Category Archives: Calgary Roughnecks

Week 14 picks

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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)

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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. Roughnecks
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. Rush
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. Swarm
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. 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. Swarm
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. Rock

Week 13 picks

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Last week was my first above-.500 week since week 6. I was 2-1, missing only Edmonton’s victory over the Rock. Some tough picks this week though they should all be entertaining games. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the Bandits at the ACC and the Stealth-Roughnecks game as well.

Record: 22-30 (.423)

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Pick
PHI @ MIN Philly needs to sweep this weekend to get into the playoffs, but as I said on the Pro Lacrosse Face-off show this week, I don’t see it happening. I’m still bullish on the Swarm, especially given their recent demolition of the Stealth. Swarm
BUF @ TOR I love when the Bandits come to town. The games are always physical, always exciting, always eventful. Of course, the Bandits have a winning record in Toronto, so much of the time the ending of the game isn’t so good for me. But the Rock are in first place and the Bandits have lost four in a row. So obviously the Rock will win. Cause that’s the way the NLL works, right? Rock5
PHI @ COL I originally had the Wings logo here, but I’ve changed my mind. The Wings have five wins but four of them have been against Rochester, Buffalo (2), and Colorado. Toronto (early in the season) is the only team above .500 they’ve beaten – and they’ve since been beaten by the Rock. Colorado had a lead last week and let it slip away but that’s par for the course for the Mammoth – they’re becoming known for taking one quarter off per game and in that one, it was the fourth. If they can put 4 solid quarters together, they can beat the Wings easily but even if they only play 3 I think they can still win. Mammoth
TOR @ ROC Rochester is playing for their playoff lives, so they won’t go quietly. Or will they? They’ve lost five of their past six at home and only hit double digits in the first of those six. They’ve also only played one game since the 2nd of March. Worse home offense in the league (8.3 goals per game at home!) against the third-best defense? I’ll risk looking like a homer and take the Rock. Rock
CAL @ WAS I can’t figure out the Stealth. They win 3 in a row, two of them with 16 goals, and then only score 5 against the Swarm? So which Stealth do we get this weekend? Meanwhile the Roughnecks have allowed 15+ goals in 5 of their last 6 games. The Roughnecks haven’t demonstrated the ability to hold back the top offensive teams, at least not in the second half of this season. I originally had Calgary for this game but I’ve switched this one too. Stealth

Week 12 picks

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For the second straight week, I was 2-2 with my picks. Starting out under .500 and continually getting .500 will get you towards .500, but you’ll never get there. That’s math. Luckily, there are 3 games this week so I won’t be going .500. Let’s hope for a 2-1 or 3-0 week to bring up that average!

Record: 20-29 (.408)

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Pick
EDM @ BUF Edmonton has won 5 of 6 and scored 14+ goals in four of them. Buffalo has lost three straight but only really got crushed in one of them. Given the events of the past couple of weeks, I’m wondering if Bandits will act like angels this weekend (not wanting to lose more people to suspensions) and stay out of the penalty box. If they can do that, they stand a good chance of beating the Rush. But notice who I’m picking. Rush
COL @ CAL This pick is closer than I would have thought a few weeks ago. The powerhouse Roughnecks against the lowly Mammoth? Not so much. The ‘Necks have had defensive troubles all year and are dead last in goals allowed, though they’re first in goals scored. The Mammoth are coming of two solid wins against Buffalo and have growing confidence in their young goaltenders. But I still gotta go with Calgary though it’s my least confident pick this week. Roughnecks
EDM @ TOR I saw Mark Matthews play in a pre-season exhibition game in Toronto and had to agree with all the experts saying that Matthews was going to be a force in the NLL. Obviously they were right, and I’m looking forward to watching him again, not to mention defensive stud Kyle Rubisch. But the Rock are on a roll (man, that joke just never gets old, does it?), and three wins in their final five games will give them their best record since 2005. Since this is the best Rock team since 2005 (including a team that won a championship), that would be fitting. Rock

Week 10 picks

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OK, this is getting silly now. Parity is great and all, but what I wouldn’t give for a 2007 Knighthawks vs. 2004 Anaheim Storm game – at least it’d make one pick easy.

I went 2-3 last week, which isn’t bad, but it’s my third sub-.500 week in a row. People have started to ask me on twitter NOT to pick their team so I’m going to spin things around this week. I will make my picks, and then record the opposite. Sounds silly, but if I’d done that the rest of the year, I’d be 25-16, batting .610.

But I’m tellin’ ya, if this doesn’t work, I may not bother with the picks thing next season. Maybe I’ll just do Power Rankings. Anybody can do those.

Record: 16-25 (.390)

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Comments

Pick
MIN @ CAL Despite their recent struggles, I still find it hard to pick against the Roughnecks. This combined with a Suitor-less Swarm who have also been struggling lately, and I think the Roughnecks will get back to their winning ways and take this one. So I’m picking the Swarm. Swarm
COL @ TOR Top team in the league against the bottom team in the league – no-brainer, right? Not exactly. With the weapons that the Mammoth have and the fact that they’re hungry to prove themselves and get out of the basement, they could be a dangerous team. That said, the Rock aren’t happy with their loss to Buffalo last week. Like the Roughnecks, I think the Rock will get back to form and take this one. So I’m picking the Mammoth. Mammoth
COL @ BUF Tough one. Both teams have superstar players that can be unmatched when they’re on their game, but if you get them rattled, their effectiveness drops significantly. Colorado’s is Grant, and Buffalo’s is Cosmo. If either one of these guys is off his game, the other team’s likelihood of winning skyrockets. I’m not saying that Grant will be off his game, but I liked how Buffalo played last Thursday against the Rock so as long as they can avoid a fourth quarter collapse like they did against Philly (and like the Rock did against them), I think Buffalo can take it. So I’m picking the Mammoth. Mammoth
WAS @ PHI Hmmm… Philly’s won 3 in a row, Washington’s won 2. BMiller vs. TRich. Crowley, Buchanan and Ross vs. Duch, Ratcliff, and Iannucci. Reynolds vs. Snider. This is a close one, but Philly has surprised me too often this season to pick them to lose again. So I’m picking the Stealth. Stealth

NLL mid-season report: West division

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The East consists of one really good team, a couple of good ones and one struggling, but the west is much more even. Last year we had two great teams, two good teams, and the Stealth. This year it’s more like five pretty good teams. Nobody is head and shoulders above the rest, and nobody is terrible – not even the last place Mammoth. Blah blah parity blah blah…

 

Roughnecks Calgary Roughnecks

Offense: A+

First in goals scored per game by more than a full goal. There are two Roughnecks in the top ten in scoring including #1 and five in the top twenty-one. Averaging 1.2 shorthanded goals per game. Have only scored less than 11 goals once, and they won that game. Scored 16+ four times in ten games. Best offense in the league – only the Toronto Rock is close.

Defense: C

7th in goals allowed per game, so they’re winning lots of high-scoring games. Only given up less than 10 twice, but have given up 16+ in each of the last four games and 15 in one other (though they won two of those). Poulin hasn’t looked like Poulin – in Calgary’s last three losses, he’s allowed 16 goals on 48 shots, 13 on 46, and 14 on 37. He’s 7th among starters in GAA and 9th in Save %.

Overall: A

Still my pick to win the West, though I’m reconsidering. After coming up with grades for the Rush, I had to think about which of the two I would rank higher. I eventually settled on giving each of them an A.

 

Mammoth Colorado Mammoth

Offense: D

Tied with the Knighthawks for 7th in goals per game. Grant is tied for 7th in points, then Prout at 16th. In terms of points per game, Grant is 3rd, Prout 13th, and Jones 17th. Of their top 10 scorers in 2012, 6 of them are down in points/game this year, two (MacLeod, McBride, Coates) are slightly up, and one (Hopcroft) is gone.

You couldn’t expect Junior’s production to stay at the 8.3 points per game he had last year (he’s down to 5.8), but as he’s dropped, so has just about everyone else. Derek Hopcroft was traded for a 5th round pick and is on the Bandits’ practice roster and playing in CLax. Jamie Shewchuk is sitting at home. First round draft pick Colton Clark has played in one game. They’ve been so focused on their goaltending situation that they have done nothing to shake up their offense. They’re just not clicking this year. This was the top scoring team in the league last season.

Defense: D-

Dead last in goals allowed per game with 13.8. They’re way worse at home (14.2) than on the road (13). They released Chris Levis after a terrible start and gave Matt Roik the keys. Then they released him and are trying Minnesota’s rookie-twin-terror strategy – Lewis and Belanger had a combined 30 minutes of NLL experience before this season. It worked for the Swarm last year, though not so much this year. Can it save the Mammoth’s season? Seems like a long shot.

Overall: D-

At the halfway point, there are no two ways about it: the Mammoth are the worst team in the league. But they’re not that different personnel-wise from the contending team they were last year. A little confidence and they could start winning but they need the wins to get the confidence.

 

Rush Edmonton Rush

Offense: A

Wow, this Mark Matthews kid just came out of nowhere! Who saw this coming? Oh wait, everybody did. Matthews leads the league in goals scored and is tied for 7th in points. The team is 2nd in goals per game and has three players in the top 13 scorers. When have you been able to say that about the Rush before? Matthews is the offensive star the Rush have never had, and he’s turned a decent offense into a great one. The Rush have scored 18 twice, 15 twice (though they lost one) and 14 twice.

Defense: A

2rd in goals allowed per game. The Rush are giving up less than 10 goals per game in away games. They’ve given up 10 or fewer goals in six games out of ten. Aaron Bold is 4th among starters in GAA, though only 8th in save %.

Overall: A

Last year, the Rush were decent offense and great defense. This year the defense is just as good but the offense is so much better.

 

Swarm Minnesota Swarm

Offense: B-

5th in goals per game. They’ve scored less than 10 goals in a game only three times. Ryan Benesch is 6th in points per game, Callum Crawford is 8th (but has missed 2 games), Shayne Jackson is 28th and Kiel Matisz is 30th. The next player is Jordan MacIntosh way down at 50th so it seems that the Big Four do pretty much all the scoring.

Defense: D

The Swarm are 6th in goals allowed per game; only Colorado and Calgary are higher. Strangely, the Swarm have given up an average of 2 more goals per game at home than on the road. The experiment with two young goalies that worked so well last year isn’t going so well this year. Both Evan Kirk and Tyler Carlson have GAA over 14, ranking them 9th (Carlson) and 10th (Kirk) among starters, and they are 6th (Carlson) and 7th (Kirk) in save percentage.

Overall: C+

I expected a lot from the Swarm this year – I picked them to finish second in the west. Right now they’re fourth and with captain Andrew Suitor out for the year, I have to wonder if the Swarm are already done. I was on a roundtable last week with the guys from LaxDirt.com and most of the panel believed that the loss of Suitor will be too much for this young team to handle and that they’ll be the team that finishes out of the playoffs. I’m not sure I’m ready to write the team off quite yet, but with all he does for the team, Suitor will be a tough guy to replace.

 

Stealth Washington Stealth

Offense: B

Right in the middle, at 4th in goals per game. I was about to say that “Rhys Duch is having a great year” but when I look over his points per game averages over his career, I found this:

    Season Points Points per game
    2009 89 5.56
    2010 86 5.38
    2011 90 5.63
    2012 (14 games) 79 5.64
    2013 (10 games) 57 5.70

Look at the points per game – talk about Mr. Consistency. Duch missed two games in 2012 and his total extrapolates to 90 points over 16 games, and this year he’s on a pace for 91. So yes, Duch is having a great year but not significantly better than his previous great years.

Duch is fourth in the league in points per game, while Iannucci and Ratcliff are 21st and 24th respectively. Cliff Smith is having a career year – he has 32 points in 10 games so far. He started the season with 44 career points in 33 games over four seasons.

Defense: B-

Also right in the middle, 4th in goals allowed per game. In their four losses, they’ve allowed 18, 15, 15, and 7 goals. OK, we’ll give the defense a pass on that last one. Tyler Richards is having a much better season than last year, with a GAA lower by more than two. Last year, Richards’ GAA was twelfth among starters last year. Twelfth is not great in a 9-team league. This year, he’s second. Nick Patterson had a 16.81 GAA but was released last week, replaced with former Mammoth Matt Roik.

Overall: A-

The goal for the Stealth in 2013 was (a) forget 2012 and (b) win Championship. Perhaps they thought about it in the other order but I think (a) had to be done before (b) was possible. At 5-4 and second in the West, they haven’t clinched a playoff berth yet but I think they’ve been successful in getting (a) accomplished. But (b) will be a bigger challenge.

Similar to the Bandits, their overall grade is higher than their offensive or defensive grades. Can’t argue with first in the West, though given how the Rush have been playing and how the Roughnecks should be playing, I’m not sure I’d count on the Stealth still being in first at the end of the season.

The NLL Pronunciation Guide v2.0

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A couple of years ago, I wrote an article on the NLL Blog listing a bunch of NLL players with difficult-to-pronounce names and how to say them correctly. Apparently it is not yet required reading for NLL play-by-play guys, since I still frequently hear names being mispronounced. But there are a number of new players in the league now, so it’s time for an update. Some of these have been confirmed by the players themselves via twitter – thanks to Frankie Scigliano, Jaeden Gastaldo, Kurtis Wagar, and Neil Tyacke for responding and confirming how to say their names properly.

I’ve grouped them by team and alphabetically.

Buffalo

Chad Culp – CHAD CULP
John Harasym – HAIR-a-sim.
Mat Giles – JYLES
Alex Kedoh Hill – KEE-dough
Tracey Kelusky – kuh-LUH-skee. Not kuh-LOO-skee.
Steve Priolo – pree-O-lo
Jimmy Purves – PURR-vis
John Tavares – If you can’t say his last name, you are obviously not a lacrosse fan. Why are you reading this article? But for completeness, it’s tuh-VAR-ez.
Jay Thorimbert – I would have expected THOR-im-bear but I believe it’s THOR-im-bert.
Dhane Smith – DANE
Mark Steenhuis – STAIN-house
Kurtis Wagar – WAY-ger. Attention Buffalo announcers: not WAG-ner.

Philadelphia

Kevin Buchanan – byu-CAN-in
CJ Costabile – COST-a-bull
Pat Heim – HIGHm
Paul Rabil – RAY-bull
Brian Tueber – TOOB-er
Drew Westervelt – WEST-er-velt
Chad Wiedmaier – Could not get confirmation. I’d have said WEED-myer but the NLL Pronunciation Guide* says it’s weed-MAY-er.

* – Yes, the NLL Pronunciation Guide is a real thing, though there are a few mistakes in it. No idea if this is one of them.

Rochester

Mike Accursi – uh-CUR-see
Stephen Keogh – KEY-o
Ian Llord – la-LORD. No, I’m not serious. It’s just LORD.
Matt Vinc – Like VINCE, not VINK
Cory Vitarelli – VIT-a-RELL-ee

Toronto

Kasey Beirnes – BEERns
Stephan Leblanc – STEFF-in la-BLONK
Brendan Thenhaus – I had TEN-house originally but I believe it’s TAIN-house. Like Steenhuis without the first ‘S’.

Calgary

Dane Dobbie – DOUGH-bee. Not like Dobby.
Joe Resatarits – res-a-TARE-its
Frankie Scigliano – SHIL-ee-ANN-o
Geoff Snider – SNY-der. Not SHNY-der.
Kaleb Toth – KAY-leb TOE-th. My biggest pet peeve – he played 11 seasons in Calgary and I still hear people (even Calgary announcers!) talk about Kaleb TAW-th.

Colorado

Joey Cupido – cuh-PEE-dough
Ilija Gajic – ILL-ee-ya GUY-ch
John Gallant – gull-ANT
Jaeden Gastaldo – JAY-den guh-STALL-dough
Chet Koneczny – kon-EZ-nee
Eric Martin – Just like it looks, presumably. I asked a Colorado fan and he just lowered his head and whispered “We do not speak his name.”
Sean Pollock – SHAWN POLL-ick
Creighton Reid – CRAY-ton REED

Edmonton

Chris Corbeil – cor-BEEL
Brett Mydske – MID-skee

Minnesota

Mitch Belisle – buh-LYLE
Ryan Benesch – buh-NESH
Nic Bilic – Nick BIL-ich. Oddly, Jake Elliott (Swarm play-by-play guy) acknowledges that he knows this but says it “BIL-ik” anyway.
Callum Crawford – CAL-um. Attention Edmonton announcers: not CAY-lum
Alex Crepinsek – CREP-in-sek
Kiel Matisz – Just like it looks. (Sigh) OK, fine. It’s KYLE muh-TEEZ
Corbyn Tao – COR-bin TOW (last name rhymes with COW). Attention Washington announcer: not TAY-o.

Washington

Rhys Duch – REES DUTCH
Billy Hostrawser – HOS-trouser
Athan Iannucci – EYE-uh-NOOCH-ee
Justin Pychel – PITCH-el
Bob Snider – SNY-der. Remarkably similar to that of Geoff Snider.
Neil Tyacke – TY-ack. Rhymes with kayak.

Non-players

Steve Bermel – BURR-mull. Rhymes with “thermal”. Bandits writer for IL Indoor.
Jamie Dawick – DOW-ick. (DOW rhymes with COW like Corbyn Tao. Sounds like that sentence should be in a rap song somewhere) Owner of the Rock.
Marisa Ingemi – muh-RISS-uh in-JEM-ee. Runs the show over at InLacrosseWeTrust.com.
Darris Kilgour – DARRIS KILL-gore. Not DAR-ee-us. Buffalo head coach.
Johnny Mouradian – moor-RAD-ee-an. Philadelphia GM & head coach.
Graeme Perrow – GRAY-um PEAR-o. The most knowledgeable lacrosse mind of our generation whose first name is Graeme. Or at least in the top ten of Graeme’s.
Grant Spies – SPEEZ. NLL ref.
Tim Then – THEN. I dunno, some guy that tweeted me.

Week 9 picks

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OK, so that sucked. I went 0-5 last week as Edmonton and Minnesota each won in the other’s barn, the Wings pulled off a couple of wins, and the Stealth grabbed a first-place tie in the West. Every team is in action this weekend (and this week, since Toronto and Buffalo play a rare Thursday night game), and the Bandits play twice.

Record: 14-22 (.389)

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Pick
BUF @ TOR Buffalo has a winning record in Toronto, but the Rock are the top team in the league right now. If Cosmo plays like he did two weeks ago this could be a tough one for the Rock. Nick Rose has allowed 12, 13, and 12 goals in their last three games so he might have to take it up a notch, especially with John Tavares returning. Rock
PHI @ BUF Both teams are 4-3, both 2-2 at home. Buffalo has scored two more goals and allowed one more than Philly. Couldn’t really get more even. I’ll give this one to Buffalo because they’re at home. Bandits
EDM @ CAL The Roughnecks have lost two of their last three but this is their first home game in a few weeks. I think Calgary is still the team to beat in the West. Roughnecks
ROC @ COL The loser of this game will have the worst record in the league. The Knighthawks have gone from the Championship game to the basement in one year. Where have we heard that before? And this is after adding Casey Powell and Dan Dawson to their lineup. And yet, I still can’t bet against them… Knighthawks
MIN @ WAS Speaking of Championship game to the basement in one year, now the Stealth are trying to go the other direction in one year. I’m not sure they can get all the way there, but in a one-and-done playoff format, anything’s possible. Meanwhile, the Swarm have lost their captain for the rest of the season. How will this young team handle the loss of their leader? Stealth

Week 8 picks

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2-3 last week. Not bad, but continually having weeks under .500 will not help me make it to .500 overall. I called Edmonton’s win over Colorado and Calgary’s over Minnesota, but said that Calgary scared me in the Toronto game (they weren’t that scary) and that Buffalo would struggle without JT against the awesome firepower of the Knighthawks. Turns out the Bandits didn’t need much firepower themselves, and Rochester didn’t bring theirs anyway.

Some tough ones this week – will Edmonton continue their hot streak in back-to-back games against the Swarm? Will Philadelphia get some payback for the beating they took from Rochester a couple of weeks ago? What will happen when the worst and second-worst teams face off in Philly?

Record: 14-17 (.452)

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Pick
MIN @ EDM Two underperforming teams face off twice this weekend. Edmonton broke out last weekend with two wins, but Minnesota has yet to do that. This could be the weekend they do, but I think Edmonton will ride their winning streak into their home arena and take the first game. Rush
PHI @ ROC Making picks for the Knighthawks is difficult because there seem to be two Knighthawks teams – the reigning champs from last year who demolished the Wings a couple of weeks ago, and the other team that only scored 6 against Buffalo last weekend and lost their first three. I remember saying this about the Knighthawks last year too. That said, Casey Powell should be back this weekend and the Hawks not going to be happy with last week’s game. Knighthawks
CAL @ WAS Despite their loss in Toronto last weekend, the Roughnecks are still a scary good team. But they know that the Stealth are right behind them in the standings and cannot be taken for granted. If I had to choose my least confident pick this week, this would be it. Roughnecks
EDM @ MIN Minnesota’s home field advantage is pretty significant – they were 6-2 last year at home and are 2-1 this year (while 0-3 away), so I have to give this one to the Swarm. Swarm
COL @ PHI Colorado’s been one of the biggest surprises this year. Sure they’ve had goaltending issues, but that’s not the extent of their problems. Only one team has scored fewer goals/game than the Mammoth (11) and that’s the Wings (10.4). Last year, nobody scored more than the Mammoth. They gotta start scoring sometime, don’t they? Mammoth

Faceoff dominance: Does it help you win?

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Over the last decade or so, a few players have stood out as excellent face-off men. Washington’s Bob Snider and his brother, Calgary’s Geoff Snider, are the cream of the crop right now, and in recent years Peter Jacobs, Jamie Hanford, and Jamison Koesterer have also made names for themselves in the circle. But does it really matter?

Logic says yes. When you win a face-off, you gain possession and in lacrosse, possession is everything. If you win 75-80% of your face-offs, as the Snider boys do with regularity, that’s 10-15 extra possessions per game for your team, and at least a few of those have to translate into goals, right? But do the stats bear that out? As we frequently do on this blog, let’s look at the numbers and see if they support something that “everybody knows”.

tl;dr

For those of you who don’t care to look at the actual numbers, here’s the “too long; didn’t read” version: Yes, but not by very much. Feel free to skip to the conclusion now.

The numbers

I only have sufficient stats for the 2012 season, so we’ll have to restrict the numbers to that season. There were 72 games played during the regular season, and therefore 72 winners. Three of the 72 games finished with a tie in faceoffs, so we won’t count those three. Of the 69 remaining games, the winning team led in faceoffs 39 times (56.5%). This means that in 30 of the games (43.5%), the winning team won fewer faceoffs than the losing team.

So it looks like winning the faceoff battle does give you a slight edge. But let’s look even further. If we look at games where one team really dominated the faceoffs, say winning 70% or more, we find the opposite. There were 28 such games last year, and the team that won the faceoff battle only won 13 (46%) of them. Of the 15 games where the losing team won 70% or more of the faceoffs, the teams break down like this: Washington 8, Philadelphia 3, Calgary 3, and Minnesota 1. The Stealth lost eight games (and won three) while winning 70+% of the faceoffs.

Of course, this is a strange case – the team with the best face-off man in the league and the worst record. This is also the record of one team over only 16 games. Calgary, for example, went 5-3 in games where they won 70+% of faceoffs. Even if we look at the season as a whole, that one team dominates so much that the numbers are too skewed to be meaningful. Not surprisingly, we can’t honestly say that winning 70% of the faceoffs means you’re less likely to win the game.

Conclusion

The conclusion to all of this is that during the 2012 season, teams won 56.5% of games in which they won more faceoffs than their opponents. I’ve done the calculations for the 2013 season as well (less than half over), and through 31 games (one game tied), everything is exactly 50-50 – winning teams have also led in faceoffs 50% of the time.

This tells me that winning the battle of the faceoffs does give your team a greater chance to win, but not by as much as you might think.

Game report: Calgary 12 @ Toronto 17

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I mentioned in my Week 7 picks article that Calgary scares me. They have arguably the best offense in the league, one of the best face-off men in the league, quick transition, a strong defense, and lots of toughness up and down the lineup. Oh yeah, and the reigning goaltender of the year. They’ve won four in a row, two of those by 7+ goals. There’s no question that the Roughnecks are one of the toughest teams to beat in the league, and that’s the team we saw tonight.

For the first quarter.

For the rest of the game they looked like just another pretty good lacrosse team. They certainly had flashes of brilliance – Poulin made a few great stops, the Roughnecks defense was pretty stifling all night long, and they scored a couple of goals that I, a Rock fan, even applauded. Shawn Evans didn’t score but dished out some pretty nice feeds. Dane Dobbie was on fire, and Shattler, Dickson, and Ranger had some pretty nice goals as well. But penalty trouble was the name of the game for the Roughnecks, as they gave the Rock 12 power play opportunities, 9 of which were converted.

The Rock started the game with the yips – shots going everywhere, dropped balls, fancy behind-the-back passes to nobody. It looked like the first game of the season out there – assuming nobody had picked up a lacrosse stick during the off-season. But things gradually came together and after being down 5-2 and 6-3, the Rock went on a 11-1 run including five straight power play goals in the third. Early in the second quarter, Garrett Billings scored an unbelievable behind-the-back no-look short-side goal and I mentioned on twitter that it “may be the most beautiful lacrosse goal ever scored in the history of the world” and was only partially kidding. But later in the same quarter, Billings scored another from almost the same place but this one was far side. I swear it looked like the ball curved after he shot it, since the space between Poulin’s arm and the post was almost nonexistent.

As I said, penalties caused the Roughnecks trouble all night, none more than Geoff Snider’s ejection early in the third. He was having his usual ho hum 78% face-off night, when he seemed to lose his mind and go after Scott Evans. Evans decided that fighting Snider was a bad idea (can’t blame him) and tried to walk away. Snider, who had hold of his jersey, pulled him back and started pummeling him. Refs quickly broke it up, but Snider was given 2 for instigating, 5 for fighting, and a game misconduct. The 2 and the 5 I get, but I honestly don’t know what earned him the misconduct. Evans, who never threw a punch, was given no penalties at all and the Rock went on a seven-minute power play, scoring three goals.

The Rock had a seven-goal lead at one point, but it dwindled to four with almost eight minutes left, so this was no blowout until the very end. Still, the Roughnecks seemed to get more and more frustrated (possibly with hitting the number of posts and crossbars that they did – they were banging more iron than a blacksmith), and both Andrew McBride and Shawn Evans got unsportsmanlike conduct penalties within the last five minutes of the game.

So with this win, did the Rock cement themselves as the best team in the league? Arguably yes, and they do have the best record, but given the parity in the league it’s hard to say they’re far and away the best. They’ve also played two more games than Rochester and Buffalo, and three more than Philadelphia so we’ll have to let them catch up in games played before we can make a meaningful comparison.

Only a couple of game notes, neither of which has anything to do with the game itself:

  • It took me over two hours to get to the ACC from my house. With no traffic, I can make it in 45 minutes easy. I was a little frustrated by the time I arrived, especially since I’ve now missed the first five minutes of two games (out of three) this season due to horrible traffic on Lakeshore Boulevard. I know that nobody but me cares about that, but hey, it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to.
  • Because of this, I missed the pre-game event where a couple of members of the Grey Cup-winning Toronto Argonauts brought the Cup onto the field. The two captains Colin Doyle and Andrew McBride met the players, but after McBride declined to drink some beer from the Cup, the Argo player (Adriano Belli) poured beer over McBride’s head. There are a number of tweets from Roughnecks players and at least a couple from Rock players expressing their “disgust” over this. I can’t say I’m outraged but I agree this was a classless move. I don’t follow the CFL at all (and had never heard of Belli before this), but I’m pretty disappointed that a pro athlete would choose to disrespect a fellow pro athlete like this. I think an apology should be forthcoming from Belli and the Argos.