Category Archives: Calgary Roughnecks

Week 2 picks

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So the upstart Stealth knocked off the champion Knighthawks last week, and while this was not a shocker, it’s not what I picked so I start the season on a losing note. Than again, so did a lot of people.

Record: 0-1 (.000)

Game

Comments

Pick
BUF @ PHI I’m not sure if this is because I think Buffalo will do pretty well this year or because I think Philly won’t. Likely both. A number of people pointed out that Cosmo’s numbers weren’t exactly stellar last year (12.41 GAA, 75.9 save %), but he had no training camp and started cold in the middle of the season. His GAA and save % in his last five games were 9.36 and 82.3%. Bandits4
MIN @ BUF Just as I think Buffalo will do well this year, I think the Swarm will do better. Adding Matisz and Jackson to an already-strong core will help up front, and once Sorensen is activated, they’ll have an even better back end in front of two of the best young goalies in the league. Swarm4
TOR @ CAL Two of the strongest teams face off in each team’s season opener. Calgary’s 5-2 in their last 7 home games, though the Rock are 6-1 in their last 7 away games. Considering the firepower on both of these teams, this one will come down to goaltending. Nick Rose, in his first full season as an NLL starter, has yet to face his former Roughneck teammates while Mike Poulin is coming off a Goaltender of the Year season. I have to give Calgary the edge here. Roughnecks5
WAS @ COL After the disaster that was the 2012 Stealth season, the team has to be pretty pleased with their opening game against the defending champs. They looked more like the 2010 or 2011 Stealth and Colorado might be the victim of that confidence boost. Stealth4
TOR @ EDM As bullish as I am on Minnesota, I’m not so much on Edmonton. The Rush’s problem has always been offense and Mark Matthews will certainly help to make up for the loss of Shawn Williams, Aaron Wilson, and Scott Evans but he can’t do it all. If Corey Small, Ryan Ward, and Zack Greer don’t bump up their offensive numbers, the Rush could lose a lot of 9-7 games. Rock5

NLL 2013 team previews in haiku

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A list of my 2013 season previews of each team in haiku forum, along with links to the longer form for each.

Buffalo Bandits

Many new Bandits
Chugger’s been a busy guy
JT’s still here, natch

Philadelphia Wings

Rabil, no Dawsons
Transition – or midfielders?
This is box, not field

Rochester Knighthawks

Few changes, but big
With Powell and the Dawsons
The champs have improved

Toronto Rock

Who will protect us?
Pat Campbell retired, but
Scott Evans is here

Calgary Roughnecks

Dave Pym, Kaleb Toth
Both gone, but no one can get
Through the Poulin Wall

Colorado Mammoth

Grant is the leader
Last year was record-setting
Only one Gajic left

Edmonton Rush

Lost Williams, Wilson
But wait, help is on the way
Matthews is the man

Minnesota Swarm

Surprisingly good
Rookies did the job last year
Still getting better

Washington Stealth

Zywicki, Bloom: gone
Lots of rookies join the team
Return to glory?

2013 Preview: Calgary Roughnecks

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RoughnecksThe Roughnecks will have almost exactly the same team team in 2013 as they had in 2012, when they led the league during the regular season but flamed out (Ha! Calgary joke) in the playoffs. One of the few changes they did make was to fire head coach Dave Pym after three successful regular seasons (finishing second in the West once and first twice) but a total of one playoff win. Pym is now a western scout for the Rock (although strangely, has retained his “RiggerCoach” twitter handle); obviously the Philadelphia Wings missed my article saying that he’d be a good fit there. At least this way, Pym didn’t have to move from Alberta.

So Curt Malawsky will shuffle down the bench to become the head coach of the Roughnecks after being an assistant coach (under Pym) for three years. Malawsky ran the offense and will likely continue that role, while former Roughneck Bruce Codd, who played for the Rock last year, has retired to become the defensive coach.

Roster changes

On the floor, the biggest changes are the addition of Aaron Pascas from the Rock, the departure of Cory Conway to the Rush, and the retirement of veteran Kaleb Toth. Toth scored 50 or more points in nine of the previous ten seasons, and only missed seven games (playing 179) in his entire career before 2012. But he was frustrated by injuries last year and picked up only 8 points in 7 games. Toth is well-respected throughout the league, particularly in Calgary, but will always be remembered by Rock fans as the kid who scored The Goal, the last goal ever scored at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Pascas only has one year under his belt, while Conway has played 5 seasons, averaging twice the points per game that Pascas picked up back in 2011, so this is a bit of a drop in production. But if any team can handle a bit of a production drop it’s Calgary – only the Mammoth outscored Calgary last season, and they only outscored them by one.

Burning question

Was Dave Pym the problem? Or will the Roughnecks continue their ongoing San Jose Sharks impression of kicking butt in the regular season and underachieving in the playoffs?

Prediction

The current NLL record for most consecutive seasons with 10+ wins is held by both Toronto and Buffalo with five. 2012 was Calgary’s fourth in a row, and I don’t see any reason why they can’t tie the record in 2013. Their offense is outstanding, defense is great, and Mike Poulin is the reigning goalie of the year. First in the west.

Haiku

Dave Pym, Kaleb Toth
Both gone, but no one can get
Through the Poulin Wall

NLL 2013 rosters: Who’s in, who’s out

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Here is a complete list of the changes in rosters from the end of the 2012 season to the roster lists just announced. Players on the Holdout, Physically Unable to Perform (PUP), or Injured Reserve (IR) lists may be moved to the active roster before the season begins. Note that not all teams listed players on the PIP or IR lists so some may be missing.

Names for each list are in alphabetical order.

Buffalo Bandits

In: Carter Bender, David Brock, Glen Bryan, Nick Cotter, Steve Dietrich (GM), Mike Hominuck, Mike McNamara, Jamie Rooney, Dhane Smith, Hayden Smith, Derek Suddons, Kurtis Wagar, Shawn Williams, Aaron Wilson
Out: Kevin Buchanan, Brandon Francis, Darryl Gibson, Angus Goodleaf, Travis Irving, Darris Kilgour (GM), Ian Llord, Tom Montour, Jeremy Thompson, Mike Thompson, Roger Vyse, Chris White
IR: Jordan Critch, Mat Giles, Jamie Rooney
PUP: Jimmy Purves
Holdout: Joe Smith, Scott Stewart
Practice Squad: Kevin Brownell, Craig England, Derek Hopcroft

 

Philadelphia Wings

In: Kevin Buchanan, C.J. Costabile, Kevin Croswell, Ethan Farrell, Tom Hajek (defensive coach), Will Harrington, Kyle Hartzell, Jake Lazore, Mike Manley, Paul Rabil, Kevin Ross, Brian Tueber, Joel White, Chad Weiedmaier
Out: David Brock, Dan Dawson, Paul Dawson, Dan Deckelbaum, Steve Fryer, Tom Hajek (player), Mike Hominuck, Brendan Mundorf (injured), Jordan Sealock, Joe Smith, Kurtis Wagar
IR: Matt Alrich, Jordan Hall, Dan Hardy, Eric Hoffman, Steve Grossi
PUP: John McFadyen, Brendan Mundorf
Holdout:
Practice Squad:

 

Rochester Knighthawks

In: Dan Dawson, Paul Dawson, Matt Hummel, Joel McCready, Casey Powell
Out: Ryan Cousins (injured), Jarrett Davis, Jordan Hall, Travis Hill, Pat McCready, Tim O’Brien, Joel White
IR:
PUP: Ryan Cousins
Holdout: Kyle Laverty
Practice Squad: Ian Llord, Cody McLeod, Tom Montour

 

Toronto Rock

In: Kyle Belton, Zak Boychuk, Scott Evans, Rob Hellyer, Brandon Ivey, Cody Jacobs, Chris White
Out: Glen Bryan, Pat Campbell, Dan Carey, Bruce Codd, Steve Dietrich (goalie coach), Scott Johnston, Jamie Rooney, Brendan Thenhaus
IR: Mike Lum-Walker, Phil Sanderson
PUP:
Holdout:
Practice Squad:

 

Calgary Roughnecks

In: Bruce Codd (coach), Jackson Decker, Matthew Dinsdale, Curt Malawsky (head coach), Aaron Pascas, Joe Resetarits, Brad Richardson
Out: Cory Conway, Mike Kilby, Ryan McNish, Dave Pym (head coach), Kaleb Toth
IR:
PUP:
Holdout:
Practice Squad: Barclay Hickey, Darren Kinnear

 

Colorado Mammoth

In: Colton Clark, Joey Cupido, Joel Dalgarno (did not play in 2012), Chet Koneczny, Richard Morgan, Matt Roik
Out: Alex Gajic, Ian Hawksbee, Derek Hopcroft, Jed Prossner, Jamie Shewchuk, Scott Stewart
IR:
PUP: Tye Belanger, John Orsen, Jarett Park
Holdout:
Practice Squad: Alex Demopoulos

 

Edmonton Rush

In: Mitch Banister, Mike Burke, Cory Conway, Jarrett Davis, Curtis Knight, Mark Matthews, Jeremy Thompson, Alex Turner
Out: Scott Evans, Jesse Fehr, Eric Lewthwaite, Derek Suddons, Steve Toll, Shawn Williams, Aaron Wilson
IR:
PUP:
Holdout: Tyler Codron
Practice Squad: Dave Marrese

 

Minnesota Swarm

In: Matt Gibson, Shayne Jackson, Pat Smith, Alex Crepinsek, Michael O’Brien, Kiel Matisz
Out: Todd Baxter, Joe Cinosky, Brendan Doran, Matt Kelly, John McClure, Richard Morgan, Kevin Ross
IR:
PUP: Brock Sorensen
Holdout:
Practice Squad: Zach Higgins, Ryan Masters, Tyler Tanguay

 

Washington Stealth

In: Jason Bloom (coach), Kyle Buchanan, Tyler Garrison, Tim Henderson, David Joyce, Mitch McMichael, Patrick O’Meara, Nick Patterson, Justin Pychel
Out: Jason Bloom (player), Kevin Croswell, Kyle Hartzell, Peter Jacobs, Eric Martin, Kyle Ross, Cam Sedgwick, Chris Seidel, Jeff Zywicki
IR: Billy Hostrawser, Drew Snider
PUP:
Holdout: Mitch Jones
Practice Squad: Brett Hickey, Mike Mallory, Justin Salt

IL Indoor article on NLL star and diabetic Scott Ranger

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I recently saw a tweet by Calgary Roughnecks forward Scott Ranger in which he said something about being a diabetic. This struck a nerve with me, since both my wife and father-in-law are diabetic. Also, back in 2010 I spent two months in the hospital (and three more months at home) recovering from pancreatitis, a condition which could have left me diabetic myself. In fact, I was told by a nurse during my hospital stay that I was diabetic, since a blood glucose test came back with some astronomically high value. A subsequent test showed that the first test was messed up and I was fine.

Anyway, I asked Scott if he would be interested in talking to me about his diabetes and how he deals with it as a pro athlete, and he eagerly agreed. We talked over email a few times and Scott was very forthcoming with his answers. He gave me lots of great information and I did a fair bit of research on my own as well.

Because diabetes is a topic that is meaningful to me, I wanted to get the message out to as many people as possible and quite honestly, my lacrosse blog is not the way to do that. So I made use of (you could argue “exploited”) the fact that I write for IL Indoor during the NLL season and contacted my editor, Bob Chavez. He was happy to oblige and agreed to publish my article on IL Indoor, where it will likely reach far more people than on my little blog. In fact, Bob made it sound like I was doing him a favour by giving him something to publish during what is lacrosse-wise the quiet part of the year.

Here is a link to the article, called Challenges of Type 1 diabetes can’t keep Calgary’s Scott Ranger from thriving. Many thanks to Bob for agreeing to publish it and of course to Scott for talking to me.

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 #1: Pym out in Calgary

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The 2012 NLL season was over for about a month and a half before we had out first off-season employment casualties. Within a week of each other, Calgary’s Dave Pym was told that his contract as head coach was not being renewed and Buffalo’s Darris Kilgour was relieved of his GM duties, though he remains head coach. While neither of these moves were expected, one is a lot more surprising than the other. I will get to Mr. Kilgour in a couple of days, but right now, let’s look at the most active NLL coach on twitter, Dave Pym.

Pym only coached the Roughnecks for three years, and finished with a 33-15 record and two West Division banners. What he didn’t do is bring a Champion’s Cup to Calgary. The Roughnecks have been a dominant team for years, and have won two Championships, but you can’t fault Calgary management for not resting on their laurels and demanding more. In Pym’s three years in Calgary, they’ve had great regular seasons but have only made it as far as the division finals once. In two of those three seasons, the Roughnecks were expected to be Champion’s Cup contenders, if not favourites, so from that point of view you could say they underperformed in the playoffs.

But in 2011, the Roughnecks traded both Josh Sanderson and Tracey Kelusky, who were numbers 1 and 3 on the team’s scoring list the previous year. Many picked the Roughnecks to finish out of the playoffs but Pym coached the Roughnecks to an 11-5 record, first overall. With all due respect to Mike Hasen, Pym really should have been the Coach of the Year in 2011. In 2012, the Roughnecks got a game better, but then bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. They got smoked 19-11 by the surprising Rush, who in the 2012 playoffs played the best 2½ games of lacrosse in team history.

In three years, the Roughnecks won more than twice as many games as they lost and so in a one-and-done playoff format, it’s hard to blame coaching for their lack of success in the playoffs.

Pym is a successful and well-respected coach, and it seems unlikely that he remains unemployed for long. But where could he go? Derek Keenan and Chris Hall aren’t going anywhere. Mike Lines just won Coach of the Year, and Bob Hamley turned the Mammoth around in a single season, so it seems unlikely that there will be any coaching opportunities available in the West. In the East, Darris Kilgour is staying as Bandits coach, and defending champs Rochester aren’t likely to fire their coach. Troy Cordingley is likely safe as long as Terry Sanderson is around in Toronto, and he’s not going anywhere either. But what about Philly? The Wings made a lot of big player moves last season but still underperformed, and while Johnny Mouradian has seen a fair bit of success as a GM (five Championships with the Bandits and Rock), he hasn’t had as much success as a coach. Could Pym come in and finally return this storied NLL franchise to respectability?

On a possibly-relevant-but-probably-not note, Pym has since tweeted pictures of himself wearing a Bandits cap and a Wings t-shirt. Hmmm.

Team Summaries and projected changes: West division

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Last week we had a look at the teams in the East division, and where each one may look to improve in the off-season. Now we’ll look at the West division.

Calgary Roughnecks

It’s hard to look at a team like the Roughnecks and figure out where they need to get better. Offense? Second-most goals scored in the league, behind the Mammoth by one. Defense? Lowest goals against in the league by five over the Rush and twenty over the Swarm. Goaltender? 2012 NLL Goaltender of the Year should be good enough. Coaching? 2012 IL Indoor Coach of the Year and runner-up for the Les Bartley Award. As long as they can avoid playing Edmonton in the first round of the playoffs, the Roughnecks should be OK for next year even if they make no changes at all.

Colorado Mammoth

Similar to the Roughnecks, the Mammoth are strong on offense, defense, and goaltending. John Grant is unlikely to repeat his 2012 MVP performance next year, but even a pretty good Junior is better than most of the league. There were a bunch of rookies on the Mammoth this season, all of whom benefited from having Grant around. Jones and Hopcroft and Lincoln and McBride all learned a ton from Grant during his best season and will be better players next year because of it. They will likely be able to pick up the slack even if Junior’s numbers do drop. And even if they don’t, the Mammoth scored more goals than anyone else last year – if they’d scored nineteen fewer goals, they’d still be tied for third.

The Mammoth defense wasn’t as great in 2012 as it was in 2011 – in fact, they were sixth in the league in goals against, and only had two games all year where they gave up less than 10 goals. But they were without defensive stud Mac Allen for most of the season, so having him return was huge. Still, the Mammoth gave up 13 or more goals in 7 of their 16 games; if it wasn’t for their outstanding offense, they wouldn’t have ended up with 11 wins.

I don’t see the Mammoth making any goaltending changes and they certainly don’t need a defensive overhaul, but a bit of an offense-for-defense trade wouldn’t surprise me.

Edmonton Rush

Things are looking great for the Rush’s future. Not only did they make it to the finals, but they have a few first-round draft picks coming their way over the next couple of years from Philly and Washington, including first overall in the next entry draft. Welcome to Edmonton, Mark Matthews. On top of that, they have some trade bait in Paul Rabil and Scott Evans. Although according to Stephen Stamp’s article on IL Indoor, Evans is talking about working out and getting into better shape, and if he can do that and conform a little more to the Rush’s game plan, he may fit into their offense after all. That plus the addition of Matthews (I’m making an assumption here, as is everyone else, that Matthews is the guy they’ll pick) could be the offensive spark the Rush need. They seemed to find that spark in the playoffs, but could have used about a half-game more of it.

Shawn Williams is a free agent – will he want to continue travelling west next season? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind returning to his hometown Rock, but they are already kind of full on the left side with Doyle, Sanderson, and Leblanc. Could he return to the Knighthawks? They just won a Championship without him, so unless he’s part of a package that includes younger players or draft picks, I don’t see Rochester pulling the strings on that deal. The Bandits need to get younger, so that wouldn’t make sense either. If I had to guess though, I see him going back to the Rush since they got so close to a Championship, and the team is likely to be even better next year.

Minnesota Swarm

The Swarm have a young team with tremendous potential, and they also have four first round picks in this year’s entry draft. In three or four years, those guys will have a few seasons under their belts, the current group will really be just entering their prime (how scary a thought is that?), and even vets like Benesch and Crawford are young enough that they’ll still be in their prime. This could be a scary good team for a while. Remember how dominant Calgary and Colorado were in 2012? Wait a few seasons, and we might have Edmonton and Minnesota in that situation, and we’ll be talking about the “aging” Roughnecks. Unless they make big changes before then, the Bandits will be sponsored by Ensure.

The biggest issue the Swarm may face is the infamous sophomore slump – if that hits more than one player, they may have a problem. But then again, in recent years Andrew Suitor, Kyle Rubisch, Cody Jamieson, Stephen Leblanc, and Curtis Dickson have all had pretty decent second seasons. I don’t think there’s a single area of concern for the Swarm – third in goals scored, third in goals against, an outstanding goalie tandem, and two of the best transition players in the league in Suitor and MacIntosh. But if the Swarm decide they do need to make some changes, they have a ton of draft picks to fill in the holes, or they could trade one away. A high first-round draft pick will net you a better-than-decent player, and being left with “only” three first-rounders is still pretty good.

Washington Stealth

This is a tough one. On paper, the Stealth shouldn’t need to make huge changes but after missing the playoffs, they have to do something. Obviously players like Duch, Ratcliff, and Iannucci aren’t going anywhere. On the back end, Sorensen and Captain Bloom are locks, and apparently the Stealth refused to part with Jeff Moleski for Iannucci, so he’s likely staying. Tyler Richards didn’t have the greatest season ever, considering he was 3-9 with a GAA well over 12, but he was also injured for part of the year. How much of that record was his fault vs. the defense in front of him I can’t say, since I didn’t see many Stealth games (and the ones I did see were generally late at night so I was sleepy). But Richards did pick up a few IL Indoor Goaltender of the Year votes, so we’ll assume the Stealth agrees and won’t be dealing him.

The Stealth have the pieces, so I don’t see them making huge roster changes or going into rebuilding mode. There will be a few moves here and there, maybe even a blockbuster to shake things up. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the 2013 Stealth isn’t significantly different from the 2012 Stealth. Unlike the Bandits, perhaps the Stealth’s strategy will be “Hope everyone plays better”. But if they have another season like this one, nobody’s job will be safe.

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

2012 NLL Award winners

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The IL Indoor writing staff submitted their picks this week for the major annual NLL awards. Here are the names I submitted. I also made some predictions at the beginning of the year, so let’s see how I did on those.

Offensive player of the year – John Grant, Jr.

Grant set a new scoring record and did it while playing two fewer games than anyone else. He kept up an average of 8.3 points per game, and never scored less than six points in a game. He had two games all year without a hat-trick.

It’s amazing to me that John Tavares set the scoring record of 115 points in 14 games in 2001, and in ten 16-game seasons, nobody could beat it. Then in 2012 someone finally does beat it – while only playing 14 games.

Runners-up: Garrett Billings, Dan Dawson, John Tavares, Gavin Prout

Prediction: I didn’t make a prediction for offensive player.

Transition player of the year – Geoff Snider

Runners-up: Andrew Suitor, Brodie Merrill, Jordan MacIntosh, Travis Cornwall, Jesse Gamble

Prediction: Paul Rabil. Hahahahahahahaha

Defensive player of the year – Kyle Rubisch

Runners-up: Curtis Manning, Rory Smith, Kyle Sorensen, Sandy Chapman

Prediction: Kyle Rubisch. Yay, I got one right.

Goaltender of the year – Aaron Bold

I was really torn here. My first thought was Bold, but I had trouble giving Goaltender of the Year to a goalie on a 6-10 team so I switched to Mike Poulin. But then I remembered that Bob Watson won it for the Rock in 2008 when they were 7-9 and missed the playoffs. Poulin had a better team in front of him so he got more wins, but that doesn’t help us compare. But while watching games and highlights and looking over game reports over the course of the year, I remember thinking “wow” just a little more often with Bold than with anyone else. So I switched back.

Runners-up: Mike Poulin, Evan Kirk, Chris Levis

Prediction: Mike Thompson. Hey, he played in the All-Star game! But so did the now-unemployed Matt Roik.

Rookie of the year – Jordan MacIntosh

Before the season started, a number of people seemed to have already decided that this award should just be given to Kevin Crowley, and Crowley certainly impressed. But even once the season began, I never had Crowley pegged as the runaway winner of this award, because Adam Jones was always right there with him. They both slowed down a little in the second half, dropping to about 5 points per game. Still excellent debut seasons, to be sure. But MacIntosh quietly amassed 51 points, only 20 less than Crowley and 25 less than Jones, as a transition player. He also played defense and took the majority of the Swarm’s face-offs. Neither Crowley nor Jones were in my Offensive Player of the Year list, but MacIntosh was in my list for Transition, and Kirk was in my list for Goaltender of the Year, so he gets the second place vote.

Runners-up: Evan Kirk, Adam Jones, Kevin Crowley, Johnny Powless, Travis Cornwall

Prediction: Kevin Crowley. Again, not a terrible pick, and I couldn’t really argue with any of my top four.

Coach of the year – Bob Hamley

Hamley took a 5-11 team with a lot of roster changes and rookies and turned them into one of the best teams in the league – second place overall, a 6-game winning streak, and the highest goals/game and PP goals/game averages in the league.

Runners-up: Joe Sullivan (and Mike Lines, if a replaced coach can win such an award), Troy Cordingley, Dave Pym

Prediction: Darris Kilgour. Talk about your polar opposite. Not that his team’s terrible (at times) play was entirely his fault, but I was not impressed with the way he handled it, calling them out (by name in some cases) as publicly as he did. Still, the team did turn it around at the end of the year.

GM of the year – Steve Govett

See the Coach of the year entry – Govett made the roster changes that allowed Hamley to do what he did.

Runner-up: Joe Sullivan John Arlotta. (Update: Sullivan is listed as “Associate GM” on Minnesota’s web site, and nobody is listed as GM. Turns out John Arlotta is the guy who makes the decisions.)

Prediction: Derek Keenan. That was before the whole Iannucci thing happened, though I did think that even without Nooch, the Rush would have been better than they were.

MVP – Garrett Billings

Garrett Billings

With respect to John Grant’s remarkable season, Billings meant more to the Rock than Grant did to the Mammoth. Grant missed two games with an injury and while he was out, the Mammoth went 1-1. When Gavin Prout missed two games near the end of the season, Grant recorded 6 points in each game (obviously not bad, but his lowest tallies of the year) and the Mammoth lost both games. For the Rock, Blaine Manning missed most of the season, Colin Doyle and Josh Sanderson missed games as well, and Stephan Leblanc had a subpar season, but Billings stepped up and became the de facto leader. He outscored everyone else on his team by almost fifty points. The Mammoth had a very good season, but without Grant, they still had two other players (Jones and Prout) who were in the top ten in scoring, and would still have been pretty good. The Rock’s second place scorer (Leblanc) was seventeenth. They did have a pretty good season (can’t argue with first in the division) but without Billings, it would have been much worse.

Runners-up: John Grant, Dan Dawson, John Tavares

Prediction: Dan Dawson.

Confession

I kind of hate the fact that my MVP list is so similar to my offensive player list, because that implies that goals and offense are the most important things. Considering my interest in statistics, it may seem that I look only at the numbers when deciding on a player’s worth: “Obviously Mike Hominuck is way better than Kyle Rubisch because he has way more points!” This is definitely not the case, but I do have to admit that it’s more difficult to evaluate defensive players when you’re not watching them all the time – and sometimes, even when you are.

I saw every Rock home game live (plus one in Buffalo), and almost all the road ones on TV or the internet. Overall, did Cam Woods play better or worse than Glen Bryan this year? I honestly couldn’t tell you. I could write a huge post on why the numbers by themselves don’t give you anywhere near the whole story when it comes to determining how important a player is to his team, but oh look, Marty O’Neill has already done that.

Anyway, there were certainly some big goaltending and defensive performances this year, but with both Grant and Billings breaking offensive records, offense was the big story.