Week 10 picks

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Graeme

And my streak continues. Other than week 1 which only consisted of a single game, I am 2-2 in every odd numbered week, and .500 or lower in every even numbered week. The last five weeks have alternated between 2-2 and 1-3, and that will end this week since there are six games.
John Grant will not be playing in Colorado’s two games this weekend, which may or may not make the picks in the Colorado games easier. After all, Rochester lost five players (including their top scorer) for one week and won, then lost when those players returned. I have said at least twice this season that Colorado’s offense was based mainly around Grant and if he were to get injured or started slumping, they wouldn’t be able to recover as well as other teams with more balanced offense. Now we’ll see how prescient those statements were.
Record: 14-21 (.400)

Game	Comments	Pick
CAL @ EDM	Edmonton is a better team than their record indicates. If their offense can start clicking, their defense is good enough to make them contenders. But that has to start happening pretty soon, or it might be too late. They’ve only had two home games, but they beat Philly last weekend at home, and they’ll be motivated to put on a good show for their Twitter jersey game.
PHI @ TOR	The Rock’s last four games were: two blowouts against Philly (one in each direction), then a convincing win against a good team (Rochester), and a humiliating loss against a bad team (Washington). Depending on which Rock team shows up this weekend, it could be good or it could be very bad for them. Philly’s on a two-game losing streak, but first place and the season series is on the line, so expect a hard-fought game.
EDM @ CAL	Yeah, the post-All-Star-game Rush will be better than the pre-All-Star-game Rush, but sweeping the Roughnecks? Not there yet.
WAS @ COL	OMG look at me picking Washington. A couple of weeks ago this would have been a no-brainer: Colorado sweeps the Stealth, with the over-under on the weekend goal differential around 15. But since then the Mammoth have proved that they are beatable, and the Stealth have proved that there is indeed a good lacrosse team buried under there somewhere. The Stealth’s fortunes will continue – for one game, anyway. I actually made this pick before it was announced that Grant would be out, but I’m a little more confident in it now.
BUF @ ROC	Buffalo can’t lose six in a row, can they? Well, I also thought they couldn’t lose three in a row, or four, or five. I expect Cosmo to have a better game as he shakes off more rust, but the Knighthawks are getting great production out of Cody Jamieson and great leadership and production out of Mike Accursi, and Matt Vinc had a great game against Philly. Hawks in a close one.
COL @ WAS	Yeah, the post-All-Star-game Stealth will be better than the pre-All-Star-game Stealth, but sweeping the Mammoth? Not there yet.

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

NLL Mid-season report: West division

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Graeme

Following my recent mid-season report on the East, let’s take a look at the NLL West. We have two awesome teams, one in the middle (but on the high side), and one not scoring but doing very well defensively. And the Stealth.

Calgary Roughnecks

Offense: A+

Best in the league, at 13.6 goals per game. They only have one player in the top ten in scoring, but five in the top 25. Hell, even their goalie is averaging more than a point per game. They haven’t scored fewer than 12 goals in any game, and scored 21 last week against a previously-undefeated team. They’ve only lost twice, both in overtime. With a couple of lucky bounces, the Roughnecks could easily be 7-0.

Defense: A

Only one team has allowed fewer goals than the Roughnecks, and that’s the Rush who also have a great defense, but have played one fewer game. Note that the Bandits have also played one fewer game than Calgary, but Buffalo has allowed one more goal. In terms of average, the Roughies are second-best in the league, with 10.7 goals against per game. In their five wins, they’ve only allowed as many as 11 goals once. Mike Poulin is one of the best goalies in the league, Nick Rose is better than average as a backup, and Frankie Scigliano made his NLL debut a couple of weeks ago and allowed 5 goals in 35 minutes for a sparkling 8.56 GAA. Add in defenders and transition guys like Geoff Snider, Curtis Manning, Andrew McBride, and Mike Carnegie, and the Roughnecks don’t even need a great offense to be successful.

Overall: A+

But they do have a great offense. They don’t have the best record in the league right now, but I’d call them the best team in the league.

Colorado Mammoth

Offense: A

Only Calgary has averaged more goals per game than the Mammoth’s 13.3. Of course, the fact that John Grant is playing out of his mind right now is a large part of that. Grant is not averaging 10 points per game anymore, he’s down to a measly 8.4. Grant has 59 points in 7 games – only 22 players had more than that last season. If his production for the rest of the season drops by 50%, he will still end up with more points than anyone had last year. Oh yeah, and they also have Gavin Prout, early Rookie of the Year candidate Adam Jones, and Sean Pollock who are all in the top 20 in scoring.

After that though, it drops off significantly. Jamie Lincoln has 15 points, but nobody else has more than 6. That’s the problem with having such a dominant superstar (if you can call having a player of Grant’s calibre a “problem”) – if he gets injured or hits a multi-week slump, the Mammoth are in less of a position to recover than, say, the Roughnecks.

Defense: B+

The Mammoth are fifth with 12 goals against per game. If you take out the Calgary loss, they’d be second at 10.5. They gave up 14 goals in their first game, then the numbers dropped steadily until they were down to 7 in back-to-back weeks. Then Calgary came in and blew them away. Still, that’s only one game, so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. Chris Levis is having his second straight great season. Imagine how good this team would be if Mac Allen wasn’t hurt.

Overall: A

It may seem weird to rank the Roughnecks higher than the Mammoth considering the Mammoth have a better record. It’s not like the Mammoth are overachieving and have beaten a bunch of weak teams – they are definitely a strong team, and if Grant stays hot and Levis continues to play well, they could have an amazing year. But I really believe the Roughnecks are better overall.

Edmonton Rush

Offense: F

The top two scorers on the Rush are tied for 27th in the league. They have scored 10.7 goals per game, the second-worst in the league. They have less than 10 goals in 3 of their 6 games thus far, though they did score 16 against the Stealth. Shawn Williams is on pace for 64 points, his lowest total since 2000 when he only played 10 games.

Defense: A+

Wow. Just, wow. The Rush have given up an average of 10.2 goals per game, the best in the league by half a goal. Strangely, they’re even better away from Rexall Place, giving up a stingy 9.5 goals per game compared with the 11.5 at home. They’ve lost Chris Corbeil to injury, but still have Kyle Rubisch, Brett Mydske, top Money Baller Derek Suddons, Ryan Dilks, Jarrett Toll, and captain Jimmy Quinlan. There was word that the Rush were going to trade Paul Rabil to the Bandits for Jeremy Thompson or to the Knighthawks for Jordan Hall but they don’t need transition or defense. They need scoring.

Overall: C+

The Rush are the new Mammoth. Last year’s Colorado Mammoth also had a very good defense (though not this good) and a really bad offense. Of course, the Mammoth are kicking butt this year, so maybe the Rush have that to look forward to next year. Giving up Brodie Merrill for ~~Iannucci~~ ~~Rabil~~ nothing hasn’t hurt the defense at all, (how good would the defense be with Brodie?) but the offense needs help.

Minnesota Swarm

Offense: B+

Callum Crawford, Ryan Benesch, and Kevin Ross are leading the Swarm offense, no surprise there. But four of the next five are surprising: rookies Jordan MacIntosh, Corbyn Tao, and Jay Card along with 2nd year transition guy and captain Andrew Suitor, who has already eclipsed his 10 points from last year. The Swarm are fourth in the league in scoring, with 12.6 goals per game.

Defense: B

After the Blazers expansion draft, we thought the Swarm goalies this year might be Anthony Cosmo and Nick Patterson, a more than acceptable combo. Turns out to be neither one, and the Swarm went with rookie Tyler Carlson who has been very good and rookie Evan Kirk who has been outstanding. The Swarm are seventh with 11.6 goals against, but are improving – they’ve only given up more than 9 goals in one of their last four games. Their home goals against average is 9.5, almost two full goals better than anyone else. The defense has tended to be great in the wins (opposing scores are 11, 9, 6, and 7), but not very good at all in two of the three losses (scores of 20, 16, and 12).

Overall: B

With all the young kids, you might think this is a team that will be good in a few years, and I’m sure they will. But they’re also good right now. The Minnesota Swarm have never won a playoff game, but they definitely have as good a shot this year as they’ve ever had.

Washington Stealth

Offense: F

The loss of Luke Wiles was pretty big, but not this big. The Stealth are dead last in the league, only scoring 9.3 goals per game. They’re the only team under ten, and 1.4 goals behind Edmonton. As Stephen Stamp and Ty Pilson discussed on last week’s Boxla Beat, the problem is simple: Ratcliff and Duch are just not scoring. Ratcliff has 15 goals on a league-leading 97 shots on goal – compare that to Curtis Dickson, who has 15 on only 60 shots, or John Grant, with 27 goals on 86 shots. Now Duch is injured and Jeff Zywicki is back, but that’s a wash at best. The addition of Athan Iannucci hasn’t helped much so far, but once he shakes off the rust he could make a big difference.

Defense: F

The Stealth are also dead last in this category, giving up 13 goals per game – 14 at home. They’ve given up 15 or more goals three times. Chris Seidel has played 93 minutes and leads the team with a brutal 12.26 GAA. Tyler Richards has a 77.5% save percentage, which is not bad (5th in the league). But his GAA of 12.58 is only good for twelfth among goalies – and this is a nine-team league, so three backups (including his own) are ahead of him in that category. Richards is also injured now, so unless Seidel and newcomer Matt King can stop the bleeding, things may get worse before they get better.

Overall: F

Sorry Stealth fans, but there are no two ways around it. The Stealth have sucked so far this year. Chris Hall returned to the bench for the last game, which didn’t have the impact on the team that I was expecting, but I don’t know how many of the practices and such before that game he was able to attend. Maybe once he’s running the whole show, the team will start playing like the team that went to the last two Championship games but right now, that’s certainly not how the Stealth look.

The Stealth have the same problem as the 1992 Orlando Magic, whose GM Pat Williams said “We can’t win at home. We can’t win on the road. As general manager, I just can’t figure out where else to play.“

Week 9 picks

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Graeme

In my picks last week, I stated “If anyone can beat the Mammoth, it’s the Roughnecks, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they did” but I picked the Mammoth anyway. I also said “Could the Rush… beat the Wings? Sure they could” but I picked the Wings anyway. I got the Toronto game right and the Washington game wrong, but I could have been 3-1 on the week instead of 1-3. Sigh.

Record: 12-19 (.387)

Game	Comments	Pick
COL @ BUF	I’d like to say that the three week “mid-season vacation” for the Bandits plus Cosmo would equal a victory but I can’t. I expect them to be better in the second half of the season than the first half, but not yet.
MIN @ CAL	Calgary is the team to beat in the west now that Colorado is no longer undefeated, and not just because they beat Colorado. I expect Minnesota to put up a good fight (my respect for the Swarm is growing weekly), but the Roughnecks take this one.
ROC @ PHI	In a rematch of the season opened for these two clubs, I’m sure nobody expects the same result (a 22-12 win for the Knighthawks). Not that the Hawks can’t win this game, but it won’t be a blowout. The Knighthawks are better in Rochester than on the road (0.9 more GF, 0.1 fewer GA), but then again Philly is much better on the road than in Philly (1.8 more GF, 4.8 fewer GA). Going with the numbers.
WAS @ TOR	Washington is last in the league in offense, last in the league in defense, and will be without Rhys Duch and Tyler Richards. The Rock lost Colin Doyle last week and a bunch of other regulars are out, but they’ve dealt with lots of injury problems this year and have done just fine, thanks.

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 8 picks

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Graeme

Like fellow Rock fan and blogger Jon Turner, I had another 2-2 week. I’ve now gone 2-2 in four of the seven weeks so far this season, which means I’m better than .500 this year at having .500 weeks! In terms of my picks, I had a pretty average week, but outside of that, it wasn’t an average week at all. Not only did my sister have a baby on Sunday (totally not lacrosse-related, but pretty freakin’ awesome), but I will be posting my first-ever interview here on NLL Chatter tomorrow. If those weren’t awesome enough, there’s more. I posted an article about Geoff Snider, which he read and liked. But wait! There’s still more! Again like Jon Turner, I also won a trivia contest on Twitter today run by the Toronto Rock. The third question of the day was “Who was the other goalie alongside Whipper on the 1988 Founders Cup Champion KW Braves?” and I was the first to answer Steve Dietrich (full disclosure: a somewhat educated guess on my part, in that I was pretty sure Chugger was from K-W), so I won an autographed All-Star Card and lacrosse ball.

So I’m now 5 games below .500 overall, which means that even if I go 4-0 this week, I’ll still be under .500. But this is the week, I just know it. This is the week where…. ah, who am I kidding? Let’s just get to my ~~random guesses~~ predictions for week 8:

Record: 11-16 (.407)

Game	Comments	Pick
CAL @ COL	If anyone can beat the Mammoth, it’s the Roughnecks, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they did. But as I said last week, I’m just going to keep picking Colorado until they lose.
PHI @ EDM	Philly’s first in the east, Edmonton is second-last in the west. Easy pick, right? If you think so, you’re new to this game. There are no easy picks. Could the Rush pull off the upset and beat the Wings? Sure they could, and I almost picked them to beat the Wings. But then I remembered last week’s game against the Rock. The Wings offense is starting to click, and their defense was outstanding.
ROC @ TOR	This will be a tough one for the Rock. They got spanked by the Wings last week so they’ll be angry. But Rochester pulled out a gutsy win last week without their top scorer and a bunch of other starters, and those guys are all back this week. I think Matt Roik will rebound from last week and the Rock will head into the All-Star game above .500 – unlike myself.
MIN @ WAS	Another tough one but coaching comes into play in this game, almost more than the players. Minnesota has been playing well of late but inexplicably fired coach Mike Lines yesterday. This game will be Joe Sullivan’s first as head coach, and also marks the return of Chris Hall to the Stealth bench. I think Hall’s return after fighting cancer will be a huge lift to the team, and might just turn their season around.
West @ East	I’ll make a couple of predictions on the All-Star game: (1) My younger son will be playing on his iPod at some point during the game, causing me to question buying him a ticket. (2) Getting out of the parking lot after the game will be a nightmare. (3) Over/under on goals scored: 35, and I’m taking the over.	?

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

Geoff Snider: Top of the List

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Graeme

Geoff Snider is not the most popular guy in the NLL.

I know what you’re thinking – “You can’t make controversial statements like that unless you can back it up”, but I don’t need to. First of all, it ain’t that controversial. Secondly, Geoff backed it up himself this past weekend on Twitter by RT’ing a number of “fans” telling him he’s a douchebag, that he has no class, and a couple of others with some more colourful language. As Mike Wilson succinctly said on the NLL Blog: awesome. He could have chirped back, he could have tried to defend himself, he could have “taken the high road” and simply ignored them. But just an RT with no extra comment was even better.

There was a time that I didn’t like Snider either. I watched him play as a member of the Philadelphia Wings for a few years, and I initially thought he was just another punk who liked to fight and happened to own a lacrosse stick. I did have to admit that his skill in the face-off circle was impressive, putting him a step above the average NLL fighter, but still not at the level of “good lacrosse player”.

But as time went on, I started to notice him a little more. First off, he got more floor time than your average FOGO or fighter, and he did score goals now and again. OK, so maybe he does have some actual lacrosse skill beyond face-offs and fighting. And come to think of it, he’s not just a good face-off guy, he’s an outstanding face-off guy. I’ve seen games where Snider sets up for a faceoff and the other team just concedes it, presumably because it’s not worth sending a face-off guy out there; they just let him have the ball and get their defense set up.

Then an interesting thing happened. I was at a game where the Wings were playing; I have a feeling it was in Buffalo, though it might have been in Toronto. The game was starting to get rather physical (which is why I think it might have been Buffalo). There were no fights, but there were a number of occasions where it looked like there was going to be. Then a player got in Snider’s face and there was some shoving, and the other player dropped his gloves and ran at Snider. I don’t remember the details of exactly what happened, but essentially Snider ignored him and walked calmly to the bench. The other player got a penalty, and the Wings scored on the resulting power play.

I may not have described the play exactly right, but the long and the short of it is that he realized that a fight was not necessary, and his presence on the floor would be more helpful to his team than having him in the penalty box for five minutes. This was a very smart plan on Snider’s part. He could see that the other player wanted to go; it’s almost as if he taunted the other guy into losing his mind and attacking him, knowing it would get him a penalty. If he fought, they’d both have gotten majors. Since he didn’t, his team got the advantage. Of course the opposing fans were all over him calling him every name in the book, though if you’ve ever actually watched Snider fight, “coward” is not a word that applies.

Does he make the odd stupid decision and take unnecessary penalties? Sure he does. No player as passionate as Snider doesn’t. On his Off the Crossebar radio show, Teddy Jenner recently said of Snider “He won’t shy away from a fight”, which is is absolutely true. Will he fight if the situation calls for it? Yes, and he’ll probably win. But if a fight opportunity presents itself, will he walk away if he thinks it would help his team? Yes. This doesn’t make him a coward, and it doesn’t make him a douchebag. It makes him a smart lacrosse player.

Many fans (and players!) have a list of people who they hate playing against but would love to have on their team. I know it’ll never happen since Snider’s a Calgary boy playing in his home town, and I know there are a lot of Rock fans would disagree with me, but Snider’s at the top of my list.

Week 7 picks

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Graeme

Statistics are funny. If I were to flip a coin to make my picks each week, odds are that I’d end the season around .500. What does it mean when the coin-flip method would give you a better record than me, five of the seven IL Indoor writers posting their picks, and three of the five In Lax We Trust writers? We all follow the league closely and we know the teams and players and what they can do. We’re not going to get everything right, of course, and there are going to be teams and players that play better or worse than you think they will. But shouldn’t we be able to do better than random chance at our game predictions? You might think so, but obviously, you’d be wrong.

So there was a big trade this week, which will affect two of the games below. Paul Rabil has struggled a little this year, like the rest of his former Stealth teammates, so will his change of scenery give him a boost? And will Athan Iannucci, in his first game of the year, give the Stealth’s offense the spark they so desperately need?

Record: 9-14 (.391)

Game	Comments	Pick
EDM @ CAL	Edmonton just got better by adding Paul Rabil (assuming he plays, and there are rumours that he won’t), but how long will it take him to learn the Rush system and be able to really contribute? Might take a couple of games, might take 5 or 10 minutes. Either way, Calgary is a formidable opponent, so I’m going to have to go with the Roughies here.
COL @ MIN	I don’t follow the NFL at all but I won an NFL pool a few years ago, when the Patriots were at their peak. One of my “strategies” was “always take the Patriots”, and it almost always paid off. The Mammoth are like that now. I like the direction the Swarm are going and after their two-win weekend, I’m sure they have a lot of confidence. I don’t think the Mammoth will go 16-0 this year, but I just can’t bring myself to bet against them yet.
WAS @ ROC	Recent circumstances (and I’m not talking about the Iannucci trade) make this a easier pick. Rochester will be without their leading scorer Cody Jamieson, as well as Jordan Hall, Travis Hill, Sid Smith, and Tyler Burton. Of course this doesn’t mean that they will lose, but it certainly doesn’t help. Iannucci will be pumped to play well enough to make people forget about the whole holdout thing.
PHI @ TOR	Toronto dominated Philadelphia prison-style (continuing with the Iannucci theme) in their last meeting, and they’ve had a week off, and Colin Doyle will likely be returning to action. Philly has since beaten the Bandits so I can’t see this being the cakewalk that the last game seemed to be, but I still think the Rock will take this one.

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 6 picks

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Graeme

Another 2-2 week in week 5. I was right about Colorado being on a roll, and the Rock starting to look like the Rock again, but I thought the Bandits would return to playing like the 2-0 Bandits rather than the Bandits from last weekend, and I thought the Minnesota-Rochester game was just too close to call. The Rock and Mammoth are off this week, while Minnesota plays twice and interestingly, both are home games.

Record: 8-11 (.421)

Game	Comments	Pick
EDM @ MIN	Will this be the “Battle of the Basement”? Washington is currently in last overall but nobody thinks they’ll stay there. Minnesota has looked pretty good so far, but I’m going to go with my prediction at the beginning of the year that Edmonton will be a stronger team than the Swarm.
CAL @ WAS	Washington finally has a win, and they’ll be hungry to make up those games that they lost. But even if the Stealth were playing at their full potential, I think Calgary is a better team. Another battle of the Sniders – we know that one of them won’t be winning 60+% of the face-offs.
ROC @ MIN	Rochester’s starting to play really well but this is similar to both of the previous picks in that nobody would look at you funny for picking either one. I’m going with Cody Jamieson to continue his hot streak and Matt Vinc to shut the door at the other end.
BUF @ PHI	Can Buffalo lose four games in a row? No chance, right? Well, I wouldn’t have thought they could lose three in a row, but it happened. Obviously every team hates to lose, but if I had to pick a team that hates to lose more than the rest, it would be the Bandits. I think they will be back with a vengeance this weekend.

Campbell vs. Snider

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Graeme

By now, we all know about the fight that took place near the beginning of last Saturday’s Rock-Roughnecks game involving Geoff Snider and Pat Campbell. I mentioned this in my game review and said I’d get back to it later. Well, now it’s later. But I’ve looked over the replay again a number of times and I think I’ve changed my mind a little. Campbell’s move was still unwise and put the Rock at a disadvantage, but after watching the replay (the TSN feed was better than the one in the video I linked to in my game review) and hearing and reading interviews with other people about him, not to mention his own words describing what happened, I think I understand why he did what he did, and I think I’m OK with it.

Pat Campbell I’m pretty sure this is the first lacrosse fight I’ve ever seen involving one goalie but not two. Let’s start with the play as I saw it. Snider is behind the net with the ball. He gets double- and then triple-teamed by Rock defenders Rob Marshall, Phil Sanderson, and Ryan Sharp. He takes a hit to the face (Sanderson) then gets cross-checked from behind (Sharp), then takes another hit to the face (Sanderson again). Snider’s helmet comes off and he goes down. He then gets up rather upset (understandably), drops his gloves, and heads towards Sanderson. As he’s pulling Marshall out of the way, Campbell, who has not been involved until now, runs over to Snider and punches him in the face. The refs try to pull them apart but Snider pulls Campbell’s helmet off, then they separate and Campbell takes his own jersey and shoulder pads off. They’re just about to go at it when Snider trips over the pile of pads on the floor and falls. Campbell drops beside him and throws two huge punches before the refs break it up. That’s it.

It wasn’t much of a fight. I’m not sure Snider actually landed any real punches, but he was given five for fighting anyway. Campbell was given five for fighting, two for instigating, and a game misconduct. He first went to the penalty box and then to the dressing room through a sea of high-fives from his teammates. I was watching the game on TV and my twitter feed on the laptop at the same time, and there were lots of tweets about the fight, mostly positive. I know I’m in the minority when it comes to fighting – I don’t particularly like it, but most people do, and that’s fine. As long as it’s not a pre-determined thing or people who are primarily fighters are sent out just to fight, I’m OK with it. Snider had been hit illegally three times within about five seconds, and no penalties were being called, so I can’t blame him for wanting to fight. But Campbell wasn’t involved and the way I saw it originally, there was no reason for him to get involved unless he questioned Phil Sanderson’s ability to defend himself.

Campbell’s actions did put the Rock at a disadvantage, in a number of ways:

Campbell was ejected, so Matt Roik had to come in and play the rest of the game. If Roik had been injured during the game, the Rock would have been in deep trouble. I was going to say that Roik had minimal time to warm up, but this was only 4 minutes into the game, so his pre-game warm-ups were probably sufficient.
Calgary got a two-minute power-play.
The Rock lost Bill Greer for two minutes, since someone had to serve the penalty.

The first game of the NLL season featured the Roughnecks in Toronto, and during that game Snider had been chirping Roik incessantly, and it did look at one point like it would come to blows, but never did. There was some talk that the event on Saturday was somehow related to that, and it was even suggested that Campbell (who has a bit of a reputation) was given the start for that reason – not specifically to fight Snider, but just so that the Roughnecks might think twice about trying to get under the goalie’s skin. Maybe so, but I think the whole Snider-Roik thing was overblown and I doubt the Rock were really thinking about revenge for that minor incident three weeks later.

In a post-game interview, Campbell said “I saw his gloves come off and I knew he was ready to go. We are a team, a tough team and we don’t fight our own fights, we fight for each other“. I’ve since heard a number of interviews with people talking about what a great teammate Campbell is and how he would do anything for his teammates. It sounds like he was willing to fight Snider so that Flip didn’t have to, but not because he was questioning Sanderson’s ability. Maybe he figured that he stood a better chance against Snider than Flip did. Maybe he figured that sitting in the penalty box for five minutes himself wouldn’t hurt the team as much as having Sanderson in the box for five.

But the most likely explanation is that he didn’t figure anything. He didn’t think at all – just acted to defend his teammate. Not because the teammate couldn’t defend himself, but just because that’s what teammates do. I can’t fault him for that.

Game Review: Toronto 14 at Calgary 13

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Graeme

Let’s say you were going to write a movie that included a lacrosse game, and it was important to the plot that the game be close. How would you write it? It would have to include overtime. You could have the score tied nine different times. All four quarters end in a tie. Both teams have the same number of power play goals on the same number of power play opportunities. No team would lead by more than two at any time. Both teams have the same number of shots in two of the four quarters. Both backup goaltenders enter the game and play for significant periods of time. And then you’d have the unsung hero, the hard worker that doesn’t get all the accolades, score the OT winner, his first goal in two years. Well, you couldn’t put all those elements in, that would be too unrealistic.

And yet that’s what happened in the Rock’s second win of the weekend and Calgary’s second straight overtime loss. Rock defender Cam Woods scored on a pass from Mike Hobbins just over a minute into overtime, in a game that featured all of the above elements and more. There was even a fight, but I’ve never seen a fight involving a goalie that didn’t involve a second goalie. I’ve seen goalies shoving other players and even throwing the odd punch, but never a drop-the-gloves-take-the-jersey-and-pads-off kind of fight. I’ll get back to that later, but back to the game review for now.

This was the first game the Rock had played without either Blaine Manning or Colin Doyle in the lineup since the first game of the 2000 season. The question of who would step up in their absence was answered by another veteran, Josh Sanderson, who had nine points including a hat-trick. Garrett Billings continued where he left off last night, with 3 goals and 4 assists, giving him 14 points over the weekend. Not John Grant numbers, but not bad. Brendan Thenhaus made his Rock debut and scored a goal and two helpers. Pat Campbell started but only played 3 1/2 minutes, allowing 2 goals on 5 shots before he… but more on that later. Matt Roik finished the game from there, allowing 11 goals on 43 shots and for the fourth straight game, keeping his team in it. Three of the Rock’s goals, including the winner, were scored by defenders – Woods, Drew Petkoff, and Mike Hobbins all scored, and Hobbins also added three assists.

At the other end of the floor, Mike Poulin started but after allowing 5 goals, was pulled early in the second for Nick Rose. I didn’t think Poulin was playing that badly, but Rose ended up playing 25 minutes before Poulin came back in. Rose wasn’t bad either, but Poulin really played well in the fourth. Offensively, the Roughnecks were led by Curtis Dickson with 3 goals and 3 assists, and Shawn Evans, with 2 and 3. Four other Roughnecks had 4 or more points, so it was a well-balanced attack.

After a tough back-and-forth game with goals scattered throughout and ten goals in the third quarter alone, both defenses were very strong in the fourth quarter. This resulted in a ten-minute span with no goals scored and Calgary nursing a two-goal lead. But with less than two minutes left and Roik on the bench, Kasey Beirnes scored to cut the lead to one. Toronto kept the pressure on and when Mike Poulin left the crease to try to grab a loose ball behind the net, he was hit by two Rock players. When he rushed to get back in front of the net, he didn’t have time to get properly set up, and was a step or two in front of the goal as Garrett Billings blew a shot by him to tie the game with eleven seconds left. Geoff Snider won the resulting faceoff (Snider was 24-4 on faceoffs on the night) and Calgary managed to get a decent shot on Roik, who made the biggest stop of his season to send the game to OT.

If you were to poll every Rock fan watching that game and ask which Rock player was going to score the winner, Cam Woods would not likely make the top 10. I doubt Cam Woods himself would list Cam Woods in the top ten. But on a quick transition, Woods scored from Mike Hobbins to end the game and put the Rock at 2-2 on the season.

OK, I said I’d get back to the Campbell thing later, but that may be long so I think I will save it for a separate article. I know, dear reader, that you are shaken and upset by having to wait, so I will leave you with some more notes about this game, and then a video of the event in question. Check back in a couple of days or watch my twitter feed for the announcement.

Other game notes:

Drew Petkoff scored a nice goal in the second as he got a breakaway and ran from Rose’s left to his right looking for an opening. I thought (and Brian Shanahan said the same thing on the telecast) that he’d run too far and taken too long, but he managed to pull Rose off to the right just far enough to open a hole on the left side and scored there. Don’t know if that’s what he meant to do, but it was beautiful.
I’m not one to complain about officiating in general, but there were a number of questionable calls here. Two of the most blatant went against the Roughnecks: Scott Ranger got a “hitting from behind” penalty for giving Bruce Codd a little shove on the back – with his hand. Then near the end of the fourth, Cam Woods grabbed Curtis Dickson’s jersey and yanked him down. The Roughnecks got a penalty on the first one (and the Rock scored on the PP) and Toronto did not get a penalty on the second. That’s exactly backwards.
Questionable officiating notwithstanding, Ryan Sharp deserved every penalty he took in this game, and in the Rochester game as well. If he’s going to remain with the team, he’ll have to play smarter.

Week 4 picks

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Graeme

For the second straight week, I went 2-2 with my picks. After three weeks, I’m still under .500 but getting closer. Now I’m a math guy, so I know that as long as I keep having .500 weeks, I can never reach .500 overall. This is the week I break the .500 barrier. I can just feel it.

Record: 4-5 (.444)

Game	Comments	Pick
ROC @ TOR	Rochester has almost never won during the regular season in Toronto – which means precisely nothing. The Knighthawks played a strong game against Buffalo last week and demolished the Wings the week before, so there’s no reason to believe they can’t come into the ACC and beat the Rock. But after starting the season 0-2, the champs are hungry for a win, and they’ll want to get it before the home crowd. The offense is poised to break out and despite losing Manning, I think this is the game where they do it.
PHI @ BUF	After wins over Toronto and Rochester, the Bandits have looked strong and their confidence level has to be very high. Then again, Philly beat the Stealth in OT last week, and Dan Dawson hasn’t really hit his stride yet. I’m picking the Bandits, but I don’t think it’ll be a blowout.
BUF @ MIN	I think Buffalo’s just too strong for the Swarm, particularly if they beat Philly on Friday night. The only way Minnesota stands a chance on Saturday is if (a) Buffalo gets slaughtered by the Wings on Friday and their confidence get shattered, or (b) the Bandits consider it an easy win and don’t work their tails off. Darris Kilgour won’t let either of those things happen. And if either one does happen, I wouldn’t want to be in the dressing room after that game.
ROC @ COL	I’m still not 100% convinced that Colorado is for real, and I am sure that John Grant has to come back down to earth sometime. But even if he does, Adam Jones looks like he’s ready to take over. Despite Vinc vs. Levis, I think this will be another high-scoring game, with the Knighthawks coming out on top.
TOR @ CAL	If Toronto loses on Friday night, this is a no-brainer – Calgary in a landslide, and the Rock are in deep trouble. But if the Rock can beat Rochester, this is going to be much closer. I still think Calgary is the team to beat in the West, so I’m picking the Roughies here.
EDM @ WAS	Toughest pick of the week. Edmonton didn’t have a bad game against Colorado last weekend, but playing against the Grant/Jones/Prout combo has been difficult so far this year. The Stealth just lost Jeff Zywicki, and Ratcliff and Duch aren’t tearing up the floor like last year. Hmmm… offense isn’t clicking and they lost one of their stars to injury – sounds like the Rock, doesn’t it?

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