NLL Insider

A lot is being made of New York relying on their man-up and Portland leaning on the likes of Dan Dawson and Derek Malawsky for most of both team’s scoring. Coincidently those two teams are a combined 1-5 so far this year.

Hearing that would lead most to the conclusion that relying on either just your power player for goals or just one or two guys for a bulk of your scoring is not a good thing, unless you like being 1-5. Even without looking at the Titan’s or Jax’s records though, I would guess most of you would still probably have thought any other team woulda found themselves in a similar situation.

Well, unless you’re the Philly Wings.

The Wings are doing both, but still walkin’ around with a squeaky clean 3-0 record.

Although New York is killing the league in total team goals coming from man-up situations (51% of scoring coming from PP), the Wings aren’t that far off. The Wings are one of only three teams whose man-up markers make up a third of their total team scoring. The other one? Take a guess. The boys in plaid, righto.

And when you extract the top trio on each team in the league and see who leans on those three top scoring ballers for most of their scoring, you’d see that Philly has 2/3’s of their goals coming from their so far deadly threesome of Athan Iannucci, Jake Bergey and rook Merrick Thomson. Portland and yes the boys in the Big Apple round out the top tree, the Jax leaning on Dawson, Malawsky and Rayn Powell for 68% of their scoring and the Titans doing the same with Casey Powell, Mike McLellan and Jordan Hall.

Which leads me to my next question. If you can stay outta the bin against Philly and shut down at least say Bergey and Thomson, or hold those two to like a goal or two each, do you have a win in the bag against Philadelphia? Are the Wings putting too many eggs in one basket and just haven’t been punished for it yet? Although they’ve looked great in other areas both defensively and offensively, there’s no doubt their goals are coming in droves from the same guys and a good chunk also coming when they have an extra man on the rug.

At the same time, Dawson, who Portland is leaning on for almost a third of their total scoring so far this year, was relied on almost as much in Arizona last year. The Sting had Daws posting a quarter of their total offense, but still managed to make it all the way to the Champ’s Cup. Coincidently, Dawson is not only leading in that area this year, but was also the league leader in 07. But interestingly enough, during Zona’s post-season drive, Dawson was not only not the Sting’s leading goal scorer, that title went to Craig Conn, he also only made up a much lower 18% of total team scoring. The Sting’s offense was much more spread out in the playoffs versus the regular season, where they finished as the fourth ranked team in the West. Coincidence?

Anyways, some interesting scoring trends to say the least. Does it matter that most of your goals are coming from the same couple guys? Is it ok if your 5-on-5 is decent, cuz as long as you get those man-up chances, you’ll be scoring? Are this year’s Wings the exception to the trend? Talk it up on the boards for sure, cuz I’m not even 100% sure. Even though the numbers might say otherwise, I’m lovin’ what the Wings have thrown down so far this year and are dominating the only numbers that really matter, their overall record and the scoreboard.

Also, take a peak on the digits below which highlight most of what was chatted about above, but lookin’ at everyone in the L.

Rate This Story:

(8 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

 Loading ...