Loess Losses: What’s Wrong with the Rock
Investigating what’s ailing the Toronto Rock and how those issues predate the 2024-25 NLL season.
Photo Credit: Georgia Swarm
It was his team’s third straight loss to open the season, but Toronto Rock head coach Matt Sawyer immediately noted his Toronto Rock performed better in their 10-9 loss to the Georgia Swarm last Saturday than in their first two outings of the season.
With a depleted roster, the Rock’s desire to snap their skid was apparent from the first whistle. Nick Rose wasn’t pulled from the uprights for the first time this season, finishing the night with an even .800 Sv%. The power play unit scored 2 PPG, twice as many as they had in the previous two games. Trailing the Swarm for 34:36 min., Chris Boushy’s hat trick tied the game up; when down by two late in the fourth, Dan Craig burned his defender underneath to crash the crease, and rookie Jake Darlison put a stamp on his very solid pro debut with a CTO and transition goal to tie things back up again.
But the 10-9 loss was an emphatic gut punch to a battered Rock team that entered the season as one of the NLL Cup favorites. Even when the offense played better and the defense got into its usual stalwart groove, a controversial no-goal call highlighted their third loss of the season, an oracular sign nothing is currently going the Rock’s way whether they’re playing well, okay, or poorly. It can’t be all bad luck, though, and begs the question: What’s wrong with the Rock?
The simple answer is they’re completely decimated by injuries.
TD Ierlan and Challen Rogers haven’t played games yet this season. Tom Schreiber and Latrell Harris were in the season opener but have been on the Injured Reserve list since then. After missing the first two games of the season, Brad Kri rejoined the back end, but Chris Corbeil was placed on the IR the same day.
All four of the Rock’s Practice Roster players have been placed on the Active Roster at some point this season, with one of them — defenseman Tyler Hendrycks — having the tag removed. General manager Jamie Dawick signed Aaron Woods to the PR in a corresponding move, and he too was placed on the AR (maintaining the practice tag) and dressed for the Rock last Saturday, a noticeable presence that night despite having two goals overturned, the last one that aforementioned controversial play.
Point fingers where you want, dissect the team’s performance to slivers, play armchair GM to your blood pressure’s content, it doesn’t change the fact that the Rock are banged up in a way no team, no coach, no GM can overcome. There aren’t players of Rogers, Harris, Schreiber, Kri, Ierlan, or Corbeil’s caliber sitting around as free agents, and even if there were, would that fix anything?
Because while the Rock are undeniably depleted in depth and star power right now — can’t overstate that enough —, those injuries are overshadowing the key issue for the Rock: Their offense has been abysmal lately.
Again, Saturday’s loss to the Swarm was their best performance of the season, but at the 5-on-5 game, the Rock netted 3 ESG — as many even strength goals as they scored in their previous two contests combined — and had a 5.9 TrueESE%. The power play posted a 22.2 TruePPE%, and the transition game was on full display with four goals and a 28.6 TrueFBE%. It was Toronto’s best all-around performance of the season.
It was also the Rock’s best all-around performance since arguably the 2024 NLL Quarterfinals against the Rochester Knighthawks on April 27.
Photo Credit: Buffalo Bandits
Toronto wrapped up the 2023-24 NLL regular season with the best record in the league at 15-3. Their 218 goals for were the third most in the regular season. The NLL’s top seed was a behemoth 5-on-5, boasting a +43 goal differential settled, the best in the NLL. Looking at their efficiency in all the True categories, they were third in the NLL at TrueES (12.6%) and tied for fifth on the power play (21.4%). The Rock’s running game (16.0 TrueFBE% — 10th in the NLL) and shorthanded efforts (5.2 TrueSHE% — 13th in the NLL) weren’t as dominant, but they didn’t need to be considering how strong the offense was where it spent 74.8% of its shifts.
As for the defense? Top five in the NLL for TrueE% for ES, PK, and FB. The Rock only gave up 169 goals all season long, the lowest goals against total by a comfy nine goals. You think Rose won the 2024 Goaltender of the Year award behind a bad defense? Nah, son. They were the best in the business, and he was phenomenal for the 1078:22 min. he stood in front of the goal.
The 2024 NLL Quarterfinals arrived, a game in which the Rock won 9-6. It was a good defensive battle, impressive on the Rock’s end considering they held the Knighthawks’ top two points producers in Connor Fields and Ryan Smith to a combined 7 PTS (4G, 3A). The secondary and tertiary scoring for Rochester wasn’t besting Rose.
The Rock offense scored 7 ESG in that game, finishing the night with an 11.7 TrueESE%. The NLL average for that efficiency percentage in the regular season was 12.0%, so the Rock were in line with that figure. No power play goals were scored, but transition and shorthanded markers rounded out the Rock’s nine goals on the night, finishing with a 7.1 TrueFBE% and 25.0 TrueSHE%. Toronto did their damage where they’d been doing their damage all season long, 5-on-5.
Then came the NLL Semi-Finals against the Buffalo Bandits. The Rock were unable to best the Bandits during the regular season, and the postseason was no different, as Buffalo swept them. Toronto only scored 12 goals across those two games; in the first one, they didn’t score a single even strength goal. Four ESG found the back of the net in game 2, but it was half of what the Bandits potted on the way to their six-goal comeback victory. Their meltdown in the fourth quarter of game 2 was an unceremonious end to the Rock’s incredible season, but at the time, it felt like you could chalk it up to the fact they played the Bandits, a team that seemingly has their number (the Rock have dropped their last seven contests against the Bandits).
Despite the losses, Dawick decided to run it back for the 2024-25 season. They were 15-3 for crying out loud and a monster out both doors. You pay attention to how it ended, but losing two games is a small sample size and shouldn’t trump the 19 games played before it. In a way, those two games were just noise, a firework surprisingly exploding right beside you — abrupt, loud, and worrying, but maybe not as bad once you got over the initial shock.
Photo Credit: Georgia Swarm
As a bit of an aside and a personal rule, I don’t put much stock in early season statistics. The Philadelphia Wings are currently averaging 17.0 GF/GAME; the Calgary Roughnecks scored on a third of the power play shifts; the Ottawa Black Bears have a single transition goal in two games. Those trends won’t continue (well, maybe Calgary will continue to be automatic 5-on-4; have you seen Dane Dobbie play?), as those teams start to get closer to league average in each category. Given enough time, all teams adjust towards the mean.
It was initially why I didn’t make much of the Rock’s 0-2 start after losing to the FireWolves. They’re banged up and ran into two hot goalies; shit happens. On paper (and healthy), this is still one of the best teams in the NLL. Rose may have been chased from the pipes in those games, but he was solid enough against Ottawa, and the defense — missing Kri and Harris — didn’t do him many favors against Albany. The offense only putting up nine goals combined in those two games is concerning, but teams go through funks — maybe the Rock O is finally experiencing one.
Three games in is still too small of a sample size to glean much valuable insights from about the Rock beyond what we naturally see watching them in those games. It’s an offensive unit boasting the same familiar names it had last season, with new additions like Brian Cameron and practice players Woods and Luke Robinson; the only notable departure was Dan Lintner not returning in free agency. This is an offense that’s played plenty together and produced.
Six games, however, is a significant sample size for an offense that’s played plenty together, and Schreiber missing the last two games due to injury doesn’t excuse the season-opening performance where the Rock didn’t score once in the first half, his only appearance this season.
Mathing it all up, the Rock have scored just 39 goals since April 27, an average of 6.5 GF/GAME. They’ve an 8.4 S% and 65.4 SOG% in those six games. Looking at their True production, their fast breaks are the only decent area, one in which they have a 14.9 E% but are still below league average (18.4%).
Those other categories are lachrymose — a 5.7 TrueESE% and 17 ESG in six games; a special teams unit with a 9.6 TruePPE% averaging a fraction over a PPG per game; a shorthanded unit with an 8.3 TrueSHE%, below league average. Looking at all four categories, it’s clear Toronto’s trying to outrun its settled and special teams production issues.
Through the course of a third of an NLL season, the Rock have shown their goal-scoring woes can’t be attributed to just injuries. They did enough to beat the Knighthawks way back in April but have continued to underproduce since then. There are serious flaws in what this offense has been doing, an inability to finish inside and reliance on outside shots that swing wide or hit the opposing netminder’s spoon or bread basket.
The defense may have wobbled here and there, but Rose and Co. have stuck to their systems and are doing all they can to keep the team in their contests. Toronto’s offense just hasn’t been close to matching their 2024-25 regular-season prowess. Last Saturday was their best performance in a while, as they burned Swarm defenders underneath and capitalized on the power play. If the referee called Woods’ no-goal in the fourth a goal and Swarm head coach Ed Comeau challenged it instead, that “inconclusive evidence” would’ve benefited the Rock and potentially earned them their first win.
If if’s and but’s were candy and nuts, oh, what a merry Christmas we’d have. The reality is that while Toronto’s offense performed better on Saturday, it still hasn’t been enough to snap this five-game losing streak, 60% of which matters this season.
This bye week for the Rock can’t have come at a better time. It gives them the opportunity to reset and do some soul-searching to try and correct their lack of production before the Rock play on Dec. 28. Getting healthy hopefully helps that, naturally reinforcing the team.
But health can only go so far to salve these woes, and as we discussed, those woes predate their mountain of injuries. The Rock are already behind the eight ball in the standings. Figuring out how to replicate the production from last season and getting out of this five-game funk is imperative for them to begin their uphill battle of making the 2025 NLL postseason.
Photo Credit: Georgia Swarm