Extra Attacker Success; Win When
How much of an edge does going 6-on-5 actually bring, and what’s up with the winless NLL teams?
Photo Credit: Micheline Veluvolu/Rochester Knighthawks
Electronic Arts are doing their damnedest year in and year out to ruin your favorite pro sports video game franchise, and just because the National Lacrosse League doesn’t have a video game — and honestly, thank god, that stupid annual tweet where you all freak out remembering Blast Lacrosse was a thing and pine for a lacrosse video game that wouldn’t sell a hundred thousand copies is one of our worst offseason traditions — doesn’t mean EA isn’t impacting the NLL. But unlike microtransactions in [Insert pro league name] 25, what impact is EA having in pro box lacrosse?
Over the weekend, I realized I’ve been tracking extra attacker (6-on-5) shifts for over two years now, which means I’ve over two years of data to draw upon. Teams love going extra attacker when a penalty call benefiting them is coming their way, when they have final possession in the last 30 seconds of a quarter, and when they’re making a late push to tie the game up late. Does that mean they’re more successful 6-on-5 than 5-on-5? Someone should look into that.
Me. I should look into that.
So ahead of week 5 of the 2024-25 NLL regular season, let’s compare NLL even strength sets with their extra attacker counterparts and see if there’s any advantage at all pulling your goalie for one final shot. Also, three teams are winless after nearly a month of NLL action; let’s dive into why those three clubs have a bagel in their win column and how they can rectify that within the next two weeks.
Photo Credit: Georgia Swarm
It’s in the Game
We’re looking to see if 6-on-5 provides an advantage, so let’s start by looking at where 60.7% of all shifts happen in 2024-25 — even strength. NLL offenses are averaging a 12.3 TrueESE%, which is higher compared to past seasons.
124 extra attacker shifts have transpired this season. Out of the 496 goals scored in the 21 regular season games to kick off this season, just 17 have been recorded 6-on-5; that’s a bit more success than settled with an EAE% of 13.7%.
But 21 games is a small sample size. I crowed earlier about having years of data to draw on, so I might as well go ahead and do that.
Over the last 291 NLL regular season contests, NLL players have scored 3,653 ES goals on 31,164 shifts 5-on-5 and 4-on-4. That’s an 11.7 E%. In that same time span, teams have scored 220 EA goals on 1,624 6-on-5 shifts, a 13.5 E%.
Out of all total shifts, EASets count for 3.3% of them, and ESSets are 63.0%. Breaking those down by year shows interesting trends for how the sport is played (albeit with a caveat for one particular stat area and the fact we’re still in a relatively small sample size for this season).
Percentage of Total Shifts
Since I started tracking NLL team shift stats, the percentage of plays 6-on-5 have stayed relatively flat, barely increasing from 2022-23 to now. Given how situational extra attacker shifts are, that makes sense. Transition opportunities and power play are opportunistic and reliant on how aggressive your team is being and how many mistakes an opponent makes against you. 6-on-5 means you either “lucked” into final possession in a quarter, have the ball in your offensive end before an opponent receives a penalty, or are playing catch-up late and trying to make up the difference with a sixth runner.
Graphing all that out is interesting. The transition drop needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as I didn’t distinguish between “settled” shorthanded attempts and transition ones in 2022-23 (Teddy Jenner asked me about it during my appearance on OTCBPodcast in December 2022, and I realized I wasn’t differentiating between those two. I’ve been doing that since. To hazard a guess as to what the number of TrueFB sets were in 2022-23, I did some math based off of the number of “settled” and transition shorthanded shifts there have been in the last season-and-a-month and applied that to the total shorthanded shifts in 2022-23 to get an estimate of how many transition shifts there were. Even if we take out the roughly 300 SHFB shifts I came up with for that total figure, the transition numbers were still almost a full percentage point higher than in the last two seasons).
What’s really noticeable is how much more of an impact power plays are having, as the number of shifts have jumped pretty significantly (something Warriors general manager and head coach Curt Malawsky pointed out in his recent appearance on Brad Challoner’s Coaches Calls podcast). That said, they haven’t been as successful when looking at efficiency percentages.
E% Each Season since 2022-23
Again, it’s early in the season, so I’d expect the even strength and power play numbers to fall more in line with historical averages. All those power plays thanks to an emphasis on holding the stick calls feels like they’re being wasted, though, if teams aren’t capitalizing on them.
It doesn’t change the fact that extra attacker shifts are happening and being capitalized upon at relatively the same rate with a similar success rate as in seasons past. With lacrosse being a game of inches and everyone trying to gleam whatever advantage they can during a game, a 6-on-5 play that’s historically 1.8% more successful than its 5-on-5 counterpart might be what wins the game for a team.
Counting on 6-on-5 goals to win you a game is foolhardy, however; much like power play and transition, they complement a team’s 5-on-5 successes. Outscoring an opponent 6-on-5 tends means either a team got plenty of opportunities with final possession/incoming penalties affecting the other team or they’re trying to tie a game up. Over the last 291 games games, teams that outscore their opponent 6-on-5 only win 16.5% of those games.
If the opportunity’s there, your favorite team should be trying to score on the historically more successful 6-on-5 plays instead of a 5-on-5 one if there aren’t consequences for them if the play doesn’t work. If your favorite team is losing and goes 6-on-5 with five minutes left in regulation, pray they buck past trends and pull out the incredible comeback victory, but don’t expect that 1.8% to miracle your team to victory every time.
Photo Credit: J. Harrison/Colorado Mammoth
Win When
The Halifax Thunderbirds, Las Vegas Desert Dogs, and Toronto Rock are all winless pre-week 5 of the 2024-25 NLL season. Why? How do they rectify whatever issues they’re experiencing? I’ve thoughts:
The Thunderbirds’ issues are stretching beyond the confines of the box, most notably their captain Cody Jamieson being placed on the Holdout List — it’s nobody’s business; mind yours — and the fact TMZ is covering our sport for off-rink altercations. Fun (noting that the offending player Tyson Bell was placed on the Suspended List Thursday by the Thunderbirds).
Offensively, the Thunderbirds are doing their job — they’re averaging 13.0 GF/GAME, tied for fifth best in the league. Defensively, this team is switching a ton, moving slow, and getting burned for it, and it doesn’t help that starting netminder Warren Hill is having an abysmal stretch to start the season. That said, his -3.99 GSAA isn’t the worst starting goaltender GSAA this season by a long stretch (Landon Kells (-11.08), Cam MacLeod (-5.53), and Chris Origlieri (-5.49) all have worse numbers), but that’s bolstered by his fellow NLL netminders having worse games, his stronger efforts in the OT loss to the Saskatchewan Rush, and him getting yanked early enough in the Thunderbirds most recent loss.
Halifax’s defense has the third worst TrueESE% (17.9%), fifth worst TruePPE% (17.6%), and tied-for-fifth worst TrueFBE% (20.0%). They’re a bit porous across the back end no matter where you look, but unlike (small sample size) Calgary’s 15.5 GF/GAME, the Thunderbirds offense isn’t able to outshoot their defensive issues yet.
Start Drew Hutchison. His small sample size isn’t better than Hill’s (.702 Sv%, -3.60 GSAA), but what do you have to lose at this point?
For the Desert Dogs, they’re not playing enough settled lacrosse and are trying to outrun their losing streak. It’s very clearly not working. They have a +8 TrueFB goal differential, more than the +4 Mammoth and Warriors. But the Mammoth (17.6%) and Warriors (30.4%) have better TrueFBE% than the Desert Dogs, who sit third worst in the NLL in that category at 12.0%. The Mammoth have 34 total transition shifts in four games played (8.5 per game); the Warriors have 23 total transition shifts in two games played (11.5 per game); the Desert Dogs have 83 total transition shifts in four games (20.7 per game). If you can’t do quick division in your head, that’s (pretends to tap a calculator) BAD.
Roughly a quarter of Vegas’s shifts are in transition, but they have one of the worst fast break efficiency numbers in the league. When your TrueESE% is in the bottom five in the NLL AND you can’t outrun your settled problems, then stop running. Set your feet, face your problems, and have Jack Hannah go to work while the rest of the forwards chip in more.
I already wrote about the Toronto Rock’s issues; I’m not retreading old ground. Hopefully, they get healthy sooner than later and their star forwards start burying the ball. It’s not rocket science; get healthy and back to playing Rock ball.
Who gets their dub first this season? Probably not Las Vegas; they don’t play until week 6 in 2025. Halifax takes on the Albany FireWolves at Scotiabank Centre, and Toronto gets a home revenge game against the Ottawa Black Bears, who are themselves coming off a tough loss before the bye week.
Coin says Toronto wins first. Good luck.