Identity Shift: Can’t Keep Running Away; Arms Race
Panther City’s current identity and the game plan for Rochester moving forward
Photo Credit: Philadelphia Wings
Identity is a weird thing for a National Lacrosse League team. Coaches and players will state what they think their team is or what they want it to be — typically using phrases like “hard-working,” “blue collar,” “trusting in one another,” “full 60 minute effort,” etc. —, but what they profess and what they are in reality often end up being opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s something that’s created organically, damn your best laid plans and intentions.
At this point in the 2023-24 NLL season, those team personalities are pretty much set in stone. But unless you’re hanging around a locker room when the whole gang’s together, you’re not privy to the ins and outs, internal conflicts, and group bonding that develops that group ego. From the outside looking in, we use a combination of eye test, coach and player interviews, and statistics to craft what we believe that team personality to be.
It’s an exercise worth giving a go. Two teams have identities they probably want their teams to be, but regression and injuries have forced a change of said desires, and it’s worth looking into for both of them. Let’s check out the reasons behind Panther City LC and the Rochester Knighthawks’ unique team egos.
Photo Credit: Philadelphia Wings
Can’t Keep Running Away
Ahead of the 2023-24 National Lacrosse League season’s start, I pontificated in my preseason predictions article that Panther City would make the postseason but would continue to baffle me. Last season, they were a team that did damage in transition and on special teams. A coach on a different team classified their style of play as high-risk, high-reward, which perfectly describes what PCLC was.
5-on-5, they had a -19 goal differential for the 2022-23 season; their power play was +9 and fast break was +17, the latter of which only two teams had better differentials in. While their settled goal differential didn’t seem great, it was more of a product of their offense not getting the job done, not the defense not showing up. PCLC’s defense had a 10.9 ESE%, tied for fifth lowest in the NLL with the Colorado Mammoth. Nick Damude had a 10.42 GSAA, which was the fifth best number in that goalie stat.
“I would like for their 5-on-5 game to be better, as outrunning your settled issues can only take you so far,” I said in that preseason blurb. And after two-thirds of their season under their belt, Panther City has done just that, albeit probably not by choice.
Panther City currently sits in seventh in NLL standings at .500, as their identity has completely shifted from their high-risk, high-reward style of play towards playing into their even strength capabilities. They’ve +10 ES, +4 PP, and -2 FB goal differentials — sixth best, third best, and fifth worst in the NLL this season.
Damude and the defense, minus that debacle against Rochester, have continued to be solid. He has the fifth-best GSAA in the NLL again at 8.51, and they have the third best ESE% at 10.9. Settled defense continues to be a strength for Panther City.
Swapping to the front door, PCLC’s power play is on a similar trajectory as it was last season, cashing in on 24.2% of all power play sets. But there are two areas where it’s different from 2022-23 — 5-on-5 offense and transition.
In 2022-23, PCLC’s offense had a 9.5 ESE%, the worst in the NLL. This season, they’re at 13.0% — only two teams have a better ESE%. It’s not a lack of ESSets to boost that percentage up, although Panther City does spend the third least amount of offensive shifts 5-on-5; PCLC averages 6.75 ESGF/GAME.
Transition is the clear step back for Panther City, as they’re one of the worst teams this season when it comes to the run game. They only have 19 transition goals scored this season; for comparison, PCLC had 10 more transition goals scored in their first 12 games last season. Their 11.3 FBE% is the worst in the NLL by almost two percentage points.
Not to single any one player out for an entire team’s weakness, but Josh Medeiros going from dark horse Transition Player of the Year candidate in 2023 after scoring 21 goals to just a goal this season is alarming.
Head coach Tracey Kelusky had a rather pointed comment when I asked him about his squad’s lack of transition success back in January: “I think we’re scouted well, but I also think that maybe some of our guys think they've arrived, too, and they haven’t maybe been putting in the work that they should be putting into it to get to that get to where they were getting to and contribute where they have.”
Considering the trend’s continued, I’m of the mind that arrival thought is now part of PCLC’s new identity: good 5-on-5 out both doors, still strong on the power play, but not even close to the same weapon in transition.
Photo Credit: Scott Cordaro/Rochester Knighthawks
Arms Race
Sometimes the crow I eat comes from a place of positivity.
I was cautiously optimistic that Riley Hutchcraft would be good between the pipes with Rylan Hartley out for the foreseeable future due to injury. Part of that logic was Hartley wasn’t great for the 51:59 min. he played this season (his GSAA has hovered in the -5-6 range despite not playing). In hindsight, that was a sign that the defense was bad no matter who was behind them, evidenced now by Hutchcraft’s 13.16 GAA, .759 Sv%, and -11.91 GSAA — only Dillon Ward of the Mammoth has a worse GSAA as a starter.
At some point during their six-game losing streak, I mused for the IL Indoor Week 11 preview that the Knighthawks offense, which has been the best offense in GF/GAME pretty much all season long, would have to outshoot their defensive issues. It took two more losses for them to figure out how to do that.
Against PCLC and Albany, the Knighthawks have scored 37 goals. Hutchcraft and the defense gave up 15 and 12 goals against, respectively. A .758 Sv% was par for the course for Hutchcraft against Panther City, but he turned in a truly great performance against the FireWolves, making 53 saves for an .815 Sv%.
Meanwhile, Connor Fields is on an otherworldly pace, and he’s dragging everyone else’s points totals up with him. His 7.73 PTS/GAME pace is easily the best in the NLL, and 25 (9G, 16A) of his 85 points this season have come in just the last two contests. His counterpart on the right side in Ryan Smith has continued to be excellent, balancing out the floor. Ryan Lanchbury had an 11-assist game against the FireWolves, and rookie Thomas McConvey posted a sock trick against PCLC. Curtis Knight quietly put up 11 points (2G, 9A) in those two games. Dan Lomas (2G, 7A) and Kyle Waters (5G, 4A) also have nine points apiece in that same span.
The stat that stands out the most to me in those two games, though, is their even strength success against Albany. Back end of a doubleheader, young goalie having an off night between the pipes for the FireWolves, all that jazz — it doesn’t change the fact that the Knighthawks potted 16 ESG and finished with a 27.6 ESE%.
I don’t really need to do a lot of digging to know that’s the most even strength goals scored this season (ahead of Panther City’s 15 against the Desert Dogs on Jan. 27) and second best ESE% (same PCLCvsLV game at 30.0%). Hell, it’s the most 5-on-5 goals scored in a single game since I started keeping track of goal types for the 2021-22 season.
What Fields and this Knighthawks forwards group are doing is special, although they have played two teams playing their second game of the weekend in the last two weeks. But even before that, the Knighthawks offense was burying the ball pretty regularly. They failed to reach double digits in goals scored in a game twice, and outside of those two contests, they haven’t scored less than 12 goals in a game.
It was clear weeks ago and remains clear now. The Knighthawks are a team that use one end’s strength to buoy both ends. It’s what they did during their three-game win streak to open the season. It’s what they’re doing now. An identity that screams “ATTACK” and hopes enough’s done defensively.
A rematch against the FireWolves this weekend evens the playing field and will give us a better idea of whether the Knighthawks can sustain this offensive production. As long as Hutchcraft and the defense are serviceable, then it should be enough for them to bounce back from that 0-6 run that stretched through January and February.