PK’s NLL Power Rankings - Week 3
1. Toronto Rock – 1-0 (Last Week: #2)
We have a new leader in the clubhouse. With their 11-7 victory over the Wings on Saturday and the loss the Bandits took, the Rock move up into the top spot in the Power Rankings. I think it’s safe to say that the mailman, Mark Matthews, is happy with his new route. Matthews finished with a 4 goal, 5-point night, including a 2nd quarter hat-trick. As we thought, the new look offense might take a bit of time to gel and with 7 of the 11 goals coming from the forward group, that seems to be the case, but it was the defense and the transition game that stepped up. With no Latrell Harris or Chris Corbell other players like Josh Jubenville, Justin Martin, Phil Mazzuca and Brad Kri each chipped in a goal in their run and gun transition game. Between the pipes Nick Rose allowed 7 goals to go with 37 saves including some in close highlight reel stops. Combined, the team had 75 LBs, 3 blocked shots, and 17 CTOs. I think it’s safe to say the Rock have an incredible defense group again this season as they head into yet another bye week for week 3.
2. San Diego Seals – 1-0 (Last Week: #3)
Up 1 spot to #2 this week after an impressive 12-9 win over the Roughnecks. Down 6-3 less then 5 minutes into the 3rd, the Seals would go on to score 9 of the next 12 goals including 2 short handed goals on a 5-minute penalty kill, both of which came from Austin Staats (4/2/6). The offense came alive after a slower start and some nice saves by Del Bianco. Tre Leclaire (2/1/3), Dane Dobbie (2/2/4) and Curtis Dickson (2/4/6) helped out Staats in beating the defending MVP to lead the charge to a 1-0 start. The team seems to have the defense to back up the offense now. They slowed any transition after the first few minutes into the 3rd quarter and made Calgary try and play 5 v5 offense. In net, Origlieri made 35 saves and allowed 9 goals and pitched a 4th quarter shutout. The team heads east this weekend to take on the Bandits.
3. Buffalo Bandits – 0-1 (Last Week: #1)
Deja vu once again for the Buffalo Bandits. After dropping game one vs the Firewolves last season, 11-10, but still going on to a 14-4 title winning season, the team decided, why change what worked and dropped game one to the same Albany team but by a score of 17-13 this year. This was not a strong performance by the defense or Matt Vinc. The 8-time Goaltender of the Year allowed 17 goals to go with 33 saves. Those types of numbers are beyond rare for Vinc, but he was getting little help from his teammates in front of him. This looked like a team that was missing 3.5 players from last year’s title game (Sweeting, Bomberry, O’Connor and J. Robinson who left early on in the game with a shoulder injury). I have no doubts they will get it fixed, but an 8-goal quarter will doom even the best of teams. As for the offense, 13 goals are a very solid total for an NLL game. Josh Byrne had a 9-point game, Dhane Smith had a 6-point night, and Cloutier and Nanticoke combined for 6 goals. The problem was that they never went on more than a 2-goal streak. Anytime the Bandits would pull closer, the Firewolves would put the brakes on the run. After Cloutier tied it 4-4 4:37 into the 2nd, the Firewolves scored the next 4. The Bandits would trim the lead to 2 on 4 different occasions but the young squad in Albany would have the answer. The Bandits host the Seals Saturday night for their home open and banner raising ceremony so we will see if they can rebound quickly against a title contending team.
4. Rochester Knighthawks – 2-0 (Last Week: #5)
Up one spot in the rankings and into the top 4 are the Rochester Knighthawks. A very solid 16-14 road victory for the team that moves them to 2-0 on the young season. This team has a legitimate MVP candidate on their team and his name is Connor Fields. Entering week 3, Fields leads the league with 17 points, tied for 2nd with 9 assists and is tied for 1st with 8 goals after his 11-point night. Oh, and he is just 5th in the league with 18 LBs. He is not alone as Ryan Smith is right there with him after his 2nd straight 3/3/6 game. Add in a 3-goal night from rookie Thomas McConvey and a 4-point night from recently acquired Ryan Lanchbury and Rochester is developing into a lethal offensive tank in the NLL. Another player looking to enter his name into an award conversation is Matt Gilray. 13 loose balls, 1 blocked shot and 2 CTOs to add to his resume. The team heads into the bye with their biggest question in net. Do they continue to ride the hot hand that has gotten them to a 2-0 start in Riley Hutchcraft, or turn back to the other RH between the Pipes with Rylan Hartley?
5. Halifax Thunderbirds – 1-0 (Last Week: #4)
Down one spot at not fault of their own. Halifax can simply blame the schedule makers for this slip back to #5 this week. Leaving the bye week and looking towards their matchup vs the Riptide on Saturday night they have one question. Will Randy Staats be ready to be inserted into the lineup? After a week one 17-12 win, usually a team would want to keep rolling. But I wonder if they were secretly excited to have an early break to try and get their whole offense healthy and back together for the long stretch ahead.
6. Georgia Swarm – 1-0 (Last Week: #10)
The biggest mover this week is the Georgia Swarm. I understand that some might look at this and go, they faced a depleted Colorado team. But that’s not their fault. You cannot control who your opponent is or how healthy they may be. Plus, you still have to come out and do your job and they did just that. 5 goals in the 1st, 2nd and 4th quarters are an incredible feat for any team in this league. Lyle Thompson (4/4/8), Brendan Bomberry (3/3/6), Shayne Jackson (2/2/4) and Andrew Kew (1/6/7), or the big 4 as they said on the broadcast, contributed 10 of the 16 goals, while the young bucks Seth Oakes and Brady Kearnan chipped in an additional 5 combined. This offensive group is filthy. Brett Dobson continued his winning way from his PLL title and brought that to the box game allowing just 10 goals while making 39 saves. The team was also able to hold Zed Williams and Connor Robinson scoreless, which is no easy feat, believe me. The team heads out west this week to take on the well-rested Warriors who they have never lost to.
7. Colorado Mammoth – 0-1 (Last Week: #6)
Dropping just one spot. I did not feel right just yet dropping them any further even after a bad 16-10 defeat last week. Being without Dillon Ward, Josh Sullivan, Jalen Chaster, Joey Cupido, and Ryan Lee is a lot of firepower to be without. I understand they may be without those guys for a bit longer, some for the season, but this is still a team that has been in back-to-back finals and knows how to turn it up at the right time. The good news is they got scoring from their depth forward group in this one because Williams and Robinson held scoreless. Chris Wardle (2/2/4), Connor Kelly (3/2/5) and Tyson Gibson (1/4/5) and going to need to continue to step up in the absence of their bigger name players. Colorado heads into another bye this week which if you look at the season, might be a big blessing as you push more games to later in the season with hopes they get guys back into the lineup.
8. Philadelphia Wings – 1-1 (Last Week: #7)
They are who I thought they were? Maybe. I think it’s too early to truly tell what type of team you have here. Before the season I did not have them as high as a lot of people in the NLL world. 2 games in, there are still arguments for both sides. Coming in off their 13-10 win over NY in their first week of the season, the Wings dropped game 2 to the Rock 11-7. A 6-goal 2nd quarter is what did the team in. I thought Zach Higgins was their star of the game. 48 saves in game one and 40 saves in this one. When you get performances like that, you’d hope they could chip in more than 7 goals. They played against one of, if not the top defensive team in the league. The Rock were able to bottle up Mitch Jones (1/3/4) and Joe Resetarits (2/1/3) and when you are unable to get those 2 going and only score 2 goals in the 2nd half, you end up with the results we saw Saturday Night. The team goes into week 3 against a red-hot Albany Firewolves team as they look to get back above .500 on this young season.
9. Calgary Roughnecks – 0-2 (Last Week: #9)
This was another game that saw a 2nd half lead disappear. They were out running early in the game with 2 transition goals coming from Shane Simpson. Once again, the 5 v 5 offense can’t seem to get it going. If you remove the 2 goals from Simpson and the 2 power play goals, that leaves 5 goals in the 60 minutes of action that came from your offensive unit. The one big positive is they seem to have found their go-to guy this past week to stop any runs. I mentioned that was a big missing piece last week in their loss to Rochester, but Tyler Pace (4/1/5) collected 3 goals to stop the run the Seals were on. Another glaring issue I noticed while watching the game was, they are allowing far too many point-blank shots on Del Bianco. The reigning MVP and Goalie of the year has bailed them out more times than I can count, but it is not a winning formula they can rely on.
10. Panther City Lacrosse Club – 1-1 (Last Week: #8)
A 2-0 start to the season was ripped from their grasp in a rare Sunday afternoon game. Taking a 10-9 lead over Vegas with 1:43 remaining in the game, Panther City was ready to coast into their bye week. Sean Westley had other ideas, scoring with .8 left on the clock to send it to OT where Zack Greer would end it. But for PCLC it was a tale of what we said going into the season. Where will the goals come from? Callum Crawford (3/3/6) and Jonathan Donville (2/5/7) were responsible for half of the team’s goals this week. Will Malcom who had a 35/61/96 season last year has struggled early on with just 2 goals and 8 points 2 games in. On the positive, Nick Damude shined once again. 44 saves on 55 shots, the guy is going to make waves from the lone star state if he keeps this pace up.
11. Albany Firewolves – 2-0 (Last Week: #13)
That was as good of a win as you will find in this sport. Albany slayed the beast of the Bandits once again this season in a 17-13 victory in front of their home crowd. They have the Bandits number early on in the season it appears, defeating them in back-to-back seasons. This young and fearless team went toe to toe with the defending champs and forced the Bandits to play catch up which they were unable to do. Timely goals from the rookie sensation Alex Simmons (5/3/8) stopped any runs the Bandits typically would have in them. This up-and-coming team dropped 8 2nd quarter goals on Buffalo and the closest they would get would be 2 goals. I said it in the last rankings, while I do not believe this is a team that is playoff bound, they can play spoiler this year and they have done just that in week 2 handing the champs their first loss and gaining their 2nd win of the year after having a total of 3 all last year. They travel to Philly with a chance to move to 3-0 and shock the lacrosse world.
12. Vancouver Warriors – 0-1 (Last Week: #12)
No movement is what you got from the Warriors on the floor this week and in these rankings. Off with week 1 loss to PCLC 11-7, this team will look for more offense from their newly formed group. A name to watch for, which if you are any NLL fan you can say duh, is Kevin Crowley. One single point in game 1 is not what you are used to seeing from the vet. Let’s chalk game one’s performance to growing pains and learning the new system. They will host the Georgia Swarm who are heading in after their 16-goal onslaught last week. It’s time to see if this rebuilt defense can withstand a high-powered offense.
13. Saskatchewan Rush – 0-2 (Last Week: #11)
The team looked a lot better, and you have to be happy with what you saw of this young group. They carried their 4th quarter momentum from the Halifax game where they scored the final 5 goals and brought it back home to the brand-new turf and put up 14. The offense with Zach Manns and his 6-point night at the helm is ready to make some noise across the league. The issue is in the net. Frank Scigliano, from what I have seen early on has not looked sharp after 2 games. He has gone up against 2 of the bigger named offenses out there, but that is why you traded for a veteran to be between the pipes. The offense looks ready to rock but the goaltending needs to improve if this team hopes to move up in the rankings.
14. Las Vegas Desert Dogs – 1-1 (Last Week #15)
What. A. Win. Vegas still has a way to go this season before they make any kind of believer out of me, but winning a game like this with the group you have in Vegas shows the type of players you have on the team. The Desert Dogs were leading only one time in this game which came early in the 2nd quarter, yet they never let Panther City get more than 2 goals up on them. They had clutch goal scoring when they needed it with .8 seconds left on the clock and the Veteran in Zack Greer (1/2/3) shutting it down in OT. This is a statement win for the team. Rob Hellyer after a quiet game 1 had 5 points and Jack Hannah chipped in a goal and 3 assists but to me it was Landon Kells in net who made the greatest impact. He had 40 saves in week 1 and 46 in this game including allowing just 4 in the 2nd half. Kells’ game is growing along with the young group. They look to stack wins back home vs the Rush on Friday night
15. New York Riptide – 0-1 (Last Week #14)
Dropping to last are the NY Riptide. I said it in last week’s write-ups, but I really do believe this team will be on the rise soon enough. There is too much talent added to this offense to be this low in the rankings. I also think it is near impossible for Jeff Teat to score 1 goal on 15 shots again, that just won’t happen. Their newly shaped defense will get their first big test of the season with Halifax coming to town off a bye of their own after their opening week 17-12 victory over the Rush.