PK’s NLL Power Rankings - Week 2
1. Buffalo Bandits
You are the champs until someone dethrones you. Coming off an extended offseason with their week 1 bye, the Bandits are looking to defend their first title in 15 years starting this Saturday in Albany against the team that defeated them in week 1 last year, 11-10. Everyone is back this year with the exceptions of Ethan O’Connor who took his talents to Rochester, Nate Kozevnikov who was shipped out to Saskatchewan this offseason, and Max Adler who is not able to commit to playing yet.
The team is coming in limping a bit with Bryce Sweeting and Adam Bomberry likely out for a while, Frank Brown who remains on PUP and promising rookie Zach Belter who is making his way back from being injured in August.
On the positive, Matty Vinc is back in between the pipes after signing a new 2 year deal in the offseason. As long as the best to ever do it is still there, the odds to repeat as champs are as good as they ever will be.
On the back end, vets Justin Martin, Steve Priolo and Nick Weiss all return on 1 year deals. Ian MacKay inked a 3 year deal and should be in the conversation for Transition player of the year after being left off last season. Justin and Dylan Robinson look to be healthy and ready to play with one another this season. And 2022 13th overall pick, fresh off his PLL title, Cam Wyers enters the rotation to add size and grit to the defensive lineup.
Then you look at the forward group who will be 8 strong to enter the season for the first time. They are as talented a group as anyone out there. If they are able to stay on the field, what we all saw through the 2023 playoffs should be just the start of insane numbers they can produce as a unit.
2. Toronto Rock
In my opinion, Toronto is in the same tier as the Bandits. If you ask 100 NLL fans, I believe 99 of them will tell you, Bandits and the Rock are the two favorites to make the finals this year. Coming off a very quick and painful exit in the Eastern Conference Finals to Buffalo, Toronto went through changes in the forward group. Out go the likes of Dan Dawson (Retired), Stephen Keogh (Signed in Rochester) and Zach Manns (Traded to SAS). Bring in Chris Boushy (Trade from Halifax), Dan Lintner (Trade from SAS) and Mark Matthews (Trade from SAS). When healthy, because Tom Schreiber is currently on the IR, those 3 new faces along with Dan Craig and Corey Small who signed back on a 1 year deal and on paper this team can compete with the Bandits.
On the back end is the grit and talent that moves this team forward. They did take a hit with 2023 Defender of the Year, Latrell Harris, going on PUP and likely out for the year. But you get a healthy Chris Corbeil and Mitch De Snoo who missed a lot of the season last year. Add in the likes of Brad Kri, Josh Jubenville and Brandon Slade and you have a scary core game in and game out. Oh and add in their Captain Challen Rogers who plays everywhere.
Then between the pipes is Nick Rose, who is not a top 5 goalie according to Coaches and GMs around the league. Talk about some bulletin board material for a team that already has a title contending roster. They get the Wings as their home opener and first game of the season after a week 1 bye.
3. San Diego Seals
Talk about a team that has had a bad taste in their mouth since May. A 13-12 defeat to the Western Conference champion Mammoth after a 14-4 regular season and leading the league in goals. A newer look for the team is coming for Pat Merrill and we get to see it Saturday vs Calgary for their first game of the year.
Gone are some veterans in Brodie Merrill (Retired), Frank Scigliano (Traded to SAS) and Kevin Crowley (Signed in VAN). In are Trevor Baptiste (Traded from PHI) and Kyle Rubisch (Free Agent).
The forward group will be needing someone to step up and replace the 31 goals leaving from Crowley and Mac O’Keefe (Hold out). Enter Kyle Jackson who comes over from the Wings in the Baptiste deal after not playing in the 22/23 season but has 3 30+ goal seasons in his career.
On the back end is a name to listen for this season, Danny Logan. Coming off an impressive rookie campaign of 98 LBs and 24CTO, he will get to hand off the face off duties and focus solely on his defensive skill set.
The biggest reason this team is in tier 2 to me is in net. Almost 21 year old (December 19th) Chris Origlieri is in line to lead a team with title hopes in their sights. Now don’t hear what I’m not saying. I am a big fan of his play. Last year while sharing time with Scigliano, Origlieri played just under 400 minutes, going 4-2 with a 10.36 GAA and a .773 SV%. There will be bumps along the way like there would be for any young goaltender and that’s likely a reason they brought Mike Poulin out of retirement and from behind the bench and added him to the roster.
4. Halifax Thunderbirds
Coming off their dominating week 1 win over the Rush are the Thunderbirds. The first team I can actually talk about their performance and not their season outlook. 17-12 final score does not do justice to what this team did as the first game of the 23/24 NLL season. The score was 9-2 with just over a minute left in the 1st quarter and Clarke Petterson already had his hat trick. In fact it was 17-7 with 13 minutes to go in the 4th until the Rush scored the final 5 to bring the game to its final score. From top to bottom this team is loaded and hungry to send Ryan Benesch into retirement with that title he has been chasing for his career. I will still never understand the defensive mindset or the faceoff game plan SAS had for Jake Withers, but he made them pay with 3 goals of his own, all off the FO which he went 29-33 as well as adding 24 LBs and 4 Blocked Shots. Halifax will use their bye week to rest up as Cody Jamieson looked to be on a shift count and Randy Staats who missed this game and is working to get cleared off that PUP list.
5. Rochester Knighthawks
The comeback kids of week 1 come in at #5 this week. The Hawks did what the Rush were not able to do, come back from an early deficit. Down 4-1 to start the game and 10-5 at half, Rochester scored 8 straight goals including all 5 in the 3rd to take a 13-10 lead which they would be able to hold onto for a 14-13 win over the Roughnecks. Rylan Hartley had a very rough start to his season allowing 8 goals on just 14 shots before giving way to Riley Hutchcraft who went on to make 28/33 saves in the victory. It was a true tale of 2 halves for this team. They were able to slow the fast paced game of Calgary and create their own chances in the transition game with Ogilvie, Rees and GIlray combining for 4 goals. But it was Fields (4/2/6) and Smith (3/3/6) leading the way for the offense. When those 2 are able to produce from their sides of the field and they get stable goaltending, this team can make noise in the new unified standings as the season progresses. Their hope is they learned from their downspin of their back half of the 22/23 season that saw them fall from the top seed in the East to the 4th and forced to face Buffalo in the 1st round of the playoffs.
6. Colorado Mammoth
It’s strange to see a team that was one win away from back to back championships coming in at #6 before their first game is even played. Now this will change as the season progresses, but as of now, I cannot start them any higher than 6. Dillon Ward is on the PUP. Joey Cupido, Jalen Chaster, Josh Sullivan and 2022 15th overall pick Owen Down are on the IR. Ryan Lee was already announced as done for the year. This may be the most hurt team in the league and again, before a game is even played. Without taking anything away from what they have been able to accomplish the last 2 years, I feel they have been able to step it up and hit their stride at the right time. Their biggest issue this year is the unified standings and not facing last year’s Rush, Warriors and Desert Dogs 2 times each. Once healthy, this team has the talent and the knowledge of what it takes to win a title. They have proven that and they get to prove that Saturday in Georgia for their first game of the year. I’m going to put it here so I have it in writing, I would not be surprised to see Warren Jeffery be in contention for Defender of the Year when the season comes to an end
7. Philadelphia Wings
The final game to wrap up in week 1 saw the #7 ranked Wings take down the Riptide 13-10. Philly was able to take advantage of a very slow start from NY and jump out to a 5-0 lead midway through the 2nd. Led by Blaze Riorden (4/0/4) and Mitch Jones (2/6/8), this offense has offensive playmakers that can put the ball in the back of the net. I admitted it on Mondays show, but I may have had them too low in my standing projections before the season began. This team looked fresh and fast and that was their goal in the offseason. One game in and it looks like that is on track. But it wasn’t just the speed on the field that got them the win. In between the pipes, Zach Higgins locked it down. 48 saves on 58 shots. If you can get top level goaltending from Higgins while the new faces of Scott Dominey, Holden Cattoni, Ian Llord and Mike McCannell continue to learn the system, this team can outperform the expectations I had of them before the season.
8. Panther City Lacrosse Club
Coming in at #8 is PCLC. While I still do not believe they have the offensive fire power to compete for the title this year, what they were able to do on the defensive end vs the Warriors was impressive, allowing the fewest goals on the week (7). Callum Crawford once again turned back the clocks and scored 4 straight goals to break the 4-4 tie and give Panther City an 8-4 lead they would not lose. Phil’s Goalie of the Year pick, Nick Damude, had a heck of a game making 43/50 saves as well as allowing just 3 2nd half goals. The team is going to rely heavily on younger forwards in 2023 5th overall pick Ryan Sheridan, 2022 5th overall Jason Knox, 2022 9th overall pick Mathieu Gautier and 2023 rookie of the year Jonathon Donville to provide the scoring that departed with Patrick Dodds being traded to SAS in the offseason. The team host to the 0-1 Desert Dogs in a rare Sunday 4pm game with hopes to start the season 2-0.
9. Calgary Roughnecks
Our first 0-1 team comes in at #9. If you had turned off the game after the first half, you likely would not have believed the team ended up scoring only 3 more goals and that they had lost. But that’s exactly what happened to the Roughnecks on Saturday. I had tweeted out that although it was very, very early, the pace of play they were playing with was incredible and I was interested to see if they could keep it up for a full game. We got our answer. Rochester made the switch in net and began to make them play for a full 30 in the offensive zone and they struggled. We said it on the Monday episode, but Calgary lacks that guy they can lean on to stop a run and we saw the run with Rochester scoring 8 straight. Getting back Logan Schuss should help out the offense, but if they run into more teams that force them to play 5 v 5 in the offensive end and are able to slow down their high powered transition game, Calgary could be in trouble this year. Even with the 50 save performances that MVP and GOTY Del Bianco can put on.
10. Georgia Swarm
The final team that will be playing their first game of the year this weekend comes in at #10. Going into the offseason there were many questions from us on what this team might look like. Did they believe they were the team that went on the 2nd half run or the team that started out 0-7 on the season? Well we got our answer as they brought back Shayne Jackson and Lyle Thompson on new 3 year deals and extended Brett Dobson 3 additional years. As my playoff predictions show, I believe this is a playoff team. Lyle and Andrew Kew had 40 goal seasons. Jackson had a 30 goal season. Add in another year for Ryan Lanchbury and Bryan Cole adding 42 points in a transition role. With Dobson in net coming into his 2nd season in the NLL and off his PLL championship, this team has the make up to make a run into the playoffs.
11. Saskatchewan Rush
This team looked like a team that had been together for only a month. It is going to take some time for the group to gel, and while I do not think this is a playoff team, I do believe the future is very bright for the Rush. Patrick Dodds and Zach Manns were brought in to be the new faces of this team. Robert Church and Frank Scigliano are the only players currently on the active roster who are over the age of 30. It is likely going to be an up and down season for the team, but we saw some glimpses of what they can be in their Friday loss to the veteran filled Thunderbirds team.
12. Vancouver Warriors
The Warriors come in at 12 after a bit of a disappointing home opener which at least to me was not very surprising. Scoring 7 goals in your home opener after a very busy offseason is not the start they were hoping for. So much of this roster and coaching staff is different from last year. Matt Beers, Kevin Crowley, Ryan Dilks, John Lintz were all proven veterans brought in by Curt Malawsky. I love the plan they have with older players guiding the younger ones so the pressure is not all on their shoulders, but it just might take longer than some might have expected.
13. Albany Firewolves
The Firewolves are in at 13. The win was great. Back to back seasons starting off 1-0 but last year they went on to win just 2 more games. And while I believe they will have more wins than last year, this is still a rebuilding team on their way up as they wait for Dyson Williams to join the team next season. This is a team that will look to grow their young core of 9 1st round picks since 2019 in the lineup and play spoiler for those teams with title goals.
14. New York Riptide
Phil’s playoff darling did not start the season off hot. In fact, they didn’t even start their season until midway through the 2nd quarter. I related the Riptide to the Buffalo Sabres. Very slow start then cranked it up when it was too late for the win. This is a team with a lot of new faces with John LaFontaine, Austin Madronic, Kiel Matisz and Mitch Wilde. We even said they won the offseason with the moves they made. It might take some time for all the new faces to gel, but I do believe this team will rise in the power rankings. Their next chance to show improvement will have to wait until week 3 of the season as they go into their bye.
15. Las Vegas Desert Dogs
Our last spot in week 2 Power Rankings is the place all fans want to go to see a game, Vegas. Their go to players in Rob Hellyer (1/2/3) and Jack Hannah (0/3/3) could not get anything going. On the positive, Casey Jackson (4/1/5) and Landon Kells (40/52 saves) look fantastic. This is just their 2nd season in the league so while I do expect to see improvement and growth from the young core, I expect to see them in the bottom half of these rankings most weeks.