Sheathed Wings
How bad has the Wings 6-game skid been?
Photo Credit: Heather Barry/Philadelphia Wings
At the time of this article’s publishing, it’s been 61 days since the Philadelphia Wings last won an NLL game.
Six consecutive losses, outscored by 19, averaging 9.3 GF/GAME and 12.5 GA/GAME — the only reason the Wings aren’t at the bottom of the power rankings are because the Desert Dogs exist.
Unlike Las Vegas, Philadelphia was one of the top contenders to start this season. They were 5-2 and boasted one of the top two most productive offenses in the NLL and had two MVP-caliber players in Mitch Jones and Joe Resetarits. Now, they’re reminiscent of last season’s 6-12 team.
It’s hard not to see similarities between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 iterations of the Wings — two of the best forwards in the game and above average goaltending that can’t get consistency out the front door and a back end that let’s the goalie get shelled.
But the issues aren’t necessarily the same season to season. The Wings roster experienced one of the highest levels of turnover during the offseason, losing one of their better forwards and their top two defenders to free agency and trading their underrated goalie. They brought in a young above-average netminder and plenty of Panther City LC to bolster both sides of the floor and part of the bench.
The offseason focus seemed two-pronged: Get Brennan O’Neill with the first overall draft pick and improve the defense and transition game.
For seven games in the 2024-25 NLL regular season, general manager Paul Day’s offseason work bore the desired fruit.
The Wings started the 2024-25 campaign 5-2 with a +11 goal differential. Their defense hadn’t improved as much as needed, but it didn’t really matter considering the offense was blistering opponents. Their 18.3 TrueESE% and 30.9 TruePPE% were the highest in those categories at the time — yes, higher than the unstoppable Buffalo Bandits. Speaking of the Bandits, the Wings may have lost that matchup 19-14, but they put up 14 against a Bandits team that had one of the best defenses in the NLL up to that point in the season. The Wings may have been averaging 13.0 GA/GAME, but as the old adage goes, defense offense wins championships.
Something broke in the team when they faced the Halifax Thunderbirds on Feb. 8, losing that game 14-10 and allowing 8 transition goals against (9 if you count the empty netter, which I don’t).
Photo Credit: Heather Barry/Philadelphia Wings
The Wings settled offensive production nosedived after that game. They tried to outrun the Thunderbirds in the rematch — and did — but Halifax was content to let Philadelphia outscore them by one more transition goal and take advantage of the copious power play chances the Wings kept giving them.
Things haven’t been the same for Philadelphia since, and while their losing streak started a weekend before against the Rochester Knighthawks, their woes seemed to kick into overdrive with that loss to Halifax. It’s worth looking at the stats for those games and trying to pinpoint exactly what’s gone wrong.
Wings True O/D % in 6-Game Losing Streak
It’s late when I’m writing this, the gym’s been killer this week, I’m sore and grumpy and need an antagonist for this piece. I’m imagining someone who offers stupid opinions about how the Wings captain having everyone huddle up at the goal before the second half starts is “leadership” and not something literally every team does in every game.
That guy who’s totally not real is making stupid arguments like, “Then they shouldn’t have traded Holden Cattoni if the offense started to go downhill.” A) Cattoni was on this team when that downhill trend started, and his omission from the lineup hasn’t made things better or worse, and B) Cattoni was most productive on the power play, which increased for a bit during this skid and only started to drop in the most recent game — that drop is called a “small sample size,” and you shouldn’t read too much into it.
Cattoni’s trade indicates a few things about the team. Maybe the left side was a bit crowded. Jones was getting his points quarterbacking that quarter of the floor, but O’Neill’s development has been astonishing this season, and he and Cattoni had similar roles on the left side, albeit Cattoni with a much more powerful outside shot. Cattoni’s absence means more touches for the No. 1 overall draft pick and captain Blaze Riorden. Addition by subtraction and all that jazz.
The imaginary dumb ass is back with more stupid arguments. “Scott Dominey getting hurt and being out for the season meant the Wings transition obviously took a hit.” There’s a veneer of merit in that point, as his placement on the season-ending Injured Reserve list coincides with the Wings’ losing streak, but the Wings TrueFBE% during Dominey’s play was 11.3%; it’s 11.5% in his absence. And while Dominey was having arguably the best season of his NLL career, I wouldn’t say his defense was great, and one player does not make an entire team’s transition.
Day deserves credit here. When the fast break production and defensive issues seemed like they would tip the whole ship over, he brought in three defenders via trade — Mitch de Snoo, Chris Corbeil, and Shane Simpson. Simpson never seemed to fit in with the Desert Dogs, and his production noticeably took a hit while there, going from Transition Player of the Year finalist to Player on a Team. He hasn’t potted the pill for Philly yet, but it’s noticeable how much more comfortable he looks pushing the pace from D to O. de Snoo and Corbeil have provided that transition production with three goals between them, and their defensive chops have seemed better here than in Toronto, albeit a small sample size.
All that said, the defense isn’t really the issue — it’s not great, but it’s better than it was during the 5-2 part of the season. During their win streak, the Wings defense had a TrueESE%, PKE%, and FBE% of 12.9%, 19.2%, and 17.2%, respectively. With Dominey out and the D unit adding in new veterans, those percentages are 10.6%, 18.9%, and 20.3%, and the last one suffered an eight-spot against the best single-game transition performance by a team since I started this whole project.
Three’s the magic number; what else have you got, imagined hater of the Wings (which in Philly sports fandom is also known as being a Philadelphia sports fan)? “It’s Nick Damude’s fault! He plays bad! Day never should’ve traded Higgy!”
Photo Credit: Heather Barry/Philadelphia Wings
To be fair, I’ve heard this opinion from some media colleagues of mine, and I’m firmly opposed to this argument. In fact, let’s play a stupid game. Which one’s Nick Damude?
Player A
12.13 GAA | .791 Sv% | 746:54 min. | 58.2 SA/60
Player B
12.58 GAA | .789 Sv% | 739:13 min. | 59.7 SA/60
If you flipped a coin and guessed Player A, well…
That’s Zach Higgins, Damude’s predecessor, and his numbers from the 6-12 Wings season. Player B’s Damude. Notice how similar the two are statistically? Hell, Damude’s facing more rubber per 60 than Higgins did at the end of his Wings tenure.
Damude’s working so damn hard and being so damn good that he has a healthy GSAA despite a rough GAA and rougher record. It’s 6.96, the fourth highest in that statistical category in the NLL. If you had anyone that’s worse than Damude in net instead — and there are plenty of current NLL goalies that aren’t as good as he is — then imagine how much worse this season could be for the Wings. (Side note, let’s not pretend the exact same thing is happening to Higgins up in Ottawa, where he’s been the backbone for a team that can’t get its offensive act together and the defense in front of him has regressed with every loss.)
Let’s not forget that graph above where the defense’s TrueESE% has remained relatively flat over the last six games. This Wings defense has improved as the season’s gone along, getting more comfortable in front of Damude. But the D unit also is what it has been and probably will be for the foreseeable future. I don’t care who you throw in net behind this Philly defense; they’re getting shelled and probably not performing near as well as Damude has this season.
Also, Damude’s 26 and one of the six best goalies in the NLL. Just…man, chill with blaming the goalie for everything, especially when he’s as good as Damude is and is producing results despite the odds stacked against him.
“…Face-offs!” I don’t care about face-offs. The Wings traded Trevor Baptiste to San Diego with a passive aggressive tweet. Baptistes don’t grow on trees, they weren’t going to be able to replace him, and the Wings were bad with him winning every draw anyways. Nate Fehr and Tyler Burton are doing their best.
Photo Credit: Heather Barry/Philadelphia Wings
The Wings offense is clearly the issue; the book’s out on them.
Halifax ran them so hard into the ground that Philadelphia tried to put it in reverse in the next week but forgot how to win 5-on-5 (the team as a whole forgot where the bench was considering how often players put themselves in the penalty box). Their top-heavy production is Bandits-eque, but teams are content to focus on Resetarits and Jones and let the ancillary scoring be a blind squirrel, broken clock, mud thrown at a wall — whatever idiom floats your boat and gets across the point that the other five Philly forwards aren’t inspiring fear right now. They can be dangerous and have taken over games before in their pro careers, but two of them have only done that outdoors, and the other three aren’t exactly lighting the lamp regularly this season — Riorden, Sam Leclair, and Phil Caputo collectively average 3.83 GF/GAME (compared to Jones and Resetarits 4.62).
I’m reminded of what Day told me after the Wings beat the Georgia Swarm last season, keeping their playoff hopes flickering a week longer. “The big challenge this week was we actually left our offense on their own and said, ‘You’ve got to fix this. We’re not doing any more video or analytics; you’ve got to play.’” This iteration of the Wings doesn’t lack for veteran forwards, and at 5-8 and with the postseason window slamming shut in their faces, it needs to figure it out again like they did last season and get it to last beyond one game.
Otherwise, it’ll be another disappointing season in the City of Brotherly Love.