Week 8 picks

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Graeme

OK, this is really getting weird. Another 4-1 week, and I’ve now got more than twice as many correct picks as incorrect ones. I’m tied with Brian Shanahan and two games ahead of anyone else on the IL Indoor team. I’m totally not used to this, and I’m assuming I’ve got some 0-fer weeks coming up. The really weird thing is that if I missed every pick in the next three weeks, I’d still be at .500. But I’ll try not to let it go to my head.

Read on for this week’s winners. Guaranteed, or your money back. Unfortunately, I didn’t get this article out early enough to put in my regular analysis, but I did give some when I gave my picks on this week’s Addicted to Lacrosse show.

Record: 21-10 (.677)

Game	Comments	Pick
VAN @ COL	Rhys Duch and Kyle Sorensen are back, which will give the Stealth a boost. Will it be enough to get past Grant/Westervelt/Powell without Adam Jones? I must have thought so on Monday when I did my picks though I have to say I’m less than 100% sure of this now. But I’m not sure I actually want to change it either.
EDM @ MIN	Can anyone beat Edmonton? Yes, at some point this season someone will. But at this point, it ain’t gonna be Minnesota.
ROC @ TOR	Probably a homer pick. Tyler mentioned a good point in the show – that it’s hard to pick Rose over Vinc. But the Rock have been scoring way more than the Knighthawks, so I’m going with the home team.
PHI @ BUF	Philly has already beat the Bandits, but Buffalo is playing far better now.
VAN @ CAL	Given how they’ve been playing, it’s hard to pick Vancouver to win once, let alone twice in the same weekend.

Week 7 picks… and more!

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Graeme

Another good week – 4-1! I’ve only had one week under .500, and that was 1-2 in week 1. In four of the other five weeks, I’ve only gotten one wrong. WTF? This is certainly different from the last two years where I finished under .500.

This is a two-in-one article, since you get my picks and as an added FREE bonus, some thoughts on the Rock roster moves this week.

Record: 17-9 (.654)

Game	Comments	Pick
PHI @ TOR	Toronto is undefeated at home, but the Wings are on a 2-game win streak and are 2-1 on the road. Should be a good game, and I’m predicting the Rock’s home winning streak to continue.
EDM @ PHI	I think I said this last week. Until the Rush does something to convince me that they’re not the best team in the league, I’m probably just going to keep picking them.
BUF @ ROC	Similar to the Rush, the Bandits are playing great right now and I’ll probably keep picking them too, until they play Edmonton. Then I have no idea.
CAL @ MIN	Calgary’s not having their greatest season ever, but it’s better than the Swarm’s so far. Logan Schuss is playing well but thus far isn’t the offensive star he was projected to be, and the production from Matisz and Jackson is way down.
COL @ VAN	The Stealth are on a 4-game losing streak and confidence has to be pretty low – and they’ll be without Rhys Duch who’s serving a suspension. They’ve already beaten the Mammoth this season, but that was with Duch and the Mammoth were without Casey Powell.

I never managed to write an entire article on my thought about the Rock moves this week, acquiring Billy Hostrawser from the Stealth and releasing Stephen Hoar, so I’ll just put a couple of thoughts here. First off, I have no problem with acquiring Hostrawser for draft picks – unless they’re in the first round, draft picks are always a crapshoot anyway so giving them up for an actual warm body who can play now is fine. And he’s a young defender who can fight – just ask Mike Lum-Walker, his new teammate and sparring partner in last week’s Rock/Stealth game. He’s even scored a goal and has a few assists.

I am a little puzzled by Hoar’s release, though. In a number of interviews, both Terry Sanderson and John Lovell have mentioned that they are looking forward to the return of Patrick Merrill and Chris White (and Bill Greer, while he was out) because they bring some veteran leadership to the defense. They said that the young players (Lum-Walker, O’Connor, Dunn, England) are doing fine but more veterans on the back end would not only help the team but would help the kids to learn as well. And then they release Hoar, who is a veteran defender, and replace him with a guy with all of 15 games of NLL experience.

Hoar is also their only face-off guy who’s not injured. So I hope Patrick Merrill is back tonight, since 13 Rock face-offs this year have not been taken by Hoar, and they’ve only won 5 of them. Hostrawser has never taken one in the NLL, so no help there. That said, it’s not like Hoar is Geoff Snider either. He has a sub-.500 career faceoff percentage and was only at 35.7% this season. The Rock have never had a really strong face-off guy, since Merrill is under .500 over his career as well.

Week 6 picks

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Graeme

A quiet week in the NLL last week, with only 3 games. I went 2-1 thanks to the Rush coming back against the Stealth and the Bandits holding on against the Knighthawks. And if John Grant had been an inch or two off in his no-look behind-the-back shot in OT, I might have gone 3-0.

Just like I say every week, some tough games to pick this week. Parity’s a bitch, ain’t it?

Record: 13-8 (.619)

Game	Comments	Pick
VAN @ TOR	Not sure about this one. The Stealth have played well but not really well, seeing as they’re 2-3. The Rock have played well but not really well, other than their first game against Calgary. Going with the return of Billy Greer to help the home fans give the Rock a boost.
TOR @ BUF	What a difference a coach makes. Oh, and Ryan Benesch and Rory Smith too. Last year I only picked the Bandits to win 4 times all season. This is the fifth time this year I’ve picked the Bandits to win. Cosmo is playing really well, the offense is clicking, and I think every game for the rest of the season will be played for Tucker Williams. The Bandits have always been a tough team to beat, not only on the scoresheet but physically too – and now you can add emotionally to that list. #BraverThanBrave
VAN @ PHI	Philly has impressed me this year. They’re playing a lot better than I expected, especially without Rabil and Crotty and Seibald and Miller. But the Stealth didn’t fly all the way to Philadelphia to lose and if they lose to Toronto on Friday night, they’ll be even hungrier. Richards steals this one for the Stealth.
MIN @ COL	Two struggling teams face off. The Mammoth has played seven games, and in only two of them have they not switched goalies. Both times it’s been Dillon Ward, so I’m gonna guess that he gets the start. The return of Drew Westervelt and the season debut of Casey Powell will help the offense in a big way. The fact that the Swarm are averaging less than 7½ goals per game makes this pick a little easier too.
ROC @ EDM	The undefeated Rush battle the almost-undefeated Knighthawks. This will be a battle of the two best defenses in the league and two of the top goalies. Not surprisingly, these two teams are tops in goals against per game – Rochester at 8.5 and Edmonton at 8.0. They’re the only teams under 10. I’m taking the Rush and if the over/under on total goals scored was 17, I’d be tempted to take the under.

Week 5 picks

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Graeme

I went 4-3 last week, getting the Philly/Minnesota back-to-back backwards, and going with Vancouver over Calgary. Props to my Addicted to Lacrosse co-host Tyler for going 6-1. He also got the VAN/CAL game wrong, but after the show he found out that Kyle Sorensen wouldn’t play in Calgary and tweeted that Vancouver wouldn’t win in Calgary without him. This turned out to be correct, so we’ll give him 6.5 out of 7.

Only three games this week, but still some tough ones.

Record: 11-7 (.611)

Game	Comments	Pick
ROC @ BUF	The Bandits are playing with a ton of confidence right now. The offense is clicking (even without John Tavares last weekend), and the defense is playing well in front of a revitalized Anthony Cosmo. I’ve said before that it’s hard for me to bet against Matt Vinc, but I guess it’s not impossible.
COL @ CAL	Colorado beat the Stealth in week 2, but haven’t played well since. It’s hard to convince myself at this point that they can beat the Roughnecks. Drew Westervelt will miss this game because of a US field lacrosse team tryout or practice or something, so that won’t help the Mammoth at all.
EDM @ VAN	With these two goalies and defenses, this could be the lowest scoring game of the year. Edmonton is unlikely to go 18-0, and Vancouver definitely has the talent to beat them, but not this time. Looking forward to the Rush/Knighthawks game next weekend.

Week 4 picks

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Graeme

Holy crap. I went 5-1 last week, my best weekend for making picks EVER except for my 5-0 week back in March of 2012. Of course, the only one I got wrong was the one I most wanted to be right – the Toronto/Buffalo game. A whopping seven games this weekend, so I have lots of opportunity to make a huge jump in the percentages, and lots of opportunity to drop back under .500.

Once again, I gave my picks on this week’s Addicted to Lacrosse show.

Record: 7-4 (.636)

Game	Comments	Pick
CAL @ EDM	Edmonton looked really good last weekend, and they’re at home again.
COL @ VAN	Iannucci playing against his old team makes this an interesting game, but I still have to go with the Stealth. I’m starting to feel the same about betting against Tyler Richards as I am about Matt Vinc.
MIN @ PHI	Philly lost their game against Buffalo last week but they have to feel confident about their 2nd half comeback. Minnesota has yet to prove that they can score without Ryan Benesch.
TOR @ ROC	I hate to pick against my team, but like I said, I also find it hard to pick against Matt Vinc.
VAN @ CAL	I have no explanation for this pick. This will be really good game and I can see either one taking it.
BUF @ COL	Buffalo looked really good in the second half of their game against the Rock. That plus their OT win in Philly will give them confidence.
PHI @ MIN	Minnesota’s home opener, and they’re playing against their former teammate, who they also saw the previous night.

Week 3 picks

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Graeme

The first of two busy weekend in the NLL – six games this weekend, seven next weekend. I announced all my picks on this week’s Addicted to Lacrosse show but in the unlikely event that you didn’t watch the show (you did, right? RIGHT?), here they are. This will be true going forward – we plan on making predictions on the show every week, and I’ll be posting mine here as well.

Record: 2-3 (.400)

Game	Comments	Pick
TOR @ BUF	The Rock looked really good last weekend while Buffalo didn’t. The Rock are 14-6 all-time in Buffalo. That said, Troy Cordingley would love to prove to the Rock that firing him was a mistake, and so he’ll have his team ready to play. I’m going to this game – should be a good one.
COL @ CAL	Calgary did not play like Calgary last week and so they will want to prove to their home fans that they are still a team to be reckoned with. Colorado will attempt to reckon with them. If Dillon Ward starts and plays like he’s done so far this year, this prediction could easily go south. (Get it? Colorado is south of Calgary)
PHI @ ROC	Philly looked really good last weekend, but I find it hard to bet against Matt Vinc.
COL @ EDM	Toughest game to call this week. Edmonton was 2-6 at home last year and 7-1 away, but I’m betting they can improve on that this year.
MIN @ VAN	The Swarm kept the Knighthawks to only 8 goals last week, but I don’t think they can be that strong defensively two weeks in a row. The Stealth are playing their first-ever home game in Vancouver (as a Vancouver team, anyway, they played the Championship game last year and a couple of pre-season games in Langley over the last couple of years) so they’ll want to put on a good show.
BUF @ PHI	After losing their first two (assuming my prediction above holds), the Bandits will be angry and will do whatever they can to avoid starting 0-3. This anger and desperation could result in a debacle where they take a million penalties and lose by a ton, or Troy could pull them together and make them play better. There’s no evidence yet that he can do the latter (Darris certainly couldn’t over the last couple of years), but that’s what I’m going to go with.

Week 2 picks

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Graeme

The first week of the season had some of the expected and a bit of the unexpected. The expected: Rochester and Minnesota both got great goaltending but the Knighthawks offense was just that much better than the Swarm’s. The unexpected: Colorado had goaltending problems until rookie Dillon Ward showed up, John Grant didn’t record a point until almost the end of the third quarter, and Mark Matthews didn’t score. Also unexpected: Philadelphia impressed, Buffalo did not. Well, given the fact that Buffalo ended up last in the league last year and wasn’t much better the year before, perhaps that shouldn’t have been unexpected. But I really thought the changes the Bandits made would make for a better performance than what we saw.

Record: 1-2 (.333)

Game	Comments	Pick
CAL @ TOR	No team in the league scares me as much as Calgary when they come to town. Their offense is just too stacked and the team is just strong top to bottom. That said, the Rock ain’t bad either so I’m going with the home floor advantage.
VAN @ COL	The Stealth are right behind the Roughnecks in terms of a strong top-to-bottom team. Tyler Richards is probably the best goalie in the league not named Matt, and they must have some serious confidence in the likes of Tyler Digby and Cody Bremner to keep them in lieu of Dean Hill and the Nooch.

Week 1 picks

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Graeme

Last season I went 33-39 in my regular season picks and then 3-4 in the playoffs, which means that your average coin can pick NLL winners more successfully than I can. Let’s see if I can boost my percentage this season.

Record: 0-0 (.000)

Game	Comments	Pick
PHI @ BUF	New coach, new scoring leader, opening day after a lousy season in front of the loudest fans in the league, it can only go well for the Bandits. Right?
MIN @ ROC	Schuss, Noble, and Jones will be looking to impress in their debuts, and Andrew Suitor returns. But it’s hard to pick against the defending two-time champs.
EDM @ COL	Toughest pick of the week. I think the Rush will have a good season and I picked them to finish ahead of Colorado. But I’m going with the Mammoth in this one anyway.

2014 NLL Predictions

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Graeme

As I do every year, here are my predictions for the final regular season standings for the upcoming season, and also the major end-of-season awards.

Final Standings

East

West

Individual Awards

MVP

Winner: Garrett Billings. He’s been right up there in MVP voting for a couple of years, and I think this is his year.
Short list: Cody Jamieson, Mark Matthews

Goaltender of the Year

Winner: Matt Vinc. I may just pick Vinc every year until he retires or The Next Matt Vinc arrives.
Short list: Tyler Richards, Aaron Bold

Defensive Player of the Year

Winner: Kyle Rubisch. Like Vinc, I’ll likely just keeping guessing Rubisch until someone else rips the award away from him.
Short list: Mike Grimes, Rory Smith

Transition Player of the Year

Winner: Geoff Snider. This is who I think should win. If I were to pick who I think will win, it’d be Jordan MacIntosh. But MacIntosh isn’t strictly a transition player, and for some reason this really annoys me. This is similar to Jeff Shattler a couple of years ago – was he the MVP: yes. Was he the transition player of the year: in my opinion, no.
Short list: Jesse Gamble, Brad Self

Rookie of the Year

Winner: Robert Church. This award is almost always a tough one. It’s a crapshoot which rookies will quickly adapt to the NLL and which will not.
Short list: Logan Schuss, Jason Noble, Cody Bremner, Karsen Leung

Les Bartley (Coach of the Year)

Winner: Chris Hall
Short list: Troy Cordingley, Derek Keenan

GM of the Year

Winner: Steve Dietrich
Short list: Doug Locker

2014 preview: Colorado Mammoth

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Graeme

After an 11-5 2012 season, the Mammoth looked like 2013 was going to be their tank year (a la the 2012 Stealth) when they started the season 2-7. They decided that goaltending was the problem, and promptly got rid of the old guard (Matt Roik and Chris Levis) and went with the kids (Tye Belanger and Dan Lewis, whose combined age was lower than Roik’s GAA). This proved to be a good idea, as they finished the season 5-2, while Belanger finished 5th among starters in GAA and 4th in save percentage. Acquiring veteran and legend Casey Powell from Rochester in March didn’t hurt either; by season’s end, John Grant was the only Mammoth with a higher points-per-game average than Powell.

2013 season summary

Record	7-9 (Tied for 4th in West, seeded 4th)
Home	3-5
Away	4-4
Goals for	185
Goals against	202
Top scorer	John Grant (91)
Playoffs	Division semi-finals: Lost to Calgary 15-10

Roster changes

The Mammoth offense got one boost and a couple of big hits in the off-season. They acquired Drew Westervelt, who’s been a 50+ point-per-season guy in Philadelphia for five years. Hopefully he can give a boost to the Mammoth offense, which was the lowest-scoring in the West. But instead of complementing Grant, Powell, and Prout, he’s basically replacing two of them. Just before the rosters were due to come out, Casey Powell announced that he would not be able to play with the Mammoth for some unspecified period of time, and for unspecified personal reasons. Whether he’s out for a few games or the entire season is anyone’s guess. And then when the rosters were announced, Gavin Prout’s name did not appear. The former captain was released, and so the Mammoth are down one Powell and one Prout and up one Westervelt.

Also missing from the roster, Ilija Gajic and Ryan Hotaling, who were both traded away this off-season. Gajic took 275 face-offs and Hotaling took 122. The rest of the roster combined for all of 38 face-off attempts and only 4 wins. For a second I thought this was a big oversight until I remembered who they got in the Gajic trade – Bob Snider. Snider’s only competition for the honour of Best Face-off Man in the NLL over the last three seasons has been his brother Geoff, so I imagine the Mammoth will be just fine in that category.

The Mammoth also traded Rory Smith to the Bandits for Carter Bender. Bender was released during training camp, but Smith had toned down his reputation as a pure fighter and turned himself into a tough defender. In addition, Richard Morgan retired, leaving the Mammoth without a single player over 6’5″. Only two teams allowed more goals than the Mammoth last year, and losing Smith and Morgan won’t help their defense to turn that around.

Interesting stat: four Mammoth players had more than 30 penalty minutes last year: Rory Smith, Ilija Gajic, Richard Morgan, and Chet Koneczny. Koneczny is the only one left on the team.

The Mammoth used four different goalies last season, and only one of them is still with the team. Tye Belanger gets the nod as everyday goaltender, while Dan Lewis was released in favour of draft pick Dillon Ward.

Burning question

Gotta couple.

Tye Belanger looked pretty good in his 1/2 season stint as the starting goaltender. Can he pull that off for an entire season?
Will Casey Powell return this season? Will he return to the NLL at all?

Look out for

Sean Pollock. Pollock has been a 3+ point-per-game guy for six of the last seven years. Pollock is a righty, so with Powell and Prout (both rightys) gone, Pollock may see a lot more floor time this season.

Prediction

Fourth in the west.

Haiku

Gavin Prout is gone
No Powell or Rory Smith
Westy takes over

NLL Chatter

Musings on the National Lacrosse League

Category Archives: Colorado Mammoth