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Buffalo Bandits Toronto Rock NLL Photo Credit Bill Whippert 2016
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Picture Perfect in Colorado, Toronto Plummeting after Week 4 Blowouts

Editor’s Note: Thanks to the help of the innovative team at SISU Guard, the Official Mouthguard of the NLL, we’ve beefing up our National Lacrosse League coverage for 2016! We hope you enjoy our look at the NLL season through a new lens with the aid of our partner SISU!

Well Week 4 of NLL action turned into a bit of a bummer. The Stealth were coming in hot off a win over the defending champs, Toronto was bound to take Buffalo to the wire and how could Colorado possibly take four games straight? It turns out, two teams really wanted to be in first place but the other likely couldn’t even join forces to put tougher a well-rounded floor this weekend.

So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it. Ryan Conwell shares his thoughts on the Eastern Conference struggle while Mark Donahue tries to find positives in the Western Conference dud. Here we go!

Toronto Rock (0-4) @ Buffalo Bandits (2-1)

Buffalo Bandits Toronto Rock Photo Credit Bill Whippert Buffalo Bandits.png
Photo Credit: Bill Whippert
1 2 3 4 TOTAL
Toronto 3 1 1 1 6
Buffalo 3 5 2 2 12
SOG SOFF LB FO PPG
 43 20 59 10-22 0-2
 45 26 69 12-22 0-1

Quick Thoughts

  • Toronto still was not able to find an answer on offense.
  • Buffalo’s offense should keep pace with anyone in the league.
  • Dhane Smith is already halfway to his rookie season points total of 44 after only 3 games.
  • Buffalo’s transition efforts blew this game wide open.

In our game of the week, the winless Toronto Rock ventured just a little south to Buffalo to face the Bandits. For the Bandits, they had the chance to create a three way tie for first in the east division with Rochester and New England.

Toronto started strong with the first two goals and the game was tied after one quarter. After that, the wheels came off the bus for the Rock and Buffalo ran away with the huge win. The loss puts Toronto buried in the east division as all their losses have come to their division foes. They still have 7 division games left, so they are not in must win territory yet, but a win next weekend in Georgia would help.

Toronto Notes

Toronto started out with some tough, aggressive defense that was really disrupting the Buffalo forwards. Even when Buffalo could win an individual battle, help was there immediately to force them back outside. The Rock were also able to push transition early, leading to their first goal from Bill Hostrawser.

As the game went on though, Toronto started playing a little softer, giving Buffalo a little too much time outside to pick their shots. Eventually, they let the Bandits go on a huge seven goal run, at one point allowing two goals in 10 seconds. Brandon Miller finished with a 73% save percentage, which puts him pretty low in that category relative to his league peers.

Offensively, Toronto adapted well early to any room given to them by Buffalo’s defense and they capitalized. A great example was Stephan Leblanc (the lone bright spot for the Rock), be his man around the top and found himself with a perfect view of the goal from top center, where he buried it. They were getting behind the defense often, getting plenty of shots right on the crease. They even had a point where two back to back shots were challenged for being in the crease (one stayed, one was waived off). Once they got to four goals though, they stayed there for a while as their poor shooting of the past few weeks took over. When I say “a while,” I really mean the stretch of the second and third quarters where Toronto didn’t score for nearly 25 minutes. Their dry spell was finally cracked by a power play goal from Kevin Ross during the game’s first penalty. It would then be another 14 minutes before Leblanc scored their final goal of the game.

Buffalo Notes

As much as I can say Toronto wasn’t shooting well, Anthony Cosmo was great in goal. He was seeing a ton of shots from the crease and seemed to get a piece of every ball that went past him as well. The Buffalo defense still let through a good number of shots, but Cosmo finished with a 86% save percentage.

I did like what I saw from players like Steve Priolo and Jay Thorimbert in transition. The defenders were not piling in the goals, but they have a good number of assists and made sure Toronto was not getting many second chances. This was a huge factor in the Bandit’s big seven goal run over the second and third quarters.

Offensively, Dhane Smith had a monster night. He finished with nine points from four goals and five assists. Mark Steenhuis was also solid on the righty side with a goal and a pair of assists. As of yet, Ryan Benesch still isn’t hitting his scoring numbers from last year, but he did chip in a pair of goals.

I give Buffalo quite a bit of credit. They started a little slow and felt out what Toronto was giving them for options. Once they saw how to adjust, they did in a big way and never looked back. It wasn’t their highest output of the year, but they did more than enough to send the Rock home in a bad mood and still looking for answers.

Colorado Mammoth (4-0) @ Vancouver Stealth (1-2)

Vancouver-Stealth-Colorado-Mammoth-2016
Photo Credit: Vancouver Stealth
1 2 3 4 TOTAL
Colorado 4 8 2 0 14
Vancouver 0 3 2 0 5
SOG SOFF LB FO PPG
 49 21 54 9-23 2-5
 55 20 61 14-23 3-6

Quick Thoughts

  • The Stealth played terrible, terrible lacrosse.
  • Junior totaled the same number of goals as the entire Vancouver team.
  • Adam Jones leads the league in points (30) and goals (15).
  • No one scored in the 4th quarter, sorry fans.

I’d apologize to any one who expected a good game on Saturday, but that would mean I’m taking some-sort of responsibility to the train-wreck that was the Vancouver Stealth. We all knew the undefeated Colorado Mammoth were coming in hot, but the home team didn’t even bother to put up a fight. To anyone who stuck out the full-60 with us, good on you, you are a true lacrosse-nut.

Colorado Notes

How do you stunt the confidence of the Mammoth offense now? Four players have put up 20 points, or more, in the four games the team’s played. The top 3 names on the NLL Points Leaders list, albeit they’ve played one more game than most, are the golden-trio taking the league by the cahones.

Righty addition Callum Crawford has clicked with his new floor-mates since game one. This weekend he put up a humble 4 goals and 2 assists to drive his points total to 29 so far. Crawford swam through the defense like lap pool, scoring a hat trick in the second quarter, and one more in the third, all from settled offensive play. The Mammoth didn’t need to run and gun, the had Vancouver dismantled in the 5-on-5. Alternating back and forth, John Grant Jr. and Adam Jones have been sharing the role as the most lethal lefties in the NLL. Saturday was Junior’s turn to go-off, in which he actually totaled the same number of goals (with 2 more helpers) than Vancouver put up all night. Junes had one total goal to end the first quarter before he went to the shooting gallery in the second frame. Closing out the quarter, Junior went on a four consecutive goal spree, knocking down one snipe after another from the shooter’s position. The lack of aggressive defense let the 41-year old legend have it his easy, with all of his work coming from range. It’s not as if Jonesy was quite either, Junior’s righthand man popped in two himself topped off with another four assists. Jeremy Noble also finished with a pair and rookie Jordan Gilles found himself a goal on the night.

Flying around the floor, Cam Holding found a team-high 8 loose balls and played fairly solid defense against the miserable offense he was facing. Struggling a bit at the draw circle, Dan Coates only managed to win 7 of 19 of his takes and caught himself in the box in the 4th quarter for a high-sticking major. Colorado is dead last in the NLL for face-off wins, only posting a .444 average. Although it hasn’t come back to hurt them yet, lacrosse is a game of possessions and you need to get a good ball out for your team to win, and your team needs to fight for those loosies for you. The rest of the defense looked tough and kept the middle clear, making the Stealth take one lazy and/or forced shot after another.

Vancouver actually ripped more shots on goal than the Mammoth, but the blowout was much in part to the work between the pipes of Dillon Ward. Granted the Stealth got desperate and it seemed like everyone tried to force a goal, even hitting him square in the gut a few times, but Ward managed to block 50 out of the 55 shots he faced, 20 of which came in the 4th quarter shutout. Bravo, sir!

Vancouver Notes

Before we pick things apart, let’s point out what the Stealth did well. They forced two more turnovers than their opponent, laid 6 more shots on goal, snagged 7 more loosies, came away with 5 more draws and capitalized on 50% of their power play opportunities. Here’s what else I saw…

Offensively, to me it looked like Joel McCready was the only guy that actually cared to be on the floor in the second half. He finished with a pair of goals on two different power play situations, but he played fast, aggressive and did his best attack to the cage. The rest of the forwards were stuck in quicksand and gave Ward way too much time to set up. Rookie Keegan Bal replaced an injured Billings in the lineup, which should have brought some speed and stamina to the floor but it never panned out. Billings is out for a couple, so he’s likely to get another chance. Speedster Travis Cornwall and ready-to-finally-do-something Logan Schuss scored the only two non-power play goals, Cornwall’s in transition and Schuss’ on a nice setup from Mitch McMichael and Corey Small. Small had the team’s first power play goal of the game, coming early in the second. McMichael went above the line on the draws, winning 13 of 21, but it’s his defense that needs to improve to help the backline handle transition.

It’s been great to see the rowdy Matt Beers on defense, but he has to stay disciplined to really help his club out. At the buzzer Beers threw an elbow, catching him a 5-min major along with the 10-min game misconduct. He’s clearly filling the brusier role, but at the end of the game when you lost by 9? C’mon man! The only thing the broadcast crew could talk about all night was the hope of a fight to wake the crowd and the bench up, so why he couldn’t just rip a guy’s bucket off and force a scrap earlier in the game, I may never know. Tyler Garrison played a pretty solid game defensively, stripping the Mammoth 3 times and picking up 7 loosies, along with 1 offensive helper. Net-minder Eric Penney was back in cage for the start before being replaced toward the end of the first by mentor Chris Levis. Penney returned to start the second, but was replaced by Levis halfway through after 3 shots found their way in while he could only stop 3 others. Levis closed out the half, but at that point the game was already 12-3 and the fans were packing up. The whole second half was Penney’s, the only real time for a learning experience considering the inevitable outcome. A much better showing, he made 15 saves and only let in two in the final 30 minutes.

Ultimately the defense was just bad, the transition team wasn’t much help on either end, and goaltending was a jumbled mess. Saturday night they are going into a barnburner in Calgary, both teams really need the win, but it’s damn near impossible to take a guess on how it’s actually going to play out.

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Tell us your thoughts on the weekend’s blowouts in the comment section down below!