NLL Insider

Well first off, since I mentioned it in the Thumbs last week, it appears as if this year’s super tight regular season has also set the record for most games being decided in OT too (not including playoff games).

This past weekend’s OT winners by Calgary and Portland marked the 12th and 13th games going past four periods of regulation play, pushing 08’s 13 OT games past the 12 we saw in 2006. Plus we still have one week to go.

Pretty cool, and even though I’m sick of hearing about it, it just continues to show how tight and spread-out this season has been. A bit more on that later (in the Thumbs Down sec).

Thumbs Up

Dawson and Merrill
The twin towers (I guess that could actually be a number of guys on that team, but whatever) have been beyond clutch at either end of the floor for the Jax during this recent stretch. Dawson’s nine points, including the big helper on the Jax’s OT game winner, gave him another huge helping of clutch touches (see The Money Ballers on Wednesday), while Brodie’s tenacious work on the D side, which saw him pick up 13 loosies (coincidently his 13th game this year where he’s hit double LB digits) and the game winner at the 3:52 mark in OT against the Stealth, sealed the deal while the boys clinched a post-season birth.

Matt Vinc
Vino had another massive weekend that will definitely get him some love for keeper of the year hardware in a couple weeks when the votes come into the league offices. He held both Chicago and Philly to single digit scoring (yes, the same high scoring Wings team that previously to running into Vino on the weekend had never been held to single digits this year)in two huge wins over the weekend for the Titans. I’ve been calling him the dark horse for the GOY nod for the last month plus, but with a slick showing this coming weekend against Rochester, think he might end up being a lotta people’s fave. If you’re still asking yourself if Matt Vinc has been able to transition from junior to the pros, your answer is, f*** yeah he has!!

Mark Steenhuis
After posting double zeros on the score-sheet for the first time in over a year, coincidently in a brutal loss to Rochester just over a week back, Steenhuis came back in rock star fashion when the Bandits put the boots to the previously surging Chicago Shamrox. And get this, Steenhuis’ third period game winning goal against the Rox is not only the St. Kitts stud’s third game winner this year, it’s also the seventh game winning goals he’s had his name penciled down for on the Bandit’s score-sheet. That means of Buffalo’s nine wins this year, Steenhuis has either scored or setup the game winning goal in seven of those W’s. Not even Nooch can lay claim to that figure this year.

Jamie Shewchuk
Not only did Shewchuk score me major points in my fantasy league this past weekend, apparently he helped out the Mammoth a bit too. Shewchuk scored two four goal games while Colorado totally swept the Rush under the rug this weekend in a home-and-home that definitely got the Mammoth’s slumping O back on the right track. Shewchuk also now sits at 60 points, seven more than what he threw-down in his impressive rookie season last year, that’s with a game in hand and only 15 probable starts in 08 due to a suspension. Not bad for a guy some GM’s told me, on draft day two years ago, was too small to be an impact player past playing for a star studded Buranby team.

Tracey Kelusky
Tough year for TK this year due to some injury issues, but damn has he looked good since coming back to the Necks’ starting roster. Kelusky had arguably his best game of the 08 campaign in the Rock win, which saw Tracey put the boys from the East on ice with an insane OT winner. Can only imagine what he’s got planned for the post-season.

Thumbs Down

Philadelphia O
It’s no secret that the Wings second half has been just a fraction as pretty as their first half was. As mentioned above, this past weekend’s loss to New York was the first time Philly has been held to under ten goals in 08, and for a free wheeling, up tempo team like Philly, that’s pretty bad (especially when you factor in how important the game was it happened in). They’ve gone from an average of close to 16 goals per game in their first eight to barely averaging 12 over their last seven. Not surprisingly, their overall record tells the same story. 7-1 to start and 2-5 over that same last seven game span. What will they muster up against a pretty decent D in TO next week?

Edmonton O
Some key losses on D (Glaves & Crashley)were met with an equally massive loss on O when the Rush were without Lindsay Plunkett for both of their meetings against the Mammoth this past weekend. None-the-less, their four goals for in their first meeting during week 17 was worse than anything we saw during that initial 0-6 run, and even though they doubled up on that number at home on Saturday night, it wasn’t even close to enough to hang with the Mammoth. Their man-up went a pretty rough 2 for 9 which definitely didn’t help their cause either. With one game left on the docket, a stare-down with Calgary, you can bet the boys will give ‘er all she’s got in their last dance of the year.

Toronto clutch scoring
Although the Rock have a few individuals that rank pretty high on The Money Ballers (ie Manning, Benesch [yes the same Benesch who didn’t play against Calgary that’s been just outside of The Money Ballers leader-board all year] and before being dealt, Sanderson), they’ve come up miserably as a team in clutch situations this year. The Rock finished the year 0-3 in OT games, ultimately costing them a playoff spot in 08. And although they sported one of the best keepers and D units anywhere in the league, they were 1-7 in games when they allowed the opposition to score in double digits. With the run-and-gun, full court press style of ball that is today’s NLL, I think you’ve gotta be able to sport an O that can hang when the going gets tough and the back-and-forth high scoring battles go down (not so much a knock on the players that make up the O, but more on how that O was handled from start to finish… odd might be the best way to describe it).

Records for the rest of the league are below when they’ve allowed the team on the other side of the court to score more than nine goals on them…

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