NLL Insider

With less than one week to go until the start of the season, the buzz about the Burnaby Lakers being knocked from their BC Junior A throne is building. Leading the charge? Matt Wilson and the Coquitlam Adanacs. A top defender with a punishing presence and an impressive lexicon of Junior A information, Wilson talks bouncing back from his knee injury, how he sees the standings shaping up, and whether or not there really is extra incentive to beat the Burnaby Lakers.

First and foremost, how is your knee doing?
My knee is good, really good. I tore my ACL in the last game of the regular season last year and it’s been about seven months since surgery. I’m playing with a brace right now, the doctors have told me to play with a brace but it’s also a mental thing for me–I’m a lot more comfortable knowing that I have some extra support there. I get chirped a lot about it but it’s definitely necessary.

You’re regarded as one of the top defenders in the league. Has there been anything in your game that you’ve been working to improve for this season?
I’ve mostly been focused on rehabbing my knee, but while rehabbing my knee I’ve been able to work on some other things, I’ve been in the gym working out a lot. I wouldn’t quite say it’s been a blessing in disguise because it’s never good to have surgery but it definitely got me to go into the gym and work-out, especially on my legs and my core and that’s important.

Do you have any specific goals for this season?
I guess for me it’s to be a good leader on the team and to set a good example. Do everything I can to make the team successful.

Do you have any favourite teams or favourite players to defend against?
I wouldn’t say I have favourite players to defend against. I like to play against the other teams’ top players because I feel like I have the ability to do that, in my opinion. I know they’re talented and I want to see if I’m talented enough to handle them.

I know it’s pretty early to be talking about standings, but if I asked you to predict the top three teams in the league this year what would you say?
I think I would say New West, Victoria and us, Coquitlam. No particular order. Victoria always puts good teams on the floor. [Cory] Conway has a year of NLL experience under his belt, [Cayle] Ratcliff has apparently been working really hard in the off season, and they are also returning quite a few other players from there team last year. It’s always tough playing them so we’re definitely looking forward to our first game with them. New West are a big team with a lot of talent, great goaltending and they also have a lot of experience. A lot of the guys on their team this year were also on the team that played in the Minto Cup last year so they will be tough to contend with.

How about a darkhorse?
I think Nanaimo is going to be pretty good this year. They’re young, well-coached and they get a lot of talent there.

What do you think it will be that will keep your team near the top of the league?
I think we have a lot of experience, we have great coaching, and we work hard on both ends of the floor.

Burnaby got hit hard this year, losing 12 players to graduation and having trouble getting imports. They’ve spent so long dominating BC junior A do you feel like there’s extra incentive to beat them this year?
Oh there’s definitely a lot of extra incentive. We play them in our first game in the regular season and everyone wants to beat them because we lost to them in the BC finals last year. We had some close games with them in the regular season and we were able to win a game in the playoffs against them, which hasn’t been done in a while. They’ve obviously been the class of British Columbia for the last decade or so, so there’s definitely incentive to beat them every time we play them. I still think they have a lot of experienced players there who have played in the league before but they did lose a lot of talent with some of the players who graduated.

How high are you guys aiming this year? Have you started to think about the Minto?
Well obviously in our minds we would be very disappointed if we didn’t find ourselves in the Minto Cup. That’s everyone’s goal on our team and everybody believes we have the team to get there this year.

Are there any teams from Ontario you can foresee possible match-ups with?
Six Nations, they’re always good and they still have a lot of talent. Cody Jamieson is there, Kent Squire-Hill, there’s just so much talent in Six Nations that obviously we know they’re going to be good this year. Angus Goodleaf went back east to play for them; he played for Burnaby last year. I don’t know what their goaltender situation is but we’ve seen him before. I’ve never seen Orangeville play or anything but from everything I’ve heard from other guys, Orangeville is a really hard-working team and they’re definitely going to be a contender in the east. I know they only lost one guy or something from their team last year so they’re going to be good.

Have you been able to see Joel Weber play at all yet?
Once, yes. He came to practice yesterday [Sunday]. He’s pretty unreal. He can throw the ball probably better than I can and he’s quick, really fast side-to-side in the net.

How about some of your other imports like Scott DeFrancesco?
Scotty’s awesome too. He’s quick, he’s got a rocket of a shot, he’s just a pure sniper. He can definitely put the ball in the net so I’m pretty impressed with Scott.

Could you give me a little scouting report on your own team?
Offensively obviously Scott is a sniper. Jarrett Davis is a really good ball player, he’s played with us his whole career in junior and he’s playing lacrosse in the States right now. Offensively we have a lot of talent, we’re pretty big, we’ve got a lot of big guys out there and with our offensive coaching we should be pretty successful on that end of the floor. We’re really big on the defensive end–big, mean, tough players. Matt Beers plays with me, he’s a young guy, he played last year. In the BC system you’re supposed to play intermediate but he’s been playing junior on and off since his first year of intermediate, so essentially this is his third year of junior lacrosse. He’s definitely one of the top defenders in the league. My room-mate Creighton Reid is a pretty good defender as well. And obviously Joel in net, I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind about how good Joel is.

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