrosse.” And sure enough, John Tavares puts one in just under 7.5 seconds later. The refs began to review the goal, as they always do with under two minutes to play, and they showed the replay on the Jumbotron. Right away Josh Sanderson and a few other Rock players ran over to Nick Rose to give him a celebratory hug. They could see on the replay that the goal wouldn’t count because Tracey Kelusky was standing fully in the crease. I’ve seen a few tweets and articles that say he was pushed in, but first off, it doesn’t matter since pushing someone into the crease isn’t illegal. Secondly, I’ve watched the replay from the TV broadcast a number of times and I see no evidence that he was pushed in. He was behind Chapman who was walking backwards, but so was Kelusky. Maybe Chapman was pushing him and maybe not but it’s impossible to tell from the replay. After a review that only took a few seconds but felt much longer, the crowd erupted as the “no goal” sign was given, thus ending a game that started off fairly boring but then became one of the most exciting lacrosse games in recent memory.

The Bandits are done for the year, and the Rock will host the Knighthawks next weekend for the East division title. Since Edmonton took out Calgary, Toronto will host their second straight Championship game if they beat the Knighthawks.

Other game notes:

  • Kevin Buchanan managed to launch his stick over the glass in the first quarter and was booed when he convinced the fan (a Bandits fan, too) to toss it back to him. I expected to see Buchanan run over with an extra stick or something later on to give the guy as a thank-you, but it didn’t happen.
  • Glen Bryan’s helmet got knocked off in the third, and he made a move towards the bench but then turned around and continued play for a while. The rule book is clear – if your helmet comes off you must either put it back on or leave the floor immediately. Seeing as Bryan was defending the guy with the ball, there was no way the refs just didn’t see it. Easy call, but the refs totally blew it.
  • At the end of the first, Damon Edwards hit Ian Llord into the boards with a crosscheck from behind, and Llord suffered a separated shoulder. No call on that one either. Llord had the ball at the time, so if the refs didn’t see it, I don’t know where they were looking.
  • There were only 9400 people at the game, which I thought was quite disappointing for a playoff game against the Bandits on a Saturday night when the Leafs and Raptors are done.
  • Who was first in line for the handshakes after the game, less than a minute after the no-goal call? Darris Kilgour.

Division semi-final picks

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My overall record during the regular season was 31-41 (0.431). If I only get three of the seven playoff games right, I’m at .428, so I need to finish above .500 in the playoffs to beat my regular season record. Everyone wants to do better in the playoffs than they did in the regular season, right?

Despite what my picks for the first round look like, I did not just go with the higher ranked team. Well, I did, but I actually did think about each game.

Record: 0-0

Game

Comments

Pick
BUF @ TOR Of the three possible opponents for the Rock in the first round, this was my least favourite option as a Rock fan. I was hoping the Rock would face Rochester while the Wings disposed of the Bandits. Then the Rock could take out the Wings and head to the final again. It doesn’t matter how bad the Bandits were in the early (or even mid) part of this year – they played pretty well at the end, Cosmo seems to have found his stride, and the team is playing with confidence. This could be a really close game, going back and forth all night and finally solved by overtime, or it could be a blowout, one way or the other. None of those options would surprise me. Rock5
PHI @ ROC On March 23, the Wings were 7-4 and in first place in the East. Since then, they’re 0-5 and have scored 10 or fewer goals in 4 of those games. They’re outta time to turn things around – it’s now or never. The Knighthawks aren’t exactly flying into the playoffs either, having lost four of their last six. But one of those wins was against the Wings and the other was against the powerhouse Roughnecks, so things aren’t all bad. Knighthawks5
EDM @ CAL I like the Rush. Aaron Bold is my Goalie of the Year choice, Rubisch (my Defender of the Year choice) and Corbeil are two of the best defenders in the league, and Shawn Williams and Steve Toll are two of my all-time favourite players. Could they beat the Roughnecks? Could their defense and goaltending shut down the potent Calgary offense long enough for their forwards to put a few by Poulin? Sure, it could happen. But it won’t. Roughnecks
MIN @ COL I wanted to pick the Swarm, and I kind of hope I’m wrong. The Swarm have surprised and impressed me (and many others) this year, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they did pull off the upset, though I would be surprised. Sure, they beat the Mammoth last weekend, but Colorado was missing Gavin Prout and had nothing to play for in that game. Prout is back this weekend, and the Mammoth are not going to take this one lightly. Mammoth4

Week 17 picks

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So this is it, the last week. I’m way under .500; best I can do is 32-40, but I could also end up 28-44. Yet another .500 week would put me at 30-42. Still, that’s not too much worse than some of the IL Indoor guys, and depending on this week’s games, it might even be better than some of them. But remember when we start the playoffs, we’re all tied at 0-0…

Record: 28-40 (.412)

Game

Comments

Pick
TOR @ EDM Toronto is playing for home floor advantage while Edmonton can’t change their playoff position. Nick Rose had a bad outing against the Mammoth but rebounded and played pretty well against the Stealth last weekend. Edmonton has the lowest-scoring offense in the league, so this might be another opportunity for Rose to bump his confidence going into the playoffs. That said, the Rush beat the Mammoth last weekend so maybe let’s not count our chickens and all that. Rock
COL @ MIN Apparently Gavin Prout will miss this weekend, although the Mammoth said that about John Grant after the weekend he missed and he played anyway. The biggest question of this game is: will it be Evan Kirk or Tyler Carlson that gives up John Grant’s 116th point of the year? Or will they say “Sorry, Mr. Grant, not on my watch”? Given the season Grant’s had, that would be rather surprising, but surprising things just keep happening in the NLL this season. Mammoth
PHI @ ROC I really wanted to pick Philly just because I can’t imagine them going into the playoffs on a five-game losing streak. But I couldn’t imagine the Bandits going on a six-game losing streak, or the Stealth missing the playoffs, or the Mammoth going from 5-11 to 11-4 in one year, or… The Knighthawks have owned the Wings this year, going 2-0 with a combined score of 33-20. Knighthawks
BUF @ WAS I know, I know, I said I was done with the Bandits, but holy crap, Anthony Cosmo was great last weekend. And the one before. The Stealth are playing for exactly nothing while the Bandits are shaping up for the playoffs. Bandits

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
Week 16 – 3-2

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

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