NLL Insider

 I’m actually on a pretty good run with my picks. I’ve been perfect for the last two weeks, 8-for-8.

So you know what that means? It means you should bet against me this week because I’m due for stinker.

This is a tough weekend for the picks. Not including the All-Star game on Sunday, there are five games  and three of them pit evenly matched teams. New York  at Toronto, San Jose at Philly, Colorado at Calgary could all go either way. Only Chicago at Minnesota and Rochester at Edmonton look like sure things - but even with those two games I’m picking one upset.

Friday

 New York Titans at The Toronto Rock. The last time these teams met was on January 26th in Toronto. New York totally dominated the first half as they built a 8-3 lead but Toronto took over the second half outscoring the Titans 11-2 for a 14-10 victory. Since then the Titans have played some good lacrosse that included victories over Rochester and Buffalo and the Rock have established themselves as one of the stingiest defences in the league - largely due to Bob Watson.

I’m interested to see what impact young Rory Smith has now that everybody has seen his bout with Snider. He’s a Toronto boy and will have a large family contingent on hand to see his Air Canada debut. Will we see Smith versus Campbell or even Smith versus Ladouceur? I spoke with him earlier this week and he told me that the coaching staff has made it very clear that they don’t want him looking for fights but I bet many of his teammates are thrilled to have his presence on the floor. I’m going with the home floor advantage for the Toronto Rock on this one but it won’t be easy.

Chicago at Minnesota. Even though the Swarm are on a three-game losing streak and are having some injury problems you have to figure that they will turn it around against the Shamrox. Chicago has traded away Brandon Miller and Lindsay Plunkett for Matt Roik and Brad Self. Self is still playing hockey in Germany so Chicago is actually weaker than before the trade. These teams play each other four times between now and the end of the season. There’s going to be at least one upset in those 4 games but it wont happen tonight. Take Minnesota here.

Colorado at Calgary. The last time these teams met in Calgary the Roughnecks surprised everybody by kicking  some Mammoth butt - even without Kelusky and Dietrich. Although the final score was 12-9, that was flattering to Colorado, which was losing 12-4 with 10 minutes left in the game before they made it look respectable. Gavin Prout and his Colorado teammates will not let that happen again but I’m still going with Captain Kelusky and Calgary as they are desperate to put some consistency in their game.

San Jose at Philly. The Wings, 6-1, are still thinking about their embarrassing loss to  Buffalo. San Jose is 4-1 on the road and coming off an impressive win Colorado. The Stealth are getting better each week and have the strong goaltending of Anthony Cosmo in the back end. Even with the loss to Buffalo, no team has stifled Iannucci, who still managed 4 goals against the Bandits. Tonight the Stealth will smother him and get enough timely goals from Doyle and the offence to give Philly their second loss in a row and their first home loss.

Rochester at Edmonton. This is my out-on-a-limb pick. Call it a hunch, call it Rochester’s continuation of an uninspired season, or call it the “Curse of Accursi” (hey that sounds good). Whatever you want to call it, I’m calling for the upset witnessed by all the NLL All-Stars in town for the All-Star weekend. Maybe it’s wishful thinking because I want Edmonton to join the playoff race, but I’m picking the Rush to frustrate the hell out of the Knighthawks and take this one.

What about the All-Star game? I’ll take the East and the over - no matter what the over under is. Unless we can get another nasty hit like Jalbert on Clark from 2003 in Colorado, this will be all scoring with ‘friendly’ hitting.

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