Category Archives: Colorado Mammoth

Week 4 picks

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This just gets better and better. After an 0-1 opening weekend and a more positive 2-3 week 2, I was 0-4 last weekend. Maybe it’s time to start flipping coins. The comments on these picks keeps getting harder and harder too – for every reason I can come up with why Team A will beat Team B, I can come up with another for why Team B will win. Plus even if team A has a far better offense than team B, Team A’s offense may have a bad game. Or Team B’s defense may have an exceptionally good game. Or a couple of the players have a cold and while it doesn’t take them out of the game, they may be less effective. Or a whole host of other reasons. Trust me, I can come up with a whole bunch of excuses reasons of why I’m not predicting 100%.

There are a whole bunch of games this weekend, and the only way I can end up at or above .500 this week is to get every pick right. Even one wrong leaves me at 8-9. Unfortunately, I’ve been very busy this week and so I am putting this together at the last minute and don’t have time to put comments in, so I’ll just post my picks. If I get energetic tomorrow, I may revisit this article and put comments in for games that haven’t happened yet.

Record: 2-8 (.200)

Game

Pick
CAL @ COL Roughnecks
WAS @ EDM Rush
MIN @ TOR Rock
PHI @ BUF Bandits
WAS @ MIN Swarm
TOR @ ROC Knighthawks
CAL @ PHI Wings

Week 3 picks

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For a little while there, it wasn’t looking good at all. I was 0-1 after week 1, then I got the first three games of last weekend wrong as well – I was sitting at 0-4, and my next two picks were the only team that missed the playoffs last year winning and a team that went to the championship losing. Luckily Washington came through, and the Rock managed to hold off the Rush, so I’m 2-4. Let’s try and get above .500 this week, shall we?

Record: 2-4 (.333)

Game

Comments

Pick
COL @ CAL Both strong teams, and both lost last weekend. Dane Dobbie missed last week but will be back, while Colorado is still struggling with goaltending issues. Roughnecks
BUF @ ROC Buffalo was hoping to see Billy Dee Smith back for this one, but he hurt his foot so he’ll be out again. Meanwhile, the Knighthawks should have Casey Powell available. As good as Kurtis Wagar has been this year, I have more confidence in Matt Vinc so I have to go with Rochester. Knighthawks
PHI @ TOR Philly beat Buffalo so they’ve got some confidence, but Nick Rose was great last weekend and if I’ve learned one thing doing these predictions, it’s always stick with a hot goalie. Until he’s not hot anymore. Then you shouldn’t have stuck with him quite so long. Rock54
EDM @ WAS I know the Stealth’s newfound confidence will only taken them so far – confident teams sometimes lose – but not yet. Stealth44

Success vs. attendance

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This one should be obvious. If a team is winning, what happens to their home attendance? Goes up, right? In general, yes. But how much?

I was having a conversation with someone about attendance at lacrosse games, and he said that attendance had dropped at games in Philadelphia ever since the league started cracking down on hitting and fighting. It certainly hasn’t been eliminated from the game, but many think it’s down from where it used to be. He said that this is a bad thing for the league and this could be seen by looking at the attendance numbers. I pointed out that the fact that Philadelphia has had a playoff team only twice in the last decade may have something to do with declining attendance, so it’s pretty close to impossible to say that the drop in attendance was due entirely (or even partially) to the drop in hitting.

Hitting is something we don’t have accurate stats on, so we can’t really do any kind of analysis on how that correlates with attendance. But we do have won-loss records and attendance numbers, so let’s look at those.

What we’re looking for is how a team’s attendance correlates with that team’s success on the floor. To measure attendance (and factor out the number of games per season), we’ll use the average attendance at home games. To measure success, we’ll use the winning percentage, number of wins divided by number of games played. In this case, we are ignoring playoff games. I then calculated what’s called the correlation coefficient for each team. I won’t describe the math since if you know what it is you don’t need the description, and if you don’t know what it is you likely don’t care. Suffice it to say that a value of 1 means the attendance always goes up as success goes up and drops when the team is less successful. A value of -1 means it’s exactly backwards – attendance goes up as success goes down and vice versa. The closer the number is to 1 or -1, the stronger the effect – a value of 0 means that attendance and success are unrelated.

To avoid small sample sizes, we’ll only look at teams with 10 or more seasons in the NLL. The teams involved are the New York Saints, Baltimore Thunder, Philadelphia Wings, Colorado Mammoth, Calgary Roughnecks, Toronto Rock, Rochester Knighthawks, and Buffalo Bandits.

AttendanceVsSuccess

What this tells us is that the New York Saints attendance numbers were very dependent on their success – as their win-loss records started to decline, their attendance dropped. This effect was similar in Philadelphia, Rochester, and Colorado. The rest of the teams had much smaller coefficients, meaning that their attendance didn’t depend very much on their success on the floor.

Calgary’s value was negative, implying that as Calgary’s numbers go up, their attendance numbers actually go down. But this is a bit misleading – especially since I tweeted about it saying that it was depressing. The actual value is –0.019, which is close enough to zero that it’s fair to say that Calgary’s success on the floor is unrelated to their attendance numbers. The numbers for Toronto and Baltimore are slightly higher but still low enough to imply no correlation, and Buffalo is right at the bottom end of “low correlation”.

The definition of “bandwagon jumpers” or “fairweather fans” would be those who show up to support their team when they’re doing well and abandon the team when they’re not. Would it be unfair to refer to the numbers for the top four as being indicative of this? I’ll leave that determination as an exercise for the reader.

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: Colorado Mammoth

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MammothThe 2012 Colorado Mammoth season may be one of the biggest turnarounds in recent memory. It isn’t a “worst-to-first” story, since they weren’t in last in 2011 nor were they in first in 2012. But going from a .313 season to a .688 season in one year is pretty impressive. Of course, John Grant having one of the best offensive seasons ever will help, as will rookies scoring 76 (Jones) and 46 (Lincoln) points. Just how good would this team have been if Mac Allen had played more than 3 games?

Roster changes

No huge trades for the Mammoth. They acquired Richard Morgan from the Swarm and signed free agents Chet Koneczny and Matt Roik. They did trade Derek Hopcroft, who has a very promising rookie season, to the Bandits though he didn’t actually make the team. Oddly, just as they get Joel Dalgarno back after he missed 2012 entirely due to firefighter training, they will lose Ian Hawksbee for 2013 for the same reason. Transition guy Jed Prossner retired, Scott Stewart was signed by Buffalo, and both John Orsen and Jarett Park begin the season on the PUP list.

Two surprising cuts during training camp were forwards Jamie Shewchuk, acquired from the Swarm mid-season last year, and Alex Gajic.

Burning question

Is this John Grant guy for real? I mean really, one pretty decent season and people are all “best player ever”…

Prediction

Third in the west.

Haiku

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

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

The Lou Marsh committee snubs John Grant – and lacrosse

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Christine Sinclair, captain of Canada’s national women’s soccer team, was named the winner of the 2012 Lou Marsh award this past Monday. This award is given to Canada’s outstanding athlete of the year, as chosen by a group of sports reporters and broadcasters. Sinclair had an outstanding year, breaking her own record for goals (23), setting an Olympic record with 6 goals, and factoring in on over 65% of her team’s scoring. Without question, she is deserving of the award.

John Grant

Also deserving, in my opinion, is the Colorado Mammoth’s John Grant. Grant set a new NLL record for points in a season and was named league MVP. Then his Chesapeake Bayhawks won the MLL championship, and to cap it all off his Peterborough Lakers won the Mann Cup. Not a bad year for one of the best lacrosse players in history. But how much consideration was he given for the Lou Marsh? None, apparently, as National Post writer, Lou Marsh committee member, and twitter aficionado Bruce Arthur revealed to me in an exclusive interview. OK, I’ll put “interview” in quotes. In actual fact, we had a short twitter exchange:

@GraemePerrow: @bruce_arthur Were you on the Lou Marsh committee? Was John Grant (lacrosse player) given any consideration?

@bruce_arthur: @GraemePerrow he wasn’t, to be honest.

@GraemePerrow: @bruce_arthur Too bad. One of the best lacrosse players ever with one of his best seasons ever, 3* years after life-threatening surgery

@bruce_arthur: @GraemePerrow I’ll look him up. Thanks.

* – it was actually four years. I misspoke.

“I’ll look him up.” Not only was Grant not given any consideration at the meetings, but Arthur has never heard of him.

I wish I could say that this reflects badly on Arthur or the Canadian sports media in general, but unfortunately for the lacrosse community, it’s par for the course. I’m sure this is frustrating for fans of a lot of sports – who was Canada’s best rugby player in 2012? Did he deserve to be mentioned? I have no idea, but rugby isn’t Canada’s national summer sport. Lacrosse is.

Should Grant have won the award over Sinclair? There’s certainly an argument to be made for it. More non-soccer fans heard about Sinclair this year than non-lacrosse fans heard about Grant, thanks to the Olympics. That said, it doesn’t seem fair to punish Grant for having an outstanding year in a “fringe” sport.

But I think it’s more than fair to say that Grant deserved to be in the conversation. Someone in that room should have said “Hey what about this John Grant guy? Won championships in two different leagues and was MVP of a third.” With a little research, they could have discovered that Grant had had knee surgery in 2008, which was not just career-threatening but life-threatening. There was talk of amputation, and Grant was told he’d never play again. Four years later, he’s the best player in the NLL. Again.

If someone in the room had brought that up and after some thought, it was decided to give Sinclair the award, I’d be fine with that and this article would never have been written. I might disagree with their decision, but they have their opinion and I have mine. But not to have Grant’s name even mentioned is a travesty.

Unbelievably, 2012 wasn’t even Grant’s best year. In 2007, he won the NLL Championship and the Mann Cup. He was named MVP of the NLL, the NLL Champions Cup game, the MLL, and the Mann Cup, and was also Offensive Player of the Year in the MLL. And since that wasn’t enough, he also won the World Indoor Lacrosse Championship as part of Team Canada. But did he get any consideration for the Lou Marsh award that year either? As far as I can tell, nope.

The Lou Marsh trophy was first awarded in 1936. Since then, 12 hockey players have won it along with 9 figure skaters. There have been runners, skiers, baseball players, golfers, swimmers, and now a soccer player. There have even been two wheelchair racers. But in 76 years, zero lacrosse players. Lacrosse has been one of Canada’s national sports since 1994 and was Canada’s only national sport for well over a hundred years before that, but the best lacrosse players in the world don’t seem to be considered for this award. This needs to change, but if John Grant can have the seasons he had in 2007 and 2012 and not even get mentioned, it doesn’t look like it will.

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.

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.