NLL Insider

NLL Insider has learned from several sources since last Monday’s Arizona String Dispersal Draft, indicating that the likelihood of Dan Dawson, the draft’s first overall pick of the Boston Blazers, staying with the expansion Blazers is very unlikely.

The sources suggest that as many as three teams have presented offers to Blazers’ GM Tom Ryan as recently as this past weekend, most deals involving a combination of fairly high profile players and Entry Draft picks over the next two seasons.

It appears as if GM and Head Coach Bob Hamley of the Edmonton Rush is still extremely interested in acquiring Dawson, a player Hamley coached while the two were with the Sting franchise prior to Arizona’s fall-out just before the start of the 2008 season. Hamley was contacted by NLL Insider on Friday but had no comment on any trade proposals involving Dawson.

The same can be said of Ryan in Boston, who NLL Insider contacted earlier this weekend. Ryan, who dealt the team’s first overall Entry Draft pick last season prior to the franchise going on a one year hiatus, had no comment on what, if anything, had been offered to him for the services of Dawson.

It’s been known for a number of months now that Hamley would be pursuing Dawson aggressively, a key piece of Hamley’s two time NLL Champion’s Cup finalist teams in Arizona. In fact, Hamley presently has six former Sting players on the Rush’s current roster; Andy Secore, Greg Hinman, Lindsay Plunkett, Matt Brown, Chris McKay and Chris Seller. All six players were picked up either directly in last Monday’s draft or via a trade days later.

Reports in the Edmonton Sun at this time last week indicated that Hamley was offering the team’s second overall pick in the Sting Dispersal Draft, which would later become Secore, one of their first round picks in September’s front-heavy Entry Draft as well  as an unidentified player on the Rush’s current roster.

It’s unclear what currently might be on the table between Edmonton and Boston, but the likelihood that one or both of the Rush’s first round picks in the Entry Draft this year would be a pretty key piece of the deal.

One other team of the up to three teams trying to land Dawson appears to be the San Jose Stealth. A number of the sources NLL Insider spoke to say that Stealth keeper Anthony Cosmo would be one of the players likely involved in the potential trade.

Cosmo, a grade seven school teacher in the Mississauga, Ontario area, has been linked to off-season deals to Eastern based clubs before.

One team that doesn’t appear to be in the trade talks for Dawson is the Portland Lumberjax, the franchise that originally drafted Dawson in the initial Sting Dispersal Draft last fall and then lost the sniper’s services after the 2008 season closed up shop. Dawson’s rights reverted back to the on-the-shelf Sting once the season finished.

In related Lumberjax news, it appears that the franchise will be making an official announcment shortly on the re-signing of GM and Head Coach Derek Keenan. It’s unknown who Keenan’s assistants will be after the team released former assistant coaches, Jeremy Tallevi and Jeff McComb, in an attempt to make their lacrosse operations more efficient.

Also expected soon is an announcement from the Rochester Knighthawks in regards to their coaching situation, but it is not expected that current K’Hawks’ defender Regy Thorpe will be taking on that head coaching position as earlier reports indicated.

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