Preseason game report: Rochester 12 @ Toronto 6

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Graeme

Both the Toronto Rock and the Rochester Knighthawks are now 1-1 in the preseason after the defending champs defeated the Rock 12-6 at the TRAC on Saturday night. Each team was missing some players who will likely be in their opening-day lineups; Rochester was missing Mike Accursi and Craig Point while the Rock were down Garrett Billings, Stephen Leblanc, Bill Greer, and Sandy Chapman. I didn’t hear any announcement about one of the Knighthawk goalies being scratched, implying that they dressed all three, but Matt Vinc played the whole game and looked really good. Nick Rose played most of the game, though exactly how much I don’t know; I suppose I wasn’t paying enough attention. At one point the Rock switched goalies but Rosey came in while Zak Boychuk went out. I have no idea how long Boychuk had been in there. (According to the game report on torontorock.com, Boychuk was only in for a few seconds.)

The Knighthawks played a strong game, as you might expect from the two-time defending champions. Dan Dawson was his usual dominant self, and Cody Jamieson continues to make his presence felt. Jesse Gamble, for instance, felt his presence pretty well early in the game, as Jamieson simply devastated Gamble with a huge ~~open-ice~~ hit. The Rock didn’t have a great game offensively, which should be obvious from the fact that they only scored 6 goals. There seemed to be a lot of passes around the perimeter but the whole “one guy draws a double-team allowing someone to get free in front of the net” just didn’t happen (perhaps because Billings is usually the guy who’s double-teamed), and the Knighthawk defense forced the Rock to take lots of low-percentage shots. Vinc was more than up to the task for those.

Nick Rose played well but not great. He made the simple stops, but I still think he gives up too many rebounds. I guess it’s no big deal if the Rock pick it up or Rose makes the second save as well, but when the other team scores on a shot they shouldn’t have had, that’s frustrating.

It was quite a physical game too. No actual fights, but there were the beginning of several and quite a lot of shoving that came to either nothing or coincident roughing minors. Paul Dawson had at least three penalties, and I was convinced that a Dawson / Craig England fight was inevitable. Or possibly Dawson / Damon Edwards. Or Powless / Edwards. Or even Burton / Doyle. Doyle actually had two penalties in the game; I wonder if he’s changing his game to be more of an Andrew Suitor type: the captain AND the team penalty minute leader. Hmmmm….. Nah.

It’s wasn’t quite the rookie-fest that the last game was, though the Rock had about five in the lineup. Craig England looks like he might battle Scott Johnston for the enforcer role on the team, while Dustin Dunn and Ethan O’Connor played a lot of minutes on defense. The Rock look to be a quick transitioning team this year, with Gamble, Marshall, Edwards, Chapman, Dunn, and O’Connor all able to turn the ball around quickly. They even have a guy named Swift!

Speaking of Swift, he and Eric Law both had pretty solid games on offense, particularly Law. He scored a couple, and looked pretty comfortable as part of the offense. I didn’t think Brendan Thenhaus had a particularly strong game, and wouldn’t be surprised to see him dropped to the practice roster.

Other game notes:

In the second quarter, a Rock player took a shot that Ian Llord managed to save while standing in the crease – right in front of Matt Vinc. Nice save for a non-goalie (see below), but why was Llord even there – in the crease, standing directly in front of his own goalie?
Near the end of the game, the Rock had pulled Nick Rose for an extra attacker. After a turnover, Rose tried to get back to the net before the Knighthawks transition man but it was immediately clear that he had no chance to make it. Colin Doyle could and did, but did not make the save. You may remember that Doyle played goal for almost ten minutes of a Mann Cup game this past summer, when both Six Nations goalies were tossed from the game for using illegal equipment. From all accounts, he did a decent job.
There was a guy with a cowbell who would pound on it every time the Rock gained possession of the ball. (He was there last week too.) My eleven-year-old son looked up the first time he heard it and said “Wow, that’s annoying.” Yup.
After a shot hit either Vinc or the crossbar and went high in the air, Paul Dawson reached up and caught it on the way down. Josh Sanderson then smacked the ball out of Dawson’s stick, grabbed it, and took a quick shot. Didn’t score, but the fact that Sanderson, who’s not known for his defensive prowess, stripped the ball away from Paul Dawson, who’s probably ten inches taller, was pretty impressive.
Not a single goal from behind the net, though Doyle tried one. Good news for Rosey. Considering the length of Dan Dawson’s arms, that’s a bit surprising.
Despite there being a crazy huge snowstorm in southern Ontario, there was a pretty good crowd on hand. I drove in from Waterdown, and the QEW wasn’t great but wasn’t terrible. I don’t really need lane markers anyway.

Pre-season game report: Colorado 12 @ Toronto 13

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Graeme

Sorry Mammoth fans, I’ve now seen your team twice this weekend, while you won’t get to see them until the 28th. The Mammoth played their second pre-season game in as many nights at the TRAC, a 13-12 loss to the Toronto Rock. Similar to Friday night’s game against the Swarm, the Mammoth dressed a whole bunch of players, some of whom only played one half. The Rock did the same, though despite the Rock tweeting before the game that goalies Nick Rose and Zak Boychuk would play a half each, Boychuk played the whole game. After falling behind 4-1 in the first, the Rock stormed back with a bunch of transition goals to pull ahead, and then it was a tight game after that. In the end, the Rock prevailed 13-12.

If you were looking for hot rookie-on-rookie action, this was the weekend for it as most of the Rock veterans and a couple of Colorado’s were on the sidelines (or not in the building at all). For the Mammoth, Gavin Prout and Casey Powell were both MIA, as they were Friday night. John Grant played the first half only. For the Rock, all kinds of regulars were out, including Colin Doyle, Josh Sanderson, Kasey Beirnes, Sandy Chapman, Chris White, Scott Evans, Bill Greer, and Stephen Hoar. The Rock were looking at the kids and borderline players, checking out who might be included on the newly-reduced-in-size roster, who would end up on the practice roster, and who would be looking for a new team. For example, there was this Billings guy, could he finally get over the hump and realize the potential he’s shown for the past few years? You heard it here first: I think he’ll make it.

Credit where credit is due. I’ve ripped on Scott Johnston in this blog (and on twitter) a few times over the last couple of years for boneheaded plays he’s made. But I thought he played a hell of a game on Saturday. Not only did he score two goals, but he played strong defensively as well. Last year, I thought he looked too much like one of those fighters who happens to own a lacrosse stick, but if he can change his game the way Billy Dee Smith and Rory Smith both have (not that I’d put Johnston in the same category as those guys quite yet), I’d be happy to have him on my team.

Even though I said before that you can’t really do much team analysis in these pre-season games, you could certainly say that the Rock played a great transition game. At least 5 of their goals were directly on transition, and three of those occurred within about a minute and a half in the second quarter. As I mentioned, Zak Boychuk played the entire game, and did a great job. He made the majority of the saves he was expected to make, forcing the Mammoth to work hard for their goals, and made a few spectacular saves as well. He even managed to prevent a goal from behind the net, something Nick Rose hasn’t quite figured out how to do. That said, Drew Westervelt scored Colorado’s first goal of the game on a behind-the-net Air Gait-style shot. But when you have arms that are eight feet long, you can score goals from places most players cannot.

Once again, I have to apologize to the Mammoth fans. I was paying more attention to the Rock in this game and less to the Mammoth, so I can’t really tell you how the Mammoth players did. I couldn’t even pick who the best Mammoth player was. John Grant is usually a good choice, and he did have a goal and a few assists, but he only played half the game. I don’t remember a particular name jumping out at me like “Man, that guy’s everywhere tonight!” like Johnston did for the Rock. I’m going to semi-randomly pick someone as my Colorado player of the game: Cameron Mann, only because Mann is the perfect name for a Canadian box lacrosse player.

Game notes:

As I said in my game report, Friday night’s game had no music, no PA, no national anthems, no cheerleaders, and no replay. Saturday night’s game had all of these except the replay – the only one of that list that I really wanted (though the PA announcing of goals and penalties was a welcome addition). Maybe when MLSE decides to buy a new Jumbotron for the ACC (to rival the amazing new scoreboard in Denver), Jamie Dawick can grab the old one and put it up in the TRAC.
In the 4th quarter, Tye Belanger made an outstanding save while falling. The rebound went right to Stephen Leblanc, who deposited it over Belanger into the wide open net. I almost felt bad that Belanger got scored on immediately after (and as a result of) making such a great save. Almost.
It looked to me like Jesse Gamble might somehow have gotten faster during the off-season. I’m pretty sure that due to relativity, he actually aged less during the game than the other players. That’s science. Look it up.
Not trying to get anyone in trouble here, but Mammoth defender Ben McCullogh was wearing Nike shoes and Reebok pads.
At one point, someone got a penalty which was announced as “unnecessary roughness”. They moved the ball 15 yards, but nobody could figure out what do to about the first down.
You know what that game needed? Less cowbell. Much, much less.
First person in the handshake lineup for the Rock? Nick Rose, who didn’t play.

Gavin Prout – the Knighthawk?

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Graeme

Gavin Prout spent two seasons in New York and then six in Colorado, the last five as captain of the Mammoth, averaging 84 points per season. So it was a bit of a shock in Colorado, and throughout the NLL world, when he was traded in 2009 to the Edmonton Rush. He played with the Rush for the 2010 season and about half of 2011 before being traded back to the Mammoth. But something that many people, myself included until recently, don’t remember about Prout being traded from the Mammoth to the Rush was that it never happened.

Prout, along with Andrew Potter, was traded from the Mammoth to the Rochester Knighthawks in 2009 for Ilija Gajic (some draft picks were involved as well). Potter had been sent to the Mammoth from the Knighthawks the previous year in the deal that brought Gary Gait out of retirement. Interesting that a guy that played all of five games in his NLL career was involved in two such significant trades. Anyway, two weeks later, the Knighthawks sent Prout and Dean Hill to the Rush for a first round draft pick. But the fact that Prout was a Knighthawk for a couple of off-season weeks is usually forgotten.

A number of other players also spend time on teams for which they never played. Here are just a few:

After the Boston Blazers folded, Anthony Cosmo and Josh Sanderson were both selected in the dispersal draft by the Minnesota Swarm. Before the first round of the draft had even ended, Sanderson had been traded to the Rock, while Cosmo sat out half of the next season before being traded to the Bandits.

Shawn Williams is another player who, like Sanderson, can measure the amount of time he spent on the Minnesota roster with a stopwatch. In July 2012, Williams was traded from the Rush to the Swarm for two second-round draft picks. The same day, he was sent off with Brendan Doran as well as the #5 overall pick in the 2012 draft and two other 2012 draft picks to Buffalo for the #3 overall pick. That seems to me like an expensive way to move up two positions – and in fact, it really only moved the Swarm up one position since they went from having picks #2, 4, and 5 to having picks #2, 3, and 4.

Paul Rabil might be the only player to have joined two separate organizations consecutively and never play for either of them. But this story begins six months before Rabil got involved. In the summer of 2011, the Wings traded Athan Iannucci, Alex Turner, Brodie MacDonald, and three first round draft picks to the Rush for Brodie Merrill, Dean Hill, Mike McLellan, and a couple of later draft picks. Nooch never signed with the Rush, and a month into the 2012 season, he was traded to the Stealth for Paul Rabil. Rabil also refused to sign with the Rush and sat out the rest of the 2012 season.

Almost a year after the original Iannucci trade, the Rush sent Rabil to the Knighthawks for Jarrett Davis, but Rabil never reported to Rochester either. Only a couple of weeks before the 2013 season began, he was sent to Philadelphia along with Jordan Hall, Joel White, and Robbie Campbell in exchange for Dan Dawson, Paul Dawson, and a first round draft pick. Rabil is now happy in Philadelphia, and I’m pretty sure the Knighthawks were OK with what they got out of the deal.

But not every player was traded to a team they never played for. Here are some players who were drafted by teams they never played for:

Ilija Gajic, Rochester, 2009
Joel Dalgarno, Toronto, 2009
Craig Point, Boston, 2007
Ryan Benesch, San Jose, 2006
Blaine Manning, Calgary, 2001
Geoff Snider, Vancouver, 2001 (he opted to return to university and was drafted again by the Wings in 2006)
Tom Marechek, Buffalo, 1992
John Tavares, Detroit, 1991 (and not until the third round!)

I’m sure there are plenty of others. Leave a comment if I missed any!

The top 10 one-team NLL players

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Graeme

Last week, Down Goes Brown did a post (actually on Grantland.com) called The 10 Greatest One-Team NHL Players. Since DGB is unlikely to cover lacrosse anytime soon, I decided to do it myself. Given that there are fewer teams in the NLL, the history is much shorter, and there has been far more team movement than the NHL, there really aren’t all that many such players. If we restrict ourselves to players with more than 50 games in their NLL careers, all with a single team, we find that there are only 54 of them. But there are still some pretty good names on this list.

Incidentally, DGB is one of the funniest sports blogs anywhere. If you’re a hockey fan, I strongly recommend it.

So without further ado, here are the top 10 players who spent their entire NLL careers with one team. The number of games listed includes playoff games. I’m restricting the number of games played to 100 or more, since it’s not quite fair to put people like Cody Jamieson (54 games) or Garrett Billings (72 games) on this list so early in their careers.

10. Jeremy Hollenbeck, Rochester Knighthawks (127 games)

Hollenbeck played ten seasons with the Knighthawks, winning a Championship in 1997. In 2011, he was inducted into the Rochester Knighthawks Hall of Fame.

9. Dan Ladouceur, Toronto Rock (150 games)

In the early 2000’s, Laddy was one of the anchors of the best defense in the NLL, along with guys like Jim Veltman, Glenn Clark, Terry Bullen, and Pat Coyle. He even scored a goal or two here and there (I distinctly remember a breakaway where he ran up the floor frantically looking around for someone to pass to, then buried it himself), including one in the 2002 Championship game. At about 6’6″ he was an imposing figure and a good fighter too (see above, having a chat with Shawn Evans), though I did once see him dropped with one punch. In a 2002 fight in Toronto, Matt Green hit him with a shot to the jaw that knocked him unconscious.

I have heard rumours that the Rock were not allowed to trade Ladouceur because of his job as a Durham Regional police officer (I believe he’s on the SWAT team), but I confirmed with Laddy himself that it’s not true. He said they could have traded him at any time but they were a classy organization and worked with him.

8. Peter Jacobs, Philadelphia Wings (158 games)

As good a face-off guy as Geoff Snider is, he’s only matched Peter Jacobs’ high of 318 face-off wins in a season once. (The all-time record is 319 by Bob Snider in 2012.) Jacobs is also the only person not named Snider to ever have a face-off percentage above 70% for a season. Jacobs played 12 seasons for the Wings, winning just shy of 60% of almost 3,000 face-offs. He didn’t finish a single one of those seasons with a percentage below 50%.

7. Jake Bergey, Philadelphia Wings (142 games)

Bergey played ten seasons in Philly and won two Championships. He scored 50+ points six times, including 86 in 14 games in 2001. He’s currently second all-time in Wings goals, assists, and points.

In the 2007 expansion draft, he was chosen by the Boston Blazers, but was traded back to Philly before the season started. Then the Blazers sat out the 2008 season so there was another expansion draft. Bergey was chosen by Boston again, and again was traded back to the Wings. He has to be one of the few players who played for a single team his entire career and yet was traded twice.

6. Andrew McBride, Calgary Roughnecks (185 games)

McBride has played 11 seasons in Calgary, and has been the captain since Tracey Kelusky was traded after the 2010 season. He’s a defender, transition player, a fighter, an outstanding team leader, and you’ll never hear a more well-spoken guy during an interview. And when is Movember time of year, he is look like Borat.

5. Rich Kilgour, Buffalo Bandits (225 games)

Darris’ big brother was captain of the Bandits for 12 years, won four championships, had his number retired by the Bandits and is in the NLL Hall of Fame. Only one player personifies the Bandits better than Richie Kilgour and, well, we’ll get to him later.

4. Regy Thorpe, Rochester Knighthawks (217 games)

Regy Thorpe was a big tough defender who played an amazing fifteen seasons with the Knighthawks, beginning in 1995, the team’s first season in the league. He won two Championships and was captain of the 2007 Championship team. But most interestingly, he was the first player-GM in NLL history when he took the reins of the team and played in the 2009 season. His tenure as a GM only lasted one season before owner Curt Styres took over, but much to the chagrin of NLL scorers, Thorpe played one more season before retiring in 2010.

3. Blaine Manning, Toronto Rock (199 games)

Blaine Manning had a pretty successful start to his NLL career, winning championships in 3 of his first 4 seasons (2002, 2003, 2005) with the Toronto Rock. It kind of went downhill after that for a couple of years, but after The Rock GM Who Must Not Be Named was fired and Terry Sanderson was brought back, Manning was a big part of the rebuilding process that resulted in the 2011 NLL Championship. Long before Dan Dawson arrived in Boston, Manning was one of the original Big Three along with Colin Doyle and Josh Sanderson in Toronto. They peaked in 2005 when Doyle finished first overall in scoring, Manning tied with John Grant for second, and Sanderson tied with John Tavares for third – and all five of them finished with over 100 points.

I went on and on about Manning in an article right after he retired, so I won’t rehash all his stats here. Suffice it to say that Manning should be a lock for the NLL Hall of Fame once he is eligible.

2. Tom Marechek, Philadelphia Wings (161 games)

Tom “Hollywood” Marechek won four championships in 12 NLL seasons and was inducted into the NLL Hall of Fame in 2007. Marechek is the all-time Wings leader in both goals and assists, and is 8th all-time in the league in goals. But of the top goal-scorers in league history, only one player in the top 10 (and two in the top 25) have played fewer games than Marechek. The only players who averaged more goals per game than Marechek are Gary Gait, Paul Gait, John Grant, and John Tavares. Not bad company.

Hard to believe he’s only the third-best lacrosse player from Victoria, BC.

1. John Tavares, Buffalo Bandits (313 games)

No-brainer. Tavares is one of the best players ever to play in the NLL (many argue he is the best), and after 22 seasons with the Buffalo Bandits, there’s no argument who’s at the top of this list. Or most lists, for that matter.

Tavares owns pretty much every offensive NLL record, most of them by a mile. As of the end of the 2013 season, he has 778 career goals, ahead of second-place Gary Gait by 130 and ahead of third-place (and the closest still active player) John Grant by over 200. He has 887 assists, 108 more than Colin Doyle. He has 1665 points; if he retired today, second place Doyle couldn’t catch him even with four more 100 point seasons. He’s scored an amazing 5.95 points per game over his career, second only to John Grant’s 6.37. (Technically he’s also behind a guy named Gary Edmands with a career average of 6 – he scored 6 points in his only NLL game with the Bandits in 1996.)

Since Tavares is still active, the amazing numbers will just continue to climb.

Honourable mentions

Billy Dee Smith, Buffalo Bandits, 149 games
Pat McCabe, New York Saints, 119 games
Mike Carnegie, Calgary Roughnecks, 105 games
Kyle Sorensen, San Jose / Washington Stealth, 105 games (I know, two different teams but they’re the same franchise so it counts.)

Just under the radar

These guys didn’t quite make the 100 game limit, but I wanted to acknowledge them anyway.

Devan Wray, Calgary Roughnecks, 99 games
Jeff Zywicki, San Jose / Washington Stealth, 99 games
Sal LoCascio, New York Saints, 95 games

The end of the Blaine Manning era

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Graeme

I remember it like it was twelve years ago.

Young lacrosse star Kaleb Toth, who scored the last-second goal to give the Toronto Rock the 2000 NLL Championship, was traded to the brand-new Calgary Roughnecks for a player with no NLL experience and a draft pick. As a Rock fan, was I outraged? Did I feel ripped off? Not really. First off, I knew that Toth was an Alberta boy and being the first home-town player for this brand new team was likely a huge deal for him as well as for the Roughnecks. Secondly, the player we got back was the second overall pick in the previous draft, a strong forward named Blaine Manning. A second overall pick plus a first rounder should be enough of a return for Toth, shouldn’t it? Still, we’ve all seen first round draft picks that just didn’t work out; would Manning turn into one of those?

Obviously he didn’t, and the rest is history. Manning scored 71 points (21+50) in his first season plus another 12 (4+8) in the playoffs (including the double-overtime winner in the semi-finals against the Washington Power) as the Rock won their third Championship. He was named Rookie of the Week five times, Rookie of the Month for March, and finally Rookie of the Year. Toth, for his part, racked up 79 points in his first of eight straight 50+ point seasons, became the face of the Roughnecks for a decade, and on his retirement became the first inductee into the “Forever A Roughneck” program. If there was ever a trade that worked out better for both teams, I’m not sure what it was.

Manning scored 60+ points in ten straight seasons, and 70+ in all but one of those. His best season was 2005 when he scored 105 points, tied with John Grant for second in the league after Colin Doyle’s 111. Josh Sanderson was third with 102, making 2005 the only season in NLL history that three teammates scored over 100 points. At their prime, Doyle, Manning, and Sanderson formed what might be the most potent top three on any team in NLL history.

Manning was not just a strong scorer who could pick corners as well as anyone. He could shoot from outside, could drive to the net through as many defenders as necessary and liked to dive through the crease as well. But there are two specific things about Manning’s play that I will remember: first, he would frequently switch hands. If there was no room to shoot right-handed or he was on the wrong side of the net, he’d flip his stick around and shoot as a lefty. I honestly don’t know how effective this was and I assume it was less accurate than his right-handed shot, but he scored numerous goals this way, catching the goalie off-guard, and I’ve rarely seen other players do it. Second, he was almost untouchable on the penalty kill. If you needed to kill some time on the shot clock, give the ball to Manning and he’d simply hold it for 20-30 seconds, regardless of the number of people pounding (or sometimes piling) on him. Mark Steenhuis is also very skilled at this but for many years, Manning was the best.

Manning played in every Rock game for ten full seasons – 2002 to 2011 – but two games into the 2012 season, his consecutive game streak was halted at 162 (177 including playoff games) when he broke his collarbone. That streak was good for third place all-time after Doyle and Steve Toll, though all three have since been eclipsed by Shawn Williams. He returned in April, having missed ten games, but only recorded 9 points in his 6 games that year. Last season Manning was given a different role and was more of a “grinder”, the guy that gets in the defender’s way and thereby gives better looks to guys like Doyle, Billings, and Leblanc. But there were times where he tried to be the Manning of old and wasn’t able to. The frustration on his face was obvious, which is why this announcement was surprising to me but not shocking. Evidently the toll on his body over the last couple of years was too much, and he decided that this was the end for his playing days.

Over the years of his career (2002-2013), only eight people have more points than Blaine Manning. Only one player (Bob Watson) has played more games in a Rock uniform, though Doyle will pass him this coming season. He is second in Rock history after Doyle in goals, assists, and points (both regular season and playoffs), and second after Jim Veltman in loose balls. He led the team in scoring twice and won four Championships with the Rock. Manning is certainly one of the greats in Rock and league history and should get serious consideration for the NLL Hall of Fame once he is eligible. He is one of my all-time favourite players and I wish him well in the next phase of his lacrosse career.

Coach of the Year? Sorry, not good enough.

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Graeme

Earlier this year the NLL had a GM trading for himself, in what was likely a first in pro sports. In what might be another first, we now have the reigning Coach of the Year being fired by his team. Make no mistake: Troy Cordingley did not retire from coaching, he did not leave to take a different job or pursue other interests, it didn’t even sound like “a mutual decision for the benefit of the club”. He was fired.

Although this is the first time in league history that the Les Bartley Award winner was fired, it will be the fourth time the Coach of the Year does not begin the next season with the same team. The first time was in 2001, the first year the award was presented. The inaugural winner was Philadelphia Wings head coach Tony Resch. Resch had just coached the Wings to their 6th Championship, and the retired from coaching a couple of months after receiving the award, and was replaced by Adam Mueller.

Seven years later, Mueller won the award (which had been renamed the Les Bartley Award in 2004) with the New York Titans, and then he retired from coaching. The next time it happened, it was none other than Troy Cordingley at the other end of his Toronto Rock career. Cordingley won the Bartley award with the Calgary Roughnecks after leading them to the NLL Championship in 2009, and then left the Roughnecks in the offseason to join the Toronto Rock.

So this is the first time this has happened in the NLL. But has it happened anywhere else? The only other similar situation I could find was in 2010, when the University of Maryland fired their football coach Ralph Friedgen after he won the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coach of the Year award. As far as I could see, it has never happened in the NFL, NBA, ~~NHL,~~ or MLB.

Update: It has happened before in a pro sport. Ted Nolan was fired as head coach of the Buffalo Sabres after winning the Jack Adams trophy for the 1996-1997 season. Thanks to @GlenMcDole for the correction.

Anyway, enough history, back to the Rock. I have been called a Rock apologist and fanboy, and have been told that this blog focuses too much on the Rock, and perhaps that’s somewhat true. (Of course I’ve also been told that I’m not a real Rock fan because I said something negative about them, or picked them to lose a game, or something like that. I can’t win.) Well, I have no explanation for this particular move. Cordingley took the Rock to the Championship game in 2010, won it all in 2011, finished first in the division in 2012, and finished first overall in 2013. That sounds like four pretty successful seasons to me. Yes, the goal of every team is to win the Championship and they did that only once in that time. But they were a legitimate contender for the Championship in each of those seasons. Maybe that’s the problem – they were contenders every year but only won it all once.

Perhaps I’m enough of a Toronto sports fan that I consider simply not sucking as a successful season, since that’s been true for the Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays for the last 20 years. But for Jamie Dawick and the rest of the Rock management, winning the Championship is the only measure of success – anything less is failure. Perhaps they looked at the last few years in a slightly different way – 2011: Championship. 2012: Lost in second round. 2013: Lost in first round. It’s obviously a small sample size, but they got booted from the playoffs earlier in each of the last two seasons. Something similar happened to Dave Pym (now a Rock scout) a couple of years ago. He coached the Roughnecks to three straight seasons of 10+ wins, finishing first overall in two of them, but because of their lack of post-season success (did not reach the finals in any of those years), Pym was fired. Pym’s regular season record as Roughnecks coach was 33-15, but the record that got him fired was the 1-3 in the post-season. Perhaps the Rock thought the same way – finishing first overall is great and all, but if you don’t win in the playoffs, it doesn’t matter.

Personally, I am unconvinced that the two most recent post-season losses were enough to fire Cordingley. I’ve seen people calling it a stupid move and the dumbest move the Rock have made in years. That may be a bit strong, but if the entire decision rested on the loss to the Knighthawks in the 2nd round last year and the loss to the Swarm this year, I don’t think that’s enough. I’m not as angry as some others, but I am confused. Perhaps there’s more to this than has been announced. Interestingly, Terry Sanderson also “fired” himself as defensive coach.

Is John Lovell as good a head coach as Troy Cordingley? Maybe, there’s no way to know yet. He has tons of lacrosse coaching experience, though none as a head coach at the NLL level. But he’s won Championships as an assistant coach, the players know him, and he’s well respected in the lacrosse community. But the team is replacing a man who’s won two Championships as a head coach and is one of only two men to win multiple Les Bartley Awards. And if a guy like that can’t keep his job after getting to the finals twice, winning once, and finishing first the other two years, Lovell’s got some awfully big shoes to fill.

2013 NLL season wrap-up

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Graeme

Well, that’s it for one of the most exciting and entertaining NLL seasons ever, thanks in part to the parity in the league. Almost every game was unpredictable, and there wasn’t a single game all year where anyone would have been honestly shocked if the losing team had won. Incidentally, that’s my excuse for finishing below .500 in my predictions.

A lot of interesting things happened in the 2013 season, some of which were expected, some of which were not. Let’s take a look at a few of each.

Five things we expected

Parity. As I mentioned above, the parity in the league is unprecedented. The Bandits only won 6 games, but four of them came against the Champions, the Championship runners-up, and the Rock, who had the best record. The team with the best record was ahead of the team with the worst record by only 4 wins (10-6 vs. 6-10), the smallest that number has been since Detroit finished 6-2 and four teams were 3-5 back in 1992.
The Stealth didn’t suck. Nobody expected their 2012 season to be as bad as it was, but I’m pretty sure that nobody realistically expected it to happen again.
Garrett Billings cemented himself as one of the top offensive players in the NLL with his second-straight 100-point season.
After one of the best offensive seasons ever, John Grant returned to earth with a pedestrian (for him) 91 points.
Matt Vinc won his third Goaltender of the Year award. Another few years of this type of performance, and the “best of all time” argument between Watson and Eliuk will become a three-way conversation. In fact, it’s almost there now.

Five things we didn’t expect

Sophomore slump? Never heard of it. If you look at the top rookies of 2012 – Kevin Crowley, Adam Jones, Jordan MacIntosh, Tyler Carlson, Evan Kirk, Johnny Powless – only Kirk dropped off significantly from his rookie performance. Powless dropped from 50 points to 40, but he had to start sharing the ball with the likes of Dan Dawson and Casey Powell. The rest all stayed about the same or got better.
Getting rid of Casey Powell won’t hurt your offense. The Knighthawks averaged 11.1 goals per game before the trade, 11.3 after. Cody Jamieson and Dan Dawson both saw their points/game averages go up to make up for the loss of Powell, Dawson from 4.2 to 5.1, and Jamieson from 5 to 6.3.
Mike Poulin had a distinctly un-Poulin-esque season. His 12.70 GAA was the highest of his career, almost 2.5 points higher than 2012. The only starters who finished with higher GAAs were Evan Kirk and Anthony Cosmo. But his performance in the Roughnecks’ 12-11 OT victory over Edmonton at the end of the season was outstanding, and he played well against both the Mammoth and the Stealth in the playoffs.
Shawn Evans has been a very good player for years, and taking his game to the next level wasn’t wholly unexpected. But this year, Evans jumped the next level and went to the one after that. He bested his career high in points by 33 and won the scoring title by 12. His 112 points is tied for the 5th best season ever, putting Evans among the Gaits, Grants, and Tavares’.
The Knighthawks started the year 0-3, were never above .500 at any point, and only two teams scored fewer goals. But they are the Champions. Actually, we should have expected it, since it’s almost what they did last year.

So there’ll be no more NLL games until at least December when training camps open. Don’t worry folks, it’s only… um… seven months. (sigh) Until then, we still have the MLL for outdoorsy types, and the MSL and WLA for people who like sweating in arenas in July. There may or may not be other American indoor leagues as well, such as NALL, PLL, MILA, and possibly others; so many of them started up so fast I kind of lost track of which ones still exist.

So enjoy your summer and fall, whether it’s filled with lacrosse or not! NLL Chatter will be more or less quiet over the summer, but we’ll publish the odd story as things unfold: the new CBA, trades, the entry draft, rule changes, the 2014 schedule, things like that. And we’ll be back next season with the usual mix of relevance and irreverence. See you then!

Game Report: Minnesota 20 @ Toronto 11

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Graeme

With no traffic, I can drive from my house to the ACC in about 45 minutes. Because this is Toronto and traffic is unpredictable, I normally leave for a game at least an hour and a half before game time. On Sunday, I left home at 1:10pm for a 3:00pm start. We arrived at our seats just before half-time. The last hour and a half of the drive took place within 5 km of the ACC. By the time we got to the game, it was almost three hours after we left home. But once I got there and started watching the game, I realized that being stuck in traffic wasn’t all that bad compared to what was going on down on the floor.

Anyone who thinks I’m a total Rock homer or that the Rock pay me to write positive Rock articles while pretending to be impartial (hey Jamie, great idea, huh? Whaddaya think?), read on.

I thought about skipping this whole article and just doing my game report as a tweet:

Minnesota @ Toronto game report: Wow, did that ever suck.

That pretty much sums it up. The Rock offense was terrible. It looked like the first game of the season – balls were dropped, passes were missed, shots missed the net by a foot or two or hit the goalie full in the chest, rebounds were given up on, it was bad. Colin Doyle was working his ass off, but nobody else seemed to be. Leblanc was invisible. Manning looked old. I don’t even remember seeing Beirnes, who’s one of my favourite players. I do remember seeing Sanderson digging around in the corners once or twice but other times he was invisible too. Even Billings looked like he didn’t know what to do, so he just kept shooting from bad angles or with a defender right in front of him.

Most of the Swarm defense is freaking huge – and even the ones that aren’t huge seemed to be. They had the Rock completely covered all game long, and I’m sure there were Rock players who didn’t know who was in net for Minnesota since they could never see him, let alone the net itself. To those Rock players: it was Tyler Carlson, who was amazing.

Toronto’s transition has been much better this year than previous years, but they were making some bad decisions as well. The transition player would speed up the floor with the ball, and regardless of whether he had a lane to the net, he’d go in anyway and take a low-percentage shot instead of circling around and waiting for the forwards to come out. If he did wait for the forwards, it took so long to get set up that by the time there were five forwards on the floor, there were only 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

Nick Rose wasn’t terrible, despite what the final score might tell you. He wasn’t great, make no mistake, I wouldn’t even say he was good. But as bad as the Rock offense was, the defense was worse. Swarm forwards seemed able to just run around defenders at will, and get a few seconds all by themselves to decide where to shoot on Rose. Sometimes it almost looked like the Rock defenders got out of the way of the Swarm forwards.

Of course, the fact that they were killing penalties for most of the second half certainly didn’t help. The Rock were so undisciplined out there that I thought we were watching the Bandits. (Too soon, Bandits fans? Sorry.) The worst one came early in the fourth quarter. Someone (don’t know who) hit Patrick Merrill with what seemed to me to be a completely legal, if bone-crunching, hit. Scott Evans took exception to the hit and went after the offender, while Jesse Gamble went after someone else at the same time. Gamble was given two for facemasking (though I think he was just trying to get the guy’s helmet off so he could fight him) and two for roughing. Evans was given two for checking from behind, two for instigating, five for fighting, and a game misconduct. When all was said and done, the Rock were on a nine-minute penalty kill, two minutes of which was 5-on-3. Luckily Minnesota took a penalty shortly afterwards to even it up a little, but still – all four goals the Swarm scored after that were on the power play.

This is the second straight year I’ve had to write about a stupid penalty that handcuffed the Rock during a playoff game. The score at this point was 16-8. The comeback was definitely a long shot, but they had almost an entire quarter to do it. Now we’re down one forward and are killing penalties for 2/3 of the rest of the game. Why? Partially to get revenge for a legal hit, but mainly because the Rock were frustrated. Frustrated that their offense couldn’t get anything going, frustrated that when they did get a decent shot Carlson was there to stop it, and frustrated that the Swarm forwards were running roughshod over the Rock defense.

I don’t want to take anything away from the Swarm by implying that they won because the Rock played badly. Not true – the Swarm won because they played very well. Five different Swarm players had hat-tricks, and Tyler Carlson was almost unbeatable. I’m not a big believer in the whole “they wanted it more” thing, but that’s really what it looked like. In the fourth quarter, the Rock players looked like they just wanted it to be over ASAP. And you can’t really blame them.

So the Rock are done for the year, the Raptors are out of the playoffs, the Blue Jays aren’t nearly what everyone thought they were going to be (though it’s still pretty early in the season), and the Argo season doesn’t start for six weeks. It’s come to this. Toronto sports fans now have to hang their hopes on the Maple Leafs.

God help us.

2013 NLL Award winners

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Graeme

Every year the IL Indoor writing staff submit their picks for the annual NLL awards, and here are mine. Note that these are not picks for who I think will win, they’re picks for who I think should win.

Offensive player of the year – Shawn Evans

Runners-up: Garrett Billings, Rhys Duch, Callum Crawford

Billings had almost as great a season in 2013 as he did in 2012, and Duch set personal records in both goals (leading the league) and assists. Crawford only had 4 games (out of 14) with less than 6 points – none of them after March 3 – and had six straight games of 8+ points. But Evans had them all beat before he even began his final game. Evans had five games with 10+ points, more than John Grant had during his record-setting 2012 season, while only Crawford and Dan Dawson even had two.

Transition player of the year – Jesse Gamble

Runners-up: Geoff Snider, Jeremy Thompson, Brad Self

Is this a bit of a homer pick? Possibly, but I really thought Gamble had a hell of a year. He played strong defense, ran like the wind, scored a bunch of goals (including two on the power-play), and led the team in loose balls.

I thought about picking Jordan MacIntosh, who will probably win the award, but decided against it for the same reason I didn’t think Jeff Shattler should have won this award two years ago – he’s not really a transition player. He’s an excellent player, no question, and as good as he was, he even stepped up his game when Andrew Suitor went down with a season-ending injury. But he played a lot more shifts on offense than he did defense. In the division semi-final game, MacIntosh played as much offense as Benesch or Crawford did. Gamble is a true transition player.

Defensive player of the year – Kyle Rubisch

Runners-up: Chris Corbeil, Scott Self

It sounds like Kyle Rubisch might be the winner of this award every year for the foreseeable future. The word I hear most often to describe his play is “beast”.

Goaltender of the year – Matt Vinc

Runners-up: Brandon Miller, Tyler Richards, Nick Rose

If not for Matt Vinc, the Knighthawks might have been hitting the links early, not the Bandits. To have a goalie with the best GAA and the best save percentage in the league and still finish at .500 tells you how bad their offense was. Similarly, as one Wings fan put it, the Wings would be 1-15 without Brandon Miller. I’m not sure it would have been that bad but the Wings had a similar problem to the Knighthawks – outstanding goaltending, but almost no offense to speak of.

Rookie of the year – Mark Matthews

Runners-up: Kiel Matisz, Shayne Jackson, Dhane Smith, Curtis Knight

From a stats point of view, it was closer than you might have thought. Matthews had 4.31 points per game, while Jackson and Matisz had 4.00 and 3.94 respectively. But Matthews turned the Rush’s mediocre offense from last year into the third highest-scoring in the league, and that’s after losing Aaron Wilson, Scott Evans, and Shawn Williams. Obviously Matthews himself didn’t make up the difference entirely, but he forced opposing defenses to focus on him. This opened things up for Ryan Ward, Corey Small, and Zack Greer, all of whom increased their point totals over 2012.

Unsung player of the year – Cory Vitarelli

Runners-up: Kasey Beirnes, Jay Thorimbert, Brodie MacDonald

When you think of the offensive stars on the Knighthawks, you think Jamieson, Dawson, Powless, Accursi, Point, even Keogh, but Vitarelli doesn’t always spring to mind. But he was third in team scoring, put up at least a point in every game he played this year, and scored some of the prettiest goals we saw all season. Beirnes has gotten more recognition in the last year or two for his hard work playing behind big-name guys like Doyle, Billings, and Sanderson, but he’s been doing that for years. Jay Thorimbert had almost identical face-off numbers to Bob Snider, which is impressive in itself. Thorimbert split face-off duties in 2012 with Brandon Francis and Jeremy Thompson, but became the Bandits’ only face-off man this year – and increased their team face-off win percentage from 48.3% to 59.7%. Brodie MacDonald only played in three games this year, but put in at least 20 minutes in each, and finished with a GAA of around 8 and a save percentage of 80%. Having that kind of backup goalie behind you has to be a great confidence boost for both Aaron Bold and Derek Keenan.

Coach of the year – Troy Cordingley

Runners-up: Chris Hall, Derek Keenan

The Rock were the most consistent team this year, in a league where many teams looked unstoppable one week and terrible the next. Chris Hall showed how important he is to the Stealth, bringing them back from their brutal 2012 season, much of which was played without him, to second place in the West.

GM of the year – Derek Keenan

Runners-up: John Arlotta, Curt Styres

Drafting Mark Matthews wasn’t the master stroke – every GM would have done that. But in the off-season, Keenan retooled the offense, turning them from the worst in the league to the third-highest scoring – and managed to do this despite losing Shawn Williams, Aaron Wilson, and Scott Evans. Keenan also turned Paul Rabil, a player who never played for him and wasn’t going to, into Jarrett Davis.

MVP – Shawn Evans

Runners-up: Garrett Billings, Callum Crawford, Matt Vinc

Evans had an outstanding year. He led the league in both assists and points, almost setting records in both, and beat his next closest teammate by almost fifty points. He had almost exactly the season Garrett Billings had a year ago, and Billings was my choice for MVP then. How close were their seasons?

	G	A	Pts	PPG	LB	Shots	SOG
Billings 2012	32	82	114	10	74	195	131
Evans 2013	32	80	112	12	69	186	139

Evans had the same number of goals as he did last season but picked up 33 more assists. Just to cap it all off, Evans scored the overtime winner in the last game of the season to clinch the Western division for the Roughnecks.

Division semi-final picks

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Graeme

I went 2-2 in the final week of the season, bringing me to 33-39. Not bad, better than last year, but still not up to the level of my IL Indoor colleagues, all but one of whom finished at or above .500. Only Ty Pilson finished with a losing record, and he was still two games ahead of me. I will need to step up my “make wild guesses” game.

What better way to do that than with four games that could easily go either way? I really should be used to that since that’s been the case in the NLL pretty much all season long.

Regular season record: 33-39 (.458)
Playoff record: 0-0 (.000)

Game	Comments	Pick
PHI @ ROC	Which Rochester team shows up? The one that scored 20 against Philly and then 15 against Buffalo the next night, or the one that 14 total against Buffalo and Philly over the next two weeks? I’m gonna say neither since I don’t see this being a high-scoring game, but I think Rochester will win it. The Knighthawks offense started to play better once they traded Casey Powell and while both goalies can steal a game, Vinc is my choice for Goaltender of the Year.
COL @ CAL	Tye Belanger does seem to be the real deal in net, but it’s his first season. I honestly don’t know if “playoff experience” is a real thing that actually affects how you play, but lots of people seem to think so, and Tye doesn’t have any of it. That said, the Roughnecks might be without Dane Dobbie and Scott Ranger. It’s not like there’s nobody else on Calgary that can score, but it puts a lot more pressure on Dickson, Shattler, and Veltman to produce.
EDM @ WAS	The Rush have been the most complete team in the second half of this season. They gave up the second fewest goals in the league (fewest on the road), and their scoring is 3rd in the league (2nd on the road). They were 7-1 away from Edmonton this year. They also remember how close they got last year…
MIN @ TOR	Of all the teams Toronto could have faced in the first round of the playoffs, Minnesota would have been last on my list of preferences. The two teams played twice this year, each team winning 13-12 at home. Nick Rose better have a good night though, since we’ve seen that the Swarm can have an explosive offense, particularly Callum Crawford. Tyler Carlson is another potential game-stealer. I’m still going with the Rock, but this will be a tough win.

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