Definitely not a traditional Rock team… generally goals are at a premium but the defence is impossible to score on.

With Toronto, defensively is all they need to improve on. Not much else needs to be said, offensively they all shoot and pass well, Doyle resolvable up in buffalo and mannig continues to do well with billings beside him and Leblanc across.

I don’t agree with what you said about Edmonton. Bottom line is thy are terrible right now. It’s also 3 games into the season and there next game has already turned into a must win. Offensively they are baaaaaad. Ward and prout were not good like you said, 1 goal from either of those guys is not enough. Ward was their leading scorer last season and he has completely lost a beat this year. Prout isnonly feisty when he’s not shooting the ball well, and he then becomes a liability. He can take stupid penalties and takes bad shots. Merrill scored all of his goals off transition if i remeber. He played awesome, absolute machine. They are getting great goaltending from disher this season they an do real well defensively as long as they get some goal support. They need guys to step up; small, secore, ward, d. Hill, prout and ward are all inconsistent. Kedoh hill, Merrill and disher and easily their best ball players at the moment but their are getting some pretty decent play out of their defense as a hole.

Cooooolorado. 2 teams that bunked in the basemen of the league standings squaring off. Both teams have made some improvements, but I’ve been more impressed with Colorado. Although they didn’t win, they proved they can play D well, and do offensively. I feel like they’re the opposite of Boston, they need grant to shoot, they are like a mirror image of Orlando in that sense. They hav some great up and comic players in the gajic’s, Wasson smith and shewchuck but they are a young team and they need someone to take over sometimes and olafainst Philly it was one of the games. Grant was one the catalyst for that game. Although shewchuck did have his best year last season he really needs to be that 1-2 punch with grant until Dan Carey comes back from injury. Langtry needs to be release, or traded or retire. He’s bad, takes dumb penalties and bad shots. Defensively, they’ve really been great. they’ve improved by getting levis playing well, adding Mac Allen and getting rid of Murray and gettin Nenad Gajic healthy. Although I don’t like having Ilija playing d, he’s far to valuable for that and should be coming out the front gate.

Minnesota is playing really good, great balanced offense, great, athletic defense by adding suitor and smith and having Patterson play his best ball in a while. I watched him play in the Summer for the shamrocks and he’s improved since then.

Phili played ok, got a lot of transition goals, but need mundorf and Boyle to step up and configure. Getting their first goals in the 3 game of be year is baaaaad. I really like having turner signed, hes a great hometown kid that’s inally getting the minutes hebdeserves in the nLL. He played real well this summer for langely and desverves this gig. Nooch is gonna be gooood. He’ll gear up and easily score 30+ goals this season. Miller has been playing alright and really need him to play well if they want to win. Their d is soft, not a lot of punishment of the Philly d outside of pauly Dawson. I’d like to see McCelland get some more minutes because he is a great defeanive guy and can score off transition.

One other thing I found rather curious is, that recently Toronto just happens to “run into hot goalies”. Is this just bad luck or does Toronto’s shot selection and accuracy need to improve?

Overall, I really enjoy their style of play and am thoroughly impressed with both Leblanc and Billings.

Dawson and Powell ARE that good though. However, there are definitely other guys who can score for Boston. So by involving them, everyone becomes more dangerous. I think it makes sense, and that we’ll see it happen. Hopefully by mid Feb when these two play each other again… in Boston.

Thanks for the comment Derek! Why aren’t you writing about the NLL on LAS again?

I’m certainly not trying to scapegoat Powell or say he could be playing any harder. Or better, for that matter. It is just about Boston finding a real rhythm, which I think they will. Part of that is involving other players a bit more, and maybe a bit earlier in games, which will only let Powell operate with a little less attention. And since he’s nasty, that’s a good thing.

Just my humble $.02. I’m sure a lot of people out there disagree with me and think he should get the ball even more. I’m just a grow the pie kind of guy!

That being said, you have to let him do his thing. He’s going to win you a lot more games than he costs you, but he will cost you occasionally (like that game).

Boston’s offence on Friday was too centred on Dawson and Powell. Sanderson is probably the best offensive general in the league and the Rock did a great job keeping the ball out of his stick. Buchanan stepped up, but he was the recipient of a lot of dump passes, generated off drives by Dawson and Powell. Full credit to him for burying his chances, but the Blazers lost a lot of possessions because it was basically one on ones from either side of the floor. If those 2 weren’t as good as they are, Toronto probably wins this game by 10.

All that being said, 14 goals is often good enough to win you the game and they lost on 2 really flukey goals. Toronto-Boston has to be an early favourite to play for the champions cup… both in terms of play so far and just the potential excitment of 2 high powered offences and 2 really good goalies.