Category Archives: Philadelphia Wings

Week 8 picks

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

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

Record: 14-17 (.452)

Game

Comments

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

Week 6 picks

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I was 3-1 last week, my second consecutive week over .500. I can hit the magic .500 level on the season by going 4-1 this week. Bring it on.

Record: 9-12 (.429)

Game

Comments

Pick
TOR @ MIN The Rock are rolling (HA!) on the road this year, and I think that will continue in Minnesota. If Callum Crawford returns I’m a little less sure about this one, not that I’m really sure about any of them. Rock
ROC @ PHI Who ever heard of an 11am game? This is 8am for our west coast friends, so there’s a lacrosse game on before some of them even get to work in the morning. The Wings have impressed me so far this year, and the Knighthawks have not. I still think Rochester will finish the season ahead of Philly, but I have a weird feeling about this one. Wings
ROC @ BUF John Tavares is out again this week, plus we know the Bandits are stupid. Darris said so. As for Rochester, either they’ll be ticked off that they lost the previous night morning, or they’ll win on Friday and ride a two-game winning streak into Buffalo. Knighthawks
EDM @ CAL Can’t go against Calgary after their dominance last weekend. Roughnecks
COL @ WAS The Stealth only gave up 7 goals last weekend and lost. In Colorado, it’s looking even more like the fortunes of the Mammoth follow the fortunes of John Grant. He scored 6 and 5 points in their losses and 8 and 11 points in their wins. Stealth

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

Game report: Philadelphia 8 @ Toronto 7

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Usually my first Rock game report of the season contains talk of how either the Rock or their opponents (or frequently both) had some missed passes or defenders getting beaten easily or whatever because it’s early in the season. In this one, however, both the Rock and the Wings – particularly the goaltending – looked in mid-season form, as the Wings pulled off the last-minute comeback to win 8-7. The Rock have played two games already plus three scrimmages, and the Wings have played one plus two scrimmages, so I guess their lack of rustiness makes some sense. But now the team I picked to finish last in the league is 2-0. Not only that, but they were two solid victories – one where they dominated throughout, and one where their goalie kept them in the game and they came from behind with four straight goals to win it. I’m starting to wonder if this Philadelphia team may not be the dark horse in the East.

The Rock’s offense was a lot more aggressive than I’ve seen them in a while, and it showed on the scoresheet in terms of shots – they took 60 shots on Brandon Miller who was easily Philadelphia’s best player. They seemed to be trying a new strategy – a player doing the Gretzky thing, standing behind the net. The behind-the-net strategy seemed to work pretty well for the Wings, however, as they scored 3 of their 8 goals from behind the net, including the game-winner with 10 seconds left in the fourth.

With only four goals scored in the first half, it looked like we might be on the way to a scoring record. Bob Watson allowed only 2 Wings goals during a playoff game in 2000, while the lowest-scoring NLL game took place in Toronto in 2001, with Toronto defeating Albany 7-4. Watson’s record wasn’t really in much danger, and became safe 3 minutes into the third after the second of two consecutive “Air Gait” type goals by Brodie Merrill (who was on offense most of the night) and Drew Westervelt. The 7-4 score was reached halfway through the fourth when Colin Doyle scored his second of the night. Unfortunately for the home team, that was the last goal they’d score.

If the Rock had listened to me, the game might have ended differently. A number of times when the Rock were in close, they tried to score over Miller’s shoulder, and I don’t think it worked once. I tried to get them to shoot low and they eventually did – both of Doyle’s goals were low – but it was too late by then. I imagine I should have yelled “shoot low!” louder. Sorry Rock fans, my fault. (Yes, to the people who have actually played lacrosse before, I’m being totally facetious here. Coaching from the stands is much easier than coaching from the bench.)

This was a very entertaining game, and considering the other two games last night (Buffalo and Rochester trading leads for most of the game, Calgary and Colorado going to overtime), it’s obvious that the parity in the league is making for some very exiting lacrosse. And we still have 13 weeks to go! And then playoffs!

Other game notes:

  • Both goalies were outstanding – Rose’s save percentage was 85.7% and Miller’s was an unbelievable 88.3%.  Both defenses were very good as well.
  • Toronto only won 4 faceoffs all night. Philadelphia won 15.
  • At about 5:40 of the 2nd quarter, there was a scrum in the corner. The ref blew the whistle and awarded the Rock the ball. He then grabbed it, threw it in the air, and blew the whistle to start play, despite the fact that there was no Rock player there. The Wings grabbed the ball and took off. If you’re going to award the Rock the ball, shouldn’t you give the ball to a Rock player? I’ve seen refs do that when the team you’re giving the ball to is lollygagging or attempting to slow things down on the change, but that wasn’t the case here.
  • Ethan Farrell was rather reminiscent of Tom Ryan with the long hair flying. His weren’t dreadlocks, but still.
  • Jesse Gamble played a great game on defense and transition. Sandy Chapman isn’t the only “Charlie Hustle” on this team.
  • Nick Rose is really good with outlet passes up the floor. He missed an open net goal by this much, and hit someone about 3/4 of the way down the floor with a perfect pass.
  • I’m sure I’ve mentioned something like this before but when you’re the Rock PA guy and your team is losing with 10 seconds left in the 4th, perhaps the theme from Mission: Impossible is not the right song to play.

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: Philadelphia Wings

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WingsOver the first sixteen years of the Philadelphia Wings’ existence, they missed the playoffs only once, and won five championships. But in the ten years since then, they have only made the playoffs twice, and lost both games. The Wings are no longer top of the heap when it comes to attendance – they haven’t had over 12,000 at a game since 2007. The long-suffering Wings fans have been thinking “Finally, this will be our year!” for almost ten years, only to be disappointed yet again. Keep that up for three more decades, Wings fans, and you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.

In 2012, things started to look like they might be turning around for the Wings. In fact, two thirds of the way through the season, things were looking really good. They were 7-4, in first place in the East, and had beaten the Rock and Bandits twice each. Kevin Crowley was having an excellent rookie season and Dan Dawson was right near the top of the scoring race. And then things fell apart. They lost their last five games and only made the playoffs by virtue of the NLL’s generous playoff format (as someone put it on the Wingszone message boards: “72 games to eliminate 1 team followed by 7 games to eliminate 7 teams”) before being dispatched by the Knighthawks.

As I mentioned in my 2012 post-season report, “The decade-long rebuild of the Wings continues.”

Roster changes

I wrote most of this section a while ago and had it all ready to go, saying that the Wings hadn’t made many big changes. Then they went and made one of the biggest trades in NLL history. Gone are the Dawson brothers, in are a whole bunch of transition players. The day of the trade, the Wings had 8 forwards listed, one of whom was Dan Dawson, and 3 transition players. But Chris Schiller was listed as D, and he’s arguably another tranny. Add the four acquired from Rochester (Rabil, Hall, White, Campbell), and we have 7 forwards and 8 transition players.

I’m not sure how the Wings expect to make up the offense they’ve lost. They brought in Kevin Ross, who will certainly help. Rabil will probably score more than your average transition player, but he won’t make up for Dan Dawson. They traded Mike Hominuck and acquired Kevin Buchanan – call that a wash unless Buchanan reverts to his Boston / Minnesota form – his point total dropped by half last season. Add to that the fact that Brendan Mundorf will likely miss most of the season, and the Wings are down 133 points from last season.

Now, maybe Drew Westervelt will have a breakout season and score 90 points. Maybe Crowley will see the departure of Dawson as his opportunity to lead the offense and he’ll score 90. Maybe Ned Crotty and Rabil will finally take to the box game and they’ll score 50 each. OK, that last one may be a bit more of a stretch but either of the first two is possible. Remember how the Roughnecks were going to suck once they traded Kelusky and Sanderson away?

On the D, the Wings traded Paul Dawson and David Brock and lost Tom Hajek to retirement, and replaced them with… nobody. They had a few transition guys like Brodie Merrill, Max Seibald, and Chris Schiller; they traded for Kyle Hartzell; and they just got four more. Most of those guys will likely spend time on the defense as well, so it’s not like they have nobody to play back there.

Backup goalie Kurtis Wagar signed with the Bandits, leaving the Wings with Brandon Miller and Kevin Croswell. Miller was a workhorse last year, with only 3 goalies in the league playing more minutes, but didn’t have a great year, finishing 13th in GAA and 12th in save percentage.

Burning question

Will the Wings’ obsession with American field players finally pay off?

Prediction

Nope. Fourth in the east.

Haiku

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

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