First Blood in the NLL

October 4th, 2008 by Paul Tutka

It’s a stat you usually only hear quoted in sports like soccer, hockey, football, maybe even baseball.

But in the high scoring, back-and-forth, barn burners lacrosse usually breeds, gotta say, never heard Shanny or Rob Faulds quote what team’s records are when they score first.

Does scoring first in box lacrosse matter?

Based on last year’s numbers in the NLL, more times than not, it actually did matter. Not overwhelmingly, but scoring first was a plus for most teams when trying to nail down that W in ‘08.

As a whole, the record for team’s scoring first versus not scoring first was 55-41 last season.

As you’ll see when the digits are broken down below, teams like Philadelphia, San Jose and New York pulled most of their wins from games when they took first blood. Only Buffalo and Minnesota had an above .500 record when they didn’t hit the back of the cage first, after them, everyone else either broke even or were well under that .500 mark.

Does scoring first, even in a high paced, lead changin’ sport like box lacrosse, give you any kinda mental edge over your opposition?

Take a look at the records below and judge for yourself. Straight after that, we also took a quick look at what players were the ones that were scoring that first goal for their team, with a few interesting names in there, including a rookie leading the entire NLL. The names below are the ones teams will want to keep a leash on when things are still sitting at double zeros.

Records When Scoring First

Philadelphia Wings 8-3 when scoring first (2-3 when not scoring first)
New York Titans 7-3 (3-3)
San Jose Stealth 7-3 (2-4)
Colorado Mammoth 4-2 (5-5)
Rochester Knighthawks 6-3 (2-5)
Buffalo Bandits 3-2 (7-4)
Calgary Roughnecks 3-3 (4-6)
Edmonton Rush 3-3 (1-9)
Minnesota Swarm 6-6 (4-0)
Portland Lumberjax 4-4 (2-6)
Toronto Rock 3-4 (4-5)
Chicago Shamrox 1-5 (5-5)

First Goal of Game Leaders

Craig Point 4 goals
Mike McLellan 3
Chad Culp 3
Athan Iannucci 3
Ryan Powell 3
Colin Doyle 3
Jeff Zywicki 3
Andy Secore 2
Mark Steenhuis 2
Brian Langtry 2
Gavin Prout 2
Casey Powell 2
Jason Crosbie 2
Merrick Thomson 2
John Grant 2
Scott Evans 2
Blaine Manning 2
Aaron Wilson 2
Josh Sanderson 2
Lewis Ratcliff 2