Week 11 picks

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Graeme

The good news: 3-0 last week! The bad news: The Rock 0-2 weekend that I predicted came true. Was kinda hoping I’d be wrong on one of those.

All three members of the Addicted to Lacrosse team made the same picks for this weekend.

Record: 29-13 (.690)

Game	Comments	Pick
MIN @ BUF	Buffalo hasn’t played in a couple of weeks, but their confidence is still running high, though Minnesota’s is probably not bad either after beating the Wings and a close loss to Toronto. Still gotta go with the Bandits.
PHI @ ROC	Philly’s lost four in a row, and they’re facing Matt Vinc. I don’t see the upset here.
CAL @ COL	Calgary’s offense was clicking big-time last weekend, and against the Colorado defense (and three rookie coaches), they might just have another field day.
VAN @ EDM	As I said on the A2L show: Vancouver minus Sorensen against the Rush? No-brainer. (Of course I hate saying “no-brainer” with NLL picks since teams like to prove me wrong.)

Week 10 picks

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Graeme

My streak of no more than one incorrect pick per week ends at 4, and my streak of .500 or better weeks ends at 7. I was 1-2 last week as Calgary and Minnesota pulled off the comeback victories. If the games ended at halftime, I’d have been 3-3.

Record: 26-13 (.667)

Game	Comments	Pick
TOR @ EDM	I keep asking this question, but can anybody beat the Rush? Well sure, in this league anyone could. I doubt the Rush will finish the season 18-0, so somebody’s going to beat them. Could it be Toronto? Maybe, but I’m not betting on it. Looking forward to watching this game on TV though.
TOR @ CAL	If there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s picking against my favourite team. If there’s one thing I hate doing more than that, it’s picking my team to lose twice in one weekend. But if I’m going to be non-homer-ific, I have to admit that Toronto’s inconsistent play recently is not likely to get them by a surging Roughnecks team in Calgary.
ROC @ COL	Calgary was able to come back against Matt Vinc and the Knighthawks but I don’t see Colorado pulling it off. They have the firepower up front, but they don’t have the defense and goaltending is still up in the air.

Week 9 picks

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Graeme

Another 4-1 week! Third in a row, and fourth week in a row with only one incorrect pick. I should be bragging about my prediction prowess, but I’m too shocked given my sub-.500 records in the last 2 years.

Record: 25-11 (.694)

Game	Comments	Pick
MIN @ TOR	The Rock had their asses handed to them last weekend, and they’ll also be looking for payback against the Swarm, who knocked them out of the playoffs last season. The Rock have been dominant at home except for last week, while the Swarm haven’t been dominant anywhere.
ROC @ CAL	Rochester obviously has a strong defense and goaltending, but one of their criticisms this season has been their offense. Only one team (Minnesota) has scored fewer goals. But after scoring 17 last weekend, they got that monkey off their backs. The Roughnecks have lots of offensive threats as well, but I think the Rochester defense has a better shot of shutting them down than the Calgary defense has with the Knighthawks.
MIN @ PHI	I hate to predict an 0-2 weekend for a 1-6 team, but there it is. The Wings are the only team the Swarm have beaten so far this season and they’re also on a three-game losing streak. But at this point I have more confidence that the Wings can turn it around than the Swarm.

Game report: Rochester 17 @ Toronto 9

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Graeme

So, that game sucked.

The first quarter wasn’t bad. Nick Rose was playing pretty well and only allowed one goal, Colin Doyle had a hat-trick, things were looking pretty good. It wasn’t great, in that nobody other than Doyle was able to score, but hey, it’s Matt Vinc so you can’t expect much better. The fact that so many shots were missing the net entirely was a little worrisome, but that’ll get better, right? Well no, not really.

The Knighthawks came out stronger in the second, taking the lead halfway through the quarter. Again, Doyle seems to be the only Rock player who can solve Vinc, but then Steph Leblanc scores a couple and Patrick Merrill pulls a Geoff Snider and scores right off the face-off. The Rock have the lead back again, the Knighthawks momentum has been stopped, and things are looking good again, right? Well no, not really.

Out of nowhere, Rochester scores four within two minutes and while it may not have had an effect on Nick Rose’s confidence, it certainly affected that of all the fans near me. Suddenly the Rock are losing going into halftime, and whatever momentum there is belongs to Rochester. After halftime, that momentum continued for the Knighthawks, as they reeled off another seven in a row, leading many a Rock fan in attendance to wonder “wasn’t it 7-5 for the Rock at one point?” I know I’ve seen the Rock come back to win a game that they were losing by 7 in the fourth quarter, and I think they’ve come back from a deficit of 8 once. But not against Matt Vinc and the Rochester defense. And not the way the Rock were playing on this night.

The Rock D just didn’t have an answer for the Knighthawks offense. Maybe it’s that the Rock defenders aren’t all that big – of the twelve D or T players on the Rock, only AJ Masson and Craig England are over 200 pounds. Compare that with the Knighthawks – of their 12 D or T players, only four are under 200 pounds, and one of those is 197.

The Rock rookies have been playing pretty well this year – mainly O’Connor, England, and Lum-Walker – but O’Connor and England (Lum-Walker was sent to the practice roster when Merrill returned) really did look like rookies in this game, making silly mistakes, getting easily beaten by forwards, and taking dumb penalties; particularly England who after serving a two-minute penalty, left the penalty box, ran across the floor, checked Cody Jamieson across the back, and returned to the penalty box. The two teams played 5-on-5 for seven seconds before Rochester was back on the PP.

But to be fair, some of the Rock veterans played like rookies as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever had occasion to say this before, but Garrett Billings did not have a good night at all. He scored once, near the end of the game, but otherwise he was missing the net (by several feet at times), missing passes, dropping the ball when nobody was around him, all kinds of things. He just didn’t look good.

So the days of the Rock hosting the Knighthawks and expecting to win because they always have are gone, as are the days of the Rock expecting to lose in Rochester. The Rock are no longer undefeated at home, and the Knighthawks are no longer winless on the road. Next week Minnesota comes to town, and then a couple of weeks after that it’s the Knighthawks again.

Other game notes:

Patrick Merrill returns and Scott Johnston continues taking face-offs? Well, he took the opening one and then 9 more, while Merrill took 18. AJ Masson and Sandy Chapman took one each as well. As a whole, they won 33% of them. Someone on the IL Indoor message boards talked about acquiring Jordan MacIntosh from Minnesota. This would be an expensive acquisition (at least a first round draft pick, if not two) but how great would it be to have him, Gamble, and Edwards on transition?
The Rock announced the game’s three stars after the game – Jamieson, Keogh, and Dawson. What? No Matt Vinc? Have to disagree there. My three would have been Vinc, Keogh, and Jamieson.
Nick Rose allowed 14 of the 17 Rochester goals, including 10 of their 11 in a row. They really didn’t think after he’d allowed, say, 6 in a row and the team went from winning by 2 to losing by 4 that maybe it was time for a change? Was it because they are overconfident in Rose’s ability to stop the bleeding or because they lack confidence in Boychuk, who I thought did a fine job in relief?

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.