Category Archives: Toronto Rock

Game report: Rochester 9 @ Toronto 10

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The Rock wanted to clinch first place in the East last week, but Matt Vinc had other ideas. Rochester’s 2013 season hasn’t gone they way they wanted to, I’m sure, but they are by no means out of the race and with Vinc in net, the Knighthawks are no pushovers. In Sunday’s rematch, the Rock didn’t exactly solve Vinc – he still only allowed 10 goals – but they certainly had more success in preventing the Knighthawks forwards from scoring. I wouldn’t say Nick Rose was outstanding, though he was solid, but the Rock defense played very well. In particular I saw outstanding defensive plays from Mike Hobbins, Stephen Hoar, Damon Edwards, Jesse Gamble, and Kyle Belton – and those are just the ones I made mental notes of.

The game started off with some good and bad news. Good news: Colin Doyle’s wife is in labour! Child #3 is on the way! Bad news: Colin has this crazy “I love my family” thing going, so he left to be with his wife – which is totally the right thing to do, I say as my wife reads this over my shoulder. Seriously, congratulations to the Doyle family and welcome to the world, young baby Doyle.

Doyle is having an outstanding season so his loss was going to be noticed. But as good teams do, everyone else stepped up when one of the top players is out. Josh Sanderson was acting captain and also returned to his old post of anchoring the offense along with Garrett Billings. Billings had 6 points – a pretty good total for most other players, but Billings’ second-lowest of the season (he had 4 games with 4 points). Kasey Beirnes also had a good game, also with 6 points, and continues his role as unsung hero of the Rock. If asked to name the offensive stars of the team, Beirnes’ name doesn’t come to mind quite as quickly as Billings, Doyle, Sanderson, or Leblanc, but if you ask Troy Cordingley, Terry Sanderson, or Colin Doyle about him, they can’t say enough good things about his play, and many Rock fans know him as one of the hardest working forwards out there. I asked this philosophical question a few years ago about Shawn Williams and it seems to apply to Beirnes as well – if everyone thinks of you as an underrated player, are you?

As I said before, the Rock defense was excellent. Not only did they play well as a unit, there were some great individual efforts as well. Mike Hobbins was covering Dan Dawson in the first quarter and just wouldn’t let him get open to take a shot or even pass. When the shot clock buzzer sounded, Dawson dropped the ball and was so frustrated he grabbed Hobbins, threw him to the floor, and stormed off to his bench. The Knighthawks defense was also solid, though I wish they’d use B. Self and S. Self on the jerseys instead of just Self so I’d know who to credit for a particular play in which someone (Beirnes?) was basically mashed into the end boards and held there until the shot clock expired. I think it was Scott (since Brad is more of a transition guy), who was a nice little pickup for the Knighthawks considering they gave up Kedoh Hill from their practice roster for him.

Only one game left in the Rock season, a game in Philly to try and clinch top spot in the league and home floor throughout the playoffs. The Knighthawks, on the other hand, have three games left – a nasty Alberta doubleheader against the Roughnecks and Rush, and then the season finale against Buffalo.

Just a couple of other game notes:

  • In the second half, a Knighthawks goal was disallowed (I think – might have been a Rock goal), and Rochester coach Mike Hasen wanted to challenge the call. He threw the challenge flag – and hit the referee square in the chest. The ref stopped and glared directly at Hasen for a full ten seconds before continuing to the officials area. I was watching the ref and not Hasen, so I don’t know what he was doing. NLL Rule 17.89 says that if the coach attempts to hit the ref with the flag, the team gets an unsportsmanlike minor and the coach gets a game misconduct. It also says that the ref has discretion to decide whether the throw was intentional or not. There was no penalty, so presumably the ref decided it was accidental. Oddly, Hasen did not throw the flag directly away from the bench, or closer to mid-floor as coaches generally do, he threw it in the direction of the net, which was also where the ref was. Perhaps he was trying to throw it near the ref, to make sure he was aware that he was challenging the call, and the throw was more accurate than he intended.
  • The Rock’s anthem singer also works game ops for the team, and was picking up balls during the halftime shooting contest. I was worried that a ball might hit him and break him in half – he looks about 6-foot-1 and 120 pounds. For a skinny little guy, he has one hell of a powerful voice though.

Week 14 picks

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Last week I went 3-2, my fourth straight week of .500-or-better predictions. I guess I’m settling down as we get deeper into the season. You know what they say, particularly in the NLL – you don’t want to peak early. Much better to get hot near the end of the season. Right, 2012 Knighthawks?

Record: 25-32 (.439)

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Comments

Pick
WAS @ CAL Tough one. Washington can clinch a playoff spot by beating the Roughnecks, so they’re hungry. The Roughnecks know they were one T-Rich penalty away from losing to the Stealth last weekend, and they’re playing to clinch a home date. I’ll take Calgary at home, but in a close one. Roughnecks
COL @ EDM How can you bet against the Rush, the way they’ve been playing? Sure they’re 1-4 at home, but haven’t played there in over a month and have since won five straight including beating both the Rock and Roughnecks handily. Rush
BUF @ MIN The Swarm have won their last two by 7 and 9 goals. The Bandits have lost five in a row. The Bandits certainly have the talent to win this game, and you’d think that having their backs to the wall playoff-wise would spur them on to play better. But I didn’t see that last week in Toronto. Coach Darris Kilgour questioned their heart last year, but this year might be worse. Swarm
PHI @ ROC Rochester seems to have found their groove after trading Casey Powell. Not that he was the cause of their problems, but moving him freed up the rest of their offense. That seems to have helped, adding Scott Self made a pretty good defense better, and Matt Vinc has been great all year. If anyone other than the Rush are getting hot at the right time, it might be the Knighthawks. Knighthawks
MIN @ PHI I had little confidence in the Wings before the season began, and there have been times where they’ve surprised me with how well they’ve played. But they’ve also had 20 goals scored against them twice this year and other than their early-season win over the Rock, all of their wins have come against teams below them in the standings. Like I said before, I’m still bullish on the Swarm – and that was before they destroyed the Wings last week. Swarm
ROC @ TOR Rochester played well in their game against the Rock last weekend, and as I said they seem to be getting hot at the right time. But the Rock really wanted to clinch the Eastern division title last weekend and the Knighthawks prevented that. They won’t want to let that happen again, particularly in their own building. Rock

Game report: Buffalo 11 @ Toronto 18

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The Rock and the Bandits really don’t like each other. This is not news to anyone who’s ever watched them play, and may be surprising considering the Bandits have eight former Rock players in their lineup plus their GM while Roger Vyse, former Bandit captain Chris White, and both the Rock coach and GM are former Bandits. We thought we’d be in for a long game during the first, with penalty after penalty after penalty, but eventually things settled down and we actually saw some good lacrosse for a while. Most of the really rough stuff was over halfway through the first, but the penalties continued all game.

If you read the NLL Message Boards, there’s a thread that starts before every game in the Bandits forum called Keys to the Game. Every week, someone comes up with three ways the Bandits can win – shut down the opponent’s star player, minimize opponent’s transition goals, grab an early lead (or prevent the other team from grabbing an early lead), that kind of thing. For the last ten years, #3 on that list has always been “NO DUMB PENALTIES”. Apparently the Bandits don’t read the message boards. The Rock have the best power play unit in the league, something you’d think Darris and the boys might have paid a little more attention to, but they didn’t. Special teams weren’t exactly root cause of the Bandits downfall, but Toronto’s four power play goals didn’t help.

That said, not all of their penalties were dumb. I’m not generally one to complain about reffing, but there were a number of phantom calls in this game, going both ways:

  • Alex Kedoh Hill was given a penalty for knocking Josh Sanderson down, though (a) Sanderson had just punched him in the head, and (b) Hill barely touched Sanderson, who dropped like a soccer player.
  • No less than eight players got roughing penalties at the same time after the first Bandits goal. It all started with some rough stuff between Josh Sanderson (!!) and Mark Steenhuis.
  • Anthony Cosmo gave Doyle a smack on the back with his goalie stick and although it wasn’t that hard a hit, Cosmo was penalized. Perhaps the refs thought it was too close to the head. I actually thought it did hit Doyle in the head, but on viewing the replay, it did not.
  • Just a couple of minutes later, Derek Hopcroft had possession when the Bandits were called for a moving pick. The whistle was blown and play stopped but Hopcroft did not drop the ball. Jesse Gamble tried to get it from him but he pulled away. Hopcroft should have gotten two minutes right there for delay of game – you must drop the ball as soon as the whistle is blown. Chris White then hit Hopcroft’s stick away (getting a slashing penalty in the process), and Gamble and Hopcroft had words. At this point Bill Greer stepped in which might have been a mistake, since Hopcroft immediately pulled Greer’s helmet off and just laid a beating on him. This was one of the most one-sided fights I can remember. I counted sixteen punches by Hopcroft and zero by Greer.
  • Just two minutes after that, Luke Wiles hit Patrick Merrill in the face, getting a slashing penalty. This was a good call.
  • But later on Wiles had possession when the whistle was blown and he dropped the ball right away. Perhaps it didn’t go straight down and stop – it did roll a little, but it seemed obvious to me that there was no intent to roll it away from the Rock player who was right there. Wiles was given a delay of game anyway. People around me were confused, wondering why I was complaining about that penalty since it was against the Bandits. Simple – it was undeserved.

All of that was in the first quarter.

The game did settle down after that. There were still lots of penalties (4 in the second and 5 in each of the third and fourth) but other than Luke Wiles double-minor for slashing and facemasking, most of them were fairly innocuous. I kind of held my breath near the end of the game, waiting for the Bandits to explode and start more fights (the “go down swinging” attitude that seems prevalent in some lacrosse people) but it never happened.

Cosmo wasn’t great but I wouldn’t place the blame for this loss on him, or on Kurtis Wagar. The problem was Buffalo’s defense. The Rock got a lot of chances in close, and when you have Colin Doyle with the ball standing just outside the crease and no defender within ten feet of him, he’s more than likely going to score. Give him and Kasey Beirnes a few of those types of chances each, and that’s a recipe for a blowout. Nick Rose had a pretty good game, but much of his success on Friday came because the Rock defense was preventing the Bandits from getting clear shots at the net. There is no video of the game highlights up on nll.com yet, but from what I remember, the bounce shot was not Rose’s friend.

As expected, it was an entertaining and exciting game, and I’m glad the rough stuff was taken care of early in the game. Nothing pisses me off more at a lacrosse game than a team starting fights near the end because they’re getting blown out. If your team is getting destroyed, tough. Man up and regroup for your next game, learning from the mistakes you made. Starting fights because you’re losing is just an adult temper tantrum.

Other game notes:

  • It was Kids Night, so there were some special promotions and events and such for kids. What better way to celebrate Kids Night than with 14 roughing penalties, six slashing penalties, and a fight? Maybe pick the Mammoth or Stealth next year for Kids Night, not the Bandits.
  • On a similar note, the song called Dance With Me (which contains the inane lyrics “if you’re sexy and you know it, clap your hands”) may not have been the best choice for the cheerleaders on Kids Night.
  • As I mentioned last week, the Rock were pretty slow on the offense-to-defense transition. This week was much better – no lollygagging.
  • There was a guy sitting behind me who called for Nick Rose to be pulled at least two or three times in the first half. The last time he said “They gotta put Boychuk in. Get Rose out of there” as if it was 15-0 Bandits or 5-0 after three minutes. But this was near the end of the second quarter and Rose had given up 5 goals. He did allow another goal with a second left in the half, but then kept the Bandits off the board for the next sixteen minutes. Didn’t hear any complaints about the goaltending in the third quarter.
  • Also overheard from someone behind me: “That #9 [Steenhuis] is out there an awful lot, isn’t he?” Yes. Yes he is.
  • Nice to see Rock captain Colin Doyle and Bandits alternate captain Shawn Williams going out of their way to get the game ball from the ref after Roger Vyse and Kevin Brownell scored their first goals of the year – Vyse’s was his first as a Rock (that must have felt good, especially against the team that released him before the season) and Brownell’s was the first of his career.
  • Shawn Williams’ nine-year-old daughter Dylana sang O Canada and did an outstanding job.
  • Great to see Roberto Alomar doing the opening face-off. I recently watched a game from the 1992 World Series on TV and I think I had forgotten just how much fun Alomar was to watch.

Week 13 picks

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Last week was my first above-.500 week since week 6. I was 2-1, missing only Edmonton’s victory over the Rock. Some tough picks this week though they should all be entertaining games. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the Bandits at the ACC and the Stealth-Roughnecks game as well.

Record: 22-30 (.423)

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Comments

Pick
PHI @ MIN Philly needs to sweep this weekend to get into the playoffs, but as I said on the Pro Lacrosse Face-off show this week, I don’t see it happening. I’m still bullish on the Swarm, especially given their recent demolition of the Stealth. Swarm
BUF @ TOR I love when the Bandits come to town. The games are always physical, always exciting, always eventful. Of course, the Bandits have a winning record in Toronto, so much of the time the ending of the game isn’t so good for me. But the Rock are in first place and the Bandits have lost four in a row. So obviously the Rock will win. Cause that’s the way the NLL works, right? Rock5
PHI @ COL I originally had the Wings logo here, but I’ve changed my mind. The Wings have five wins but four of them have been against Rochester, Buffalo (2), and Colorado. Toronto (early in the season) is the only team above .500 they’ve beaten – and they’ve since been beaten by the Rock. Colorado had a lead last week and let it slip away but that’s par for the course for the Mammoth – they’re becoming known for taking one quarter off per game and in that one, it was the fourth. If they can put 4 solid quarters together, they can beat the Wings easily but even if they only play 3 I think they can still win. Mammoth
TOR @ ROC Rochester is playing for their playoff lives, so they won’t go quietly. Or will they? They’ve lost five of their past six at home and only hit double digits in the first of those six. They’ve also only played one game since the 2nd of March. Worse home offense in the league (8.3 goals per game at home!) against the third-best defense? I’ll risk looking like a homer and take the Rock. Rock
CAL @ WAS I can’t figure out the Stealth. They win 3 in a row, two of them with 16 goals, and then only score 5 against the Swarm? So which Stealth do we get this weekend? Meanwhile the Roughnecks have allowed 15+ goals in 5 of their last 6 games. The Roughnecks haven’t demonstrated the ability to hold back the top offensive teams, at least not in the second half of this season. I originally had Calgary for this game but I’ve switched this one too. Stealth

Game report: Edmonton 17 @ Toronto 12

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In my preview of the Edmonton Rush, I picked them to finish last in the West – not because I thought they were a last place team, but because there was so much uncertainty. Would Aaron Bold continue his strong play from 2012? Would the defense continue to dominate? Would Mark Matthews turn out to be the star everyone thought he would be? And after a 1-4 start, it looked like the Rush might have to wait at least another year to get back to the Championship game. But they’ve now won seven of their last eight games including five in a row, and have looked pretty dominant doing so. Sunday’s game against the Rock was no exception.

The first quarter might have been the Rock’s worst quarter of the season. The offense was sloppy, passes were missing their targets by several feet, lots of fancy over-the-shoulder passes were made to teammates not expecting them, and Nick Rose did not have his best game. Two minutes into the second, Rose was pulled for Zach Boychuk and the Rock were down 8-2. Shots after the first quarter were 22-8 for the Rush. Boychuk allowed another goal fairly quickly but then settled down and held the Rush scoreless for the next 12 minutes. Boychuk was hot and cold the rest of the way – he made a couple of holy-cow-how-did-he-stop-that saves, but let in a few softies as well. Boychuk is a much more athletic goalie than Rose; while Rose seems to move as little as possible to make the saves, Boychuk moves around a lot more. Not that either style is better or worse – whatever works.

The Rock’s play did improve over the next few quarters but still not up to the level of the Rush, who were simply dominant. Matthews didn’t have a huge game stat-wise, three goals and an assist, but he anchored the offense. And “anchor” is a pretty accurate description of this big guy – he can plow through defenders like they’re not there. His presence forced the Rock to focus more on him and allow the rest of the Rush forwards some good looks, but it was their defenders and transition guys that provided much of the scoring. Chris Corbeil and Kyle Rubisch, two of the best defenders in the game, contributed at both ends of the floor with two goals each, and Mydske, Dilks, LaFontaine, and Thompson each scored as well.

Jeremy ThompsonI’ve always liked Jeremy Thompson as a player. He can score, he can defend, he’s fast, he can fight (as we saw – see below), he can do faceoffs, and he has a very cool twitter profile picture (right). On Sunday, he displayed another skill: getting under the skin of his opponents, which directly resulted in at least two power plays for the Rush. On the opening face-off of the second quarter, he said or did something to Patrick Merrill. From what I saw, the ref blew the whistle to start the quarter and then immediately signaled that the Rock should have possession. Merrill suddenly walked away from the ball and started cross-checking Thompson across the chest. Thompson simply walked backwards taking the hits until Merrill was given a penalty. Not a smart play by Merrill. Then just a few minutes later, Thompson said or did something to Scott Evans, who dropped his gloves and went after him. Again, Thompson did nothing and Evans went to the penalty box. To add insult to injury, Thompson himself scored on the resulting power play. Surely after watching the Bandits implode year after year after year by taking stupid penalties, the Rock would have learned to let the other team do that and not to do it themselves. Actually the Rock are usually pretty good for keeping their heads on straight, but not on this night.

All in all, it was a rather ugly game for the Rock. But they ran into a hot Edmonton Rush team, who have replaced the Rock at the top of Brian Shanahan’s power rankings list. I saw a few tweets before the game that this game might have been a Champion’s Cup preview. If so, the Rock will have to keep their heads on straight and clean up (or cut down on) the fancy passing in the rematch.

Other game notes:

  • The Edmonton defense was very strong. There were times that I was waiting for the whistle and the “too many men” call, because there were seven or eight defenders out there. But no, there were only five.
  • In one play in the second quarter, Kyle Rubisch approached a group of three players all huddled together and checked them all at once, knocking two of them down.
  • After being pulled in the second quarter, Nick Rose sat on the bench for the rest of the game with his helmet on.
  • The fight: in the third quarter, Scott Johnston grabbed Jeremy Thompson and wouldn’t let him go. He held Thompson by the facemask and eventually pulled his helmet off. Thompson looked like he had no real interest in the fight, but after Johnston finally threw the first actual punch, Thompson pulled Johnston’s mask off and got a few punches in before Johnston suplex’ed him to the floor. Decision: Thompson.
  • The Rock’s transition game (defense-to-offense) is one of the best they’ve had in years. But their offense-to-defense is a bit more of a problem. There was a fair bit of lollygagging by the offense on their way back to the bench. You know what that makes them? Lollygaggers.

Week 12 picks

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For the second straight week, I was 2-2 with my picks. Starting out under .500 and continually getting .500 will get you towards .500, but you’ll never get there. That’s math. Luckily, there are 3 games this week so I won’t be going .500. Let’s hope for a 2-1 or 3-0 week to bring up that average!

Record: 20-29 (.408)

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Comments

Pick
EDM @ BUF Edmonton has won 5 of 6 and scored 14+ goals in four of them. Buffalo has lost three straight but only really got crushed in one of them. Given the events of the past couple of weeks, I’m wondering if Bandits will act like angels this weekend (not wanting to lose more people to suspensions) and stay out of the penalty box. If they can do that, they stand a good chance of beating the Rush. But notice who I’m picking. Rush
COL @ CAL This pick is closer than I would have thought a few weeks ago. The powerhouse Roughnecks against the lowly Mammoth? Not so much. The ‘Necks have had defensive troubles all year and are dead last in goals allowed, though they’re first in goals scored. The Mammoth are coming of two solid wins against Buffalo and have growing confidence in their young goaltenders. But I still gotta go with Calgary though it’s my least confident pick this week. Roughnecks
EDM @ TOR I saw Mark Matthews play in a pre-season exhibition game in Toronto and had to agree with all the experts saying that Matthews was going to be a force in the NLL. Obviously they were right, and I’m looking forward to watching him again, not to mention defensive stud Kyle Rubisch. But the Rock are on a roll (man, that joke just never gets old, does it?), and three wins in their final five games will give them their best record since 2005. Since this is the best Rock team since 2005 (including a team that won a championship), that would be fitting. Rock

Week 11 picks

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I tried something different this past week since the previous weeks hadn’t really gone so well. I reversed my picks – if I thought team A would win, I picked team B. I did this for all four games and after starting 0-2 (and thinking this was the dumbest idea I’d had in years), I went 2-0 in the last two games, thus ending the weekend 2-2 and rendering my experiment pointless.

This week I’m back to my regular picking strategy. Next year, I think it would be interesting to actually flip a coin each week and see how many people the coin can beat.

Record: 18-27 (.400)

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Comments

Pick
BUF @ COL This one will be weird, since with all the injuries, trades, and suspensions, the entire game will be Tye Belanger and Anthony Cosmo lobbing the ball back and forth to each other, with John Grant and Mark Steenhuis trying to intercept the passes. Steve Dietrich will replace Cosmo in the fourth just because now he can. Bandits
WAS @ MIN Stealth fans yell at me when I pick the Stealth, which I guess is understandable given my overall record. But I’ve picked Washington to win 7 times this season, and they’ve won 4 of those games. So when I pick them, they win 57% of the time. That’s the highest percentage of any team in the league. You’re welcome. Stealth
TOR @ PHI Brandon Miller will not be playing this weekend (unless he appeals his suspension), so backup Kevin Croswell will be starting. But facing the backup goalie isn’t always the good news that you might think. Last year, the Rock faced Washington’s backup goalie when Tyler Richards was injured and he played a great game, giving the Stealth the win. That backup goalie was Kevin Croswell. Rock
EDM @ ROC Rochester now has Purves and Sullivan on their D – but both are suspended. They’ve also added defensive stud Scott Self who is not. They’ll be without Casey Powell, which I think is a good thing for their offense overall, but it might take a bit of time to reorganize. Edmonton has scored 14+ goals in 4 of the past 5 games and have won all four. Rush

Game Report: Colorado 10 @ Toronto 14

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Lucky for me I don’t start writing my game report until well after the game has ended. If I were one of those actual reporters who bring their laptop and write during the game, I’d have been frustrated by the fact that I had to rewrite it after the first quarter. Then again, there were a few lengthy delays that would have given me plenty of time to write.

The Mammoth started out strong, both on offense and defense. After Blaine Manning put the Rock up early in the first, the Mammoth scored the next four while keeping the Rock off the board for over ten minutes. The Mammoth led 4-2 after one quarter and Dan Lewis, despite being 6’0″ and only 180 pounds (which is tiny for a goaltender), was playing very well. He moves around a lot more than Nick Rose but he has to, since Rose is the same height but 105 pounds heavier (and therefore wider). But in the second, Lewis was less effective as the Rock outscored the Mammoth 7-2. I thought they pulled Lewis a little early, and this did seem to backfire as Belanger allowed a goal on the first shot he faced, but he settled down quickly and kept the Rock off the board for fifteen minutes after that. Belanger played most of the second half as well (other than maybe a minute when he needed an equipment adjustment) and did very well for his first game since April last year (and only his fourth ever).

The Mammoth climbed back to within one three times, but just couldn’t get that one extra goal to tie it up. After a penalty to Richard Morgan halfway through the fourth (more on this later), Blaine Manning scored on the PP to give the Rock a 2-goal lead, and then Jesse Gamble continued his bid for Transition Player of the Year (he’s got my vote), scoring his second and third of the game late in the quarter, his third coming on a penalty shot. Make the final 14-10.

I’m not generally one to complain about reffing, but there were a few problems in tonight’s game. First off, there were four goal challenges and three of them took forever. The league really has to work on speeding these things up because they completely killed any flow or momentum in the game. I PVR’ed the game, and have gone over two of the reviews with a stopwatch. In the second quarter, Adam Jones scored and Troy Cordingley threw the challenge flag just as the faceoff was happening. The rule says the flag has to be thrown before the faceoff, but I guess they decided this was OK and 1:20 after the goal, the ref started the review. The review took an unbelievable 3:35, so by the time play began again, just shy of five minutes had elapsed.

Later on in the second after a goal by Stephen Leblanc, a Mammoth player fell to the ground with an apparent injury (though he ended up being OK), then Lewis needed some work done on his equipment, and then Bob Hamley threw the challenge flag. The time between the goal being scored and the flag being thrown was seventy seconds. The review didn’t even start for another minute after the flag was thrown, and then the review took another minute, so we had almost a 3½ minute delay between the goal and the face-off.

We were all angry at the time because we thought the rule was that the flag must be thrown within 20 seconds, but according to the rule book, what happened was perfectly legal. The challenge flag must be thrown “prior to the next faceoff”, and the refs are instructed to “endeavour to achieve a face-off… as soon as possible to a maximum of 20 seconds”, but the refs have leeway to allow for longer stoppages for injuries and things like that, so technically no rules were broken.

But that’s the problem – no rules were broken. Everything proceeded according to the rules, and yet we had such huge delays. The only rule that was not followed to the letter was:

Review by the officials shall be attempted to be completed within two minutes.

But since we have “shall be attempted to be” in there, this is more of what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule. The weird thing is that it was pretty evident from the overhead replay that the goal was good, so I’m not sure why it took so long.

In addition to the lengthy reviews, the Mammoth were given an undeserved penalty late in the game that might have been the final nail in the coffin. Richard Morgan hit Colin Doyle with what looked to me to be a clean check. Doyle might have embellished it a little but not a lot – Morgan is a big strong guy, and any check to your chest from such a man is going to knock you backwards. But it was still legal, and yet Morgan was sent to the penalty box. Blaine Manning scored on the resulting power play, putting the Rock up by 2. It’s not like a two-goal lead with 7 minutes left in the game is insurmountable by any stretch, but the unfairness of it might have taken a little of the wind out of the Mammoth’s sails.

Toronto fans weren’t too thrilled with the first quarter, but had to be happy with the Rock’s comeback and strong play in the fourth, which we didn’t see in last week’s loss to Buffalo. Mammoth fans were probably unhappy with their offense, which seemed disorganized, but should be fairly pleased with the play of their goaltenders. I thought they both played well – not outstanding, but Lewis was very good in the first quarter and Belanger only allowed 5 goals in the second half, one of which was a penalty shot.

Other game notes:

  • Toronto had four penalties, half of them bench minors. Colorado had eight penalties, half of them bench minors.
  • Rose tried to score on the empty Mammoth net in the final seconds of the second. He threw the ball way too high and hit the scoreboard. Pieces of it fell to the turf. Nick Rose broke the Air Canada Centre.
  • I listened to the most recent VoodooCast (a podcast done by Mammoth fans) on the way to the game. The panel mentioned what they believed to be Lewis’ weakness – he drops his right shoulder at inopportune times (like when the ball is flying towards it). The Rock’s second goal was a laser from Doyle directly at Lewis’ right shoulder, and just as the ball was coming towards him, he dropped the shoulder. Textbook. Maybe Doyle listened to the same podcast earlier in the day.
  • John Grant seems to be the quarterback of the Colorado offense and frequently takes the point position – except on the power play. When the Mammoth are a man up, Gavin Prout takes that position. Interesting. The Mammoth had four power plays and no goals, so maybe that strategy needs reworking.
  • A friend of mine commented that these behind-the-net “Air Gait” goals shouldn’t be allowed and I’m starting to agree. While some of them are spectacular to watch, it’s always seemed kind of cheap to me. Or maybe it’s because the Rock have allowed at least one of them per game this year.
  • Rock owner Jamie Dawick pledged to donate $25,000 of his own money to the Daily Bread Food Bank if the game was a sellout. The result? Attendance was up about 700 from the average of the previous four games. It wasn’t even the highest attendance this year. I was pretty skeptical we’d get the full 19,000+ to this game, but after all the hype, I was hoping for at least 14-15k. Disappointing.
  • The guy in front of me was texting on his phone almost the entire game. I check my phone twitter-reading device plenty of times as well, but usually only during TV timeouts and between quarters, rarely during play. This guy was writing a novel. The guy behind me was one of those guys who screams at the opposing players and refs about how much they suck. He was yelling at Lewis all night and when the Mammoth switched goalies, he was yelling about riding the pine. He yelled at one player to get a haircut. It wasn’t even short things like “Lewis you suck!”, it was full sentences, and he wasn’t even clever or funny. People, a word of advice. Don’t be that guy.

Week 10 picks

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OK, this is getting silly now. Parity is great and all, but what I wouldn’t give for a 2007 Knighthawks vs. 2004 Anaheim Storm game – at least it’d make one pick easy.

I went 2-3 last week, which isn’t bad, but it’s my third sub-.500 week in a row. People have started to ask me on twitter NOT to pick their team so I’m going to spin things around this week. I will make my picks, and then record the opposite. Sounds silly, but if I’d done that the rest of the year, I’d be 25-16, batting .610.

But I’m tellin’ ya, if this doesn’t work, I may not bother with the picks thing next season. Maybe I’ll just do Power Rankings. Anybody can do those.

Record: 16-25 (.390)

Game

Comments

Pick
MIN @ CAL Despite their recent struggles, I still find it hard to pick against the Roughnecks. This combined with a Suitor-less Swarm who have also been struggling lately, and I think the Roughnecks will get back to their winning ways and take this one. So I’m picking the Swarm. Swarm
COL @ TOR Top team in the league against the bottom team in the league – no-brainer, right? Not exactly. With the weapons that the Mammoth have and the fact that they’re hungry to prove themselves and get out of the basement, they could be a dangerous team. That said, the Rock aren’t happy with their loss to Buffalo last week. Like the Roughnecks, I think the Rock will get back to form and take this one. So I’m picking the Mammoth. Mammoth
COL @ BUF Tough one. Both teams have superstar players that can be unmatched when they’re on their game, but if you get them rattled, their effectiveness drops significantly. Colorado’s is Grant, and Buffalo’s is Cosmo. If either one of these guys is off his game, the other team’s likelihood of winning skyrockets. I’m not saying that Grant will be off his game, but I liked how Buffalo played last Thursday against the Rock so as long as they can avoid a fourth quarter collapse like they did against Philly (and like the Rock did against them), I think Buffalo can take it. So I’m picking the Mammoth. Mammoth
WAS @ PHI Hmmm… Philly’s won 3 in a row, Washington’s won 2. BMiller vs. TRich. Crowley, Buchanan and Ross vs. Duch, Ratcliff, and Iannucci. Reynolds vs. Snider. This is a close one, but Philly has surprised me too often this season to pick them to lose again. So I’m picking the Stealth. Stealth

NLL mid-season report: East division

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Each team has played roughly half their games, so it’s time for mid-season report cards. Just like last year, I’ve assigned letter grades to each team’s offense and defense (which includes goaltending). The letter grades are purely subjective based partially on the stats but partially on my own impressions of the team. The letters compare roughly thus:

A 2012 Knighthawks (Champions)
B 2012  Roughnecks (Excellent regular season, faded in the playoffs)
C 2012 Wings (Just made the playoffs)
D 2012 Stealth (did not make the playoffs)
F SyracuseSmash

We’ll start with the NLL East and get to the West in a couple of days. All of the stats were as of the end of week 9.

BanditsBuffalo Bandits

Offense: C-

6th in goals scored per game. The top scorer (Shawn Williams) is 11th overall. The next-highest scorer (Aaron Wilson) is 34th. If you look at points per game (to factor out the number of games played), Williams is 12th and Tavares is 29th. Tavares missed three games which did not help though he’s back now.

Defense: C+

6th in goals allowed per game. They’ve given up 12 or more goals in seven of their nine games. When Cosmo is on, he’s still one of the best in the league, and he was certainly on in their 10-6 win against the Knighthawks. He just has to be on a little more often.

Overall: B-

How is their overall rating better than either of their offensive or defensive ratings? Well, they’ve managed to turn a below-average offense and a below-average defense into a 5-4 record.
 

WingsPhiladelphia Wings

Offense: F

Dead last in goals per game, averaging less than 11. They have one player in the top 20 in scoring, Crowley at #15. Only 7 players have 10 or more points after 8 games. The Kevins are doing fine, Drew Westervelt is fine, and Jordan Hall isn’t quite up to his New York Titans numbers, but is on pace to blow away his Rochester numbers. Paul Rabil has been disappointing from a scoring standpoint, especially since he’s been on offense more than transition. Brodie Merrill is about where he was last year, and nobody else is scoring at all. They’ll be happy to get Brendan Mundorf back.

Defense: B-

5th in goals allowed per game. Brandon Miller had three pretty crappy games where he allowed 14, 16, and 20 goals, but has been good or really good in the five wins.

Overall: B-

The Wings have impressed me more than I thought they would this year. I predicted them to be the one team out of the playoffs, but it’s looking less and less like that’s the case. They’re still not a Championship team in my opinion, but they’re closer than I expected.
 

KnighthawksRochester Knighthawks

Offense: D-

Tied for seventh in goals per game. How bad is the Knighthawks offense? Dan Dawson is on pace for his worst season since 2003, about 15 points worse than any season since 2004 – and he’s second on the team. (That’s not really a fair statement though, since a crappy Dan Dawson season is still better than most.) Jamieson is top 10 in both points and points per game, so no problem there. Dawson is tied for 18th in points per game. Casey Powell is in 35th and has missed two games. Johnny Powless is on pace for 35 points, after scoring 50 last year. Stephen Keogh is on pace for 38, after 59 last year. The only reason this isn’t an F is because they put up 35 goals in two games (in two days) in early February, so they can score. They’re just not.

Defense: A

The defense has been as good as the offense has been bad. The Knighthawks are first in goals allowed per game, allowing a measly 10.2. They’ve given up more than 10 goals once in their last six games, and yet they’ve lost two of them. The Knighthawks may have 99 problems, but Matt Vinc ain’t one.

Overall: D

If they’re trying to channel the 2012 Stealth (first to last in one year), they’re doing a good job. But there are better teams to emulate – like the 2012 Knighthawks. It’s looking like adding Powell and Dawson did have an effect on team chemistry. Strangely, the person I expected it to affect most, Cody Jamieson, seems unaffected and is on pace for 80 points.

RockToronto Rock

Offense: B+

Third in goals scored per game, and they have scored less than 10 goals only once. Two of the top six scorers are Rock players. Colin Doyle is on pace for 84 points which would be his highest point total in three years. Billings is on pace for 105 points. Blaine Manning’s numbers are way down (he’s on pace for less than half of his worst non-injury season), but his role has changed. He’s not one of the top scorers anymore, he’s one of the guys that “bangs bodies” and makes space for Doyle and Billings and Josh. He even played one game coming out the back door.

Defense: A

Second in goals allowed per game. Have only allowed as many as 13 goals twice, and one of those was in OT. Nick Rose is third among starters in both GAA and save %. Jesse Gamble has become one of the best transition players in the league. Young goalie, young transition, veteran D – seems to be a good combination.

Overall: A-

Most consistent team so far this year. Great goaltending and defense, the best transition game the Rock have seen for years, and plenty of offense, though by only a few players. A little more scoring from Evans and Manning and maybe a couple more decisive wins (7 of their 9 games have been decided by 1 or 2 goals) and this would be an A+.