Bad News Bandits; Kneecapped Roughnecks; FOWings
Worries about the Bandits and Roughnecks’ respective games; ramblings on the Wings’ face-off game
Photo Credit: Jenn Pierce/Calgary Roughnecks
It’s been a minute since the National Lacrosse League has been as muddy as it is nearly midway through the 2023-24 season.
The FireWolves are starting to come down to earth. The Desert Dogs punch up. The Mammoth can’t get any traction. Are the Swarm, Riptide, and Thunderbirds truly championship contenders? You don’t know!
Basically if you aren’t the Rock or Seals, I am not optimistic about your futures at this point.
Pessimism’s the name of the game in this week’s article. The issues I’m highlighting aren’t anything the teams I will discuss don’t know, but they’re pretty glaring issues for potential contenders that I feel are worth spending some time discussing.
Let’s explore why I’m worried about the Bandits, what happened to the Roughnecks’ run game, discuss the face-off struggles for the Wings, and wrap things up with a threw-a-dart-at-a-dartboard-while-blindfolded power rankings.
Photo Credit: Micheline Veluvolu/Buffalo Bandits
Bad News Bandits
Two-alarm fire — the Bandits defense is in trouble. No, wait, stop pointing at the goalie, it’s not Matt Vinc’s fault, why do you all always go straight to blami—
Vinc is getting peppered this season. Through 475:46 min., the 41-year-old has a 12.11 GAA and .775 Sv%. His current save percentage (using NLL numbers, which would be a .768 Sv%) would be the worst number for his career since his 2012 season when he had a .753 Sv% in the first of the Knighthawks’ three consecutive championship-winning seasons.
In his 18th NLL season, Vinc’s GSAA is -1.92; again, it’s his lowest GSAA since that 2012 season when he had a -3.26 GSAA.
But GSAA weighs how many shots against a goalie faces, and Vinc faces more rubber than every NLL goalie not named Zach Higgins (62.8 SA/60 (shots against per 60 minutes), Dillon Ward (54.1), Landon Kells (54.4), and Riley Hutchcraft (55.4).
I really struggle to lay the blame completely at a goalie’s feet when he’s facing above league average in SA/60 — in Vinc’s case, that’s 53.85 (league average is 51.88). Maybe Father Time is catching up to Vinc, but he’s had three games with over 50 saves this season. Duder’s working.
I’m more concerned with the defense in general. It’s not the same defense as last season between roster personnel changes and preseason injuries, but we’ll compare the two. Last season, the Bandits defense had a 13.0/66.6/11.4 ES slash line (the ESE% was average) and forced opponents to waste 19.6% of their ESSets. Combined with their offense, it meant an ES goal differential of +11. The PK was top 5, stopping 82.8% of opposing power plays. The transition defense was also top five, with a 13.1 FBE%.
In 2023-24, the Bandits D ES slash line is 14.1/67.7/12.4, with the ESE% being the fifth worst in the NLL, ahead of the Mammoth, Swarm, Desert Dogs, and Knighthawks. They do have an ESLP% of 21.8%, middle of the pack. The PK is top three at 83.5%, but the transition defense has a FBE% of 20.6%, sixth highest in the NLL.
Part of the issue is the Bandits are getting out-shifted. Presenting the numbers as For-Against, their TrueESSets are 412-459, TruePPSets are 81-103, and TrueFBSets are 104-63. Transition shifts don’t weigh as much time-wise as an even strength or power play/penalty kill shift since they happen quickly, and the Bandits have been very run-and-gun so far this season. But they’re affording too many chances settled and on the power play to opponents.
If Vinc is slowing down, the defense is spending too much time on the floor, and injuries are adding up, then the Bandits have a recipe for disaster brewing on their hands.
Getting healthy will hopefully get the defense back on track, but you can’t count on health. The Bandits can count on controlling what they can control right now — effort and limiting opportunities for opponents.
Photo Credit: Angela Burger/Calgary Roughnecks
Kneecapped Roughnecks
There wasn’t a better transition team than the Calgary Roughnecks in 2022-23. While the Rock had the best FB goal differential at 23, the Roughnecks were second at 19 and more efficient, evidenced by their 23.6 FBE%. The next closest team in efficiency while running was Panther City at 20.3%, and they were the only two clubs to be over 20% in this statistic last season.
That transition success just isn’t there for the Roughnecks this season. League average slash line for TrueFB is 22.2/78.0/18.9 with a 17.7 LP%. The Roughnecks transition O has a TrueFB slash line of 22.5/91.5/17.7 with a 26.4 LP% — middle of the pack, highest in the NLL, sixth worst in the league, and easily the worst amount of transition shifts lost.
Let’s throw out PPFB for the Roughnecks, as they only have two of those shift types and were successful on both. Their shorthanded transition game has withered, as they don’t have a single shorty on the run this season. For the regular degular FB numbers (while 5-on-5), the Riggers are 20.9/91.0/16.5 with a 25.9 LP% — in line compared to the rest of the NLL as what I presented in the previous paragraph.
NLL goalies are damn good; no one’s disputing that. But if your team’s SOG% is over 90%, then either every goalie you face can scream “Za Warudo” and move in front of the shot while they freeze time for five seconds, or your players are taking bad shots in transition.
My initial thought was opponents adjusted to the Roughnecks on the run and were killing it in reverse transition, getting off the floor fast so that those fast break chances weren’t there for Calgary. But that’s not really the case. Last season, 14.0% of their shifts were spent on the run. This season, it’s 15.8% (I will note this isn’t necessarily an apples-to-apples comparisons between seasons, as I didn’t start differentiating between shorthanded sets until this season. That said, it’s likely under a percentage point, which would still be less than the current season). The Roughnecks are running more this season and not capitalizing as much as they did in 2022-23.
It’s easy for the guy that’s never played lacrosse before to opine that the Roughnecks players should pick their shots better while running up the floor with a 200-pound opponent trying to body them or whack them with their stick and a padded-up goalie is blocking most of the net, but in this case, I dunno, maybe the Roughnecks players should pick their shots better in transition.
Photo Credit: Philadelphia Wings
FOWings
I didn’t publish an article last weekend — take care of your mental health — but I did write one; it just didn’t get 100% completed. This column is built over that piece’s bones. I was slicing away at outdated sections until I got to this one and just couldn’t bear excising it.
I’m old enough to remember the Wings winning what felt like every face-off in a game. Say whatever you want about Trevor Baptiste’s defensive abilities in the box game, but he did his job getting the Wings extra possessions every game. It contributed to a 30-38 win-loss record during his four seasons with the Wings.
Baptiste went west, paradise was there, he’d have all that he can eat of milk and honey over there with the San Diego Seals, where his new team is 6-2, and he’s gone 147-212 at the face-off dot, a 69.3 FOW%.
His return to Philly in week 9 meant he matched up against rookie Nick Rowlett, a practice player maintaining that tag in his first two professional NLL games. Baptiste went 17-29, a 58.6 FOW%.
But this blurb’s about the Wings and Rowlett, a FOGO in box that won 12 face-offs in his first pro game before he went to the bench, winning half of the draws he took (the other five draws were lost by Alex Pace and Isaiah Davis-Allen). It was the Wings first game of the season where they recorded double digits in face-off wins. Their best performance previously was a 9-27 night against the Riptide back on Dec. 2.
If the goal was limiting Seals possessions to hopefully keep things close, then mission accomplished. The Wings only lost by a goal against a team that probably should have blown them out of the water. Mitigation in a game of millimeters is key, scraping any advantage wherever possible across the floor, and considering the normal face-off suspects of IDA and anyone with a stick didn’t really work against Baptiste last Saturday (or anyone else in the previous five games), the younger Rowlett’s efforts at the stripe probably had some impact on the final result.
Counterpoint (and this is where this blurb got updated), using a FOGO didn’t necessarily work at the dot for the Wings last Saturday against the Thunderbirds (Rowlett went 4-16), but they again lost by just a goal. Would losing one or two more of the 7 FOW the Wings won have been outweighed by having a depth defender on the bench instead of a FOGO?
I’ve believed for years that winning the draw game is basically a coin flip as to whether it results in a win or loss. We don’t weigh face-off wins during particular points of the game. Ideally, they’re all the same regardless of situation, but that’s definitely not the case. Yet, no one can tell using data how much more important a FO in overtime is compared to the first draw of a game, and until that changes, arguing about whether face-offs matter is a wasted exercise.
The last two weekends really don’t change my mind. NLL teams that win the most face-offs in a game are winning 59.3% of games this season, but we have years of data backing up that it’s 50-50 in terms of impacting the final result; it’ll eventually settle down closer to 50%. Week 9 and 10’s results for the Wings reinforce my previously held conviction, which is me cherrypicking data to fit my narrative.
Take that, face-offs matter crowd.
Photo Credit: Jenn Pierce/Calgary Roughnecks
Power Rankings — Week 10
Friendly reminder:
An NLL season is a marathon, not a race. Placement is based on what teams show over a period of time. Just because a team completely revamped their roster in the offseason or beat a team that was above them in the rankings one week doesn’t mean they automatically jump up spots.
Records are not what I base rankings on. If a team wins 14 games to start the season and then drops the next four badly, then that recent performance will weigh more than them having the best record that season.
This is supposed to be fun. I take this mildly seriously, but it’s just, like, my opinion, man. It’s not worth getting worked up over.
Yes, Calgary at eight is generous. I’m struggling to fault them for their record considering they have a top 4 defense and a schedule that’s more stop than start. Also, spots 4-10 are basically determined on how I’m feeling when I wake up and think about power rankings.
15. Vancouver Warriors (2-5)
Previous ranking: 14
Week 10 results: 11-10 OT loss to the Swarm
14. Philadelphia Wings (2-5)
Previous ranking: 12
Week 10 results: 15-14 loss to the Thunderbirds
13. Saskatchewan Rush (2-4)
Previous ranking: 15
Week 10 results: 10-9 win against PCLC
12. Colorado Mammoth (2-5)
Previous ranking: 11
Week 10 results: 16-7 loss to the Seals
11. Las Vegas Desert Dogs (3-4)
Previous ranking: 13
Week 10 results: 9-6 win against the FireWolves
10. Rochester Knighthawks (3-4)
Previous ranking: 8
Week 10 results: 15-14 loss to the Bandits
9. Panther City LC (3-4)
Previous ranking: 9
Week 10 results: 10-9 loss to the Rush
8. Calgary Roughneckss (2-5)
Previous ranking: 7
Week 10 results: 11-10 loss to the Riptide; 9-7 loss to the Rock
7. New York Riptide (4-4)
Previous ranking: 10
Week 10 results: 11-10 win against the Roughnecks
6. Halifax Thunderbirds (4-3)
Previous ranking: 6
Week 10 results: 15-14 win against the Wings
5. Buffalo Bandits (5-3)
Previous ranking: 4
Week 10 results: 15-14 win against the Knighthawks
4. Georgia Swarm (5-4)
Previous ranking: 5
Week 10 results: 11-10 OT win against the Warriors
3. Albany FireWolves (6-2)
Previous ranking: 2
Week 10 results: 9-6 loss to the Desert Dogs
2. San Diego Seals (6-2)
Previous ranking: 3
Week 10 results: 16-7 win against the Mammoth
1. Toronto Rock (6-1)
Previous ranking: 1
Week 10 results: 9-7 win against the Roughnecks