NLL Insider

In the NLL you’re pretty much expected to score when you’re on the power-play.

Two men-up, you better be scoring at least once. It’s the biggest gimmie in the game.

With the amount of penalties handed out these days, unfortunately, the power play has taken on a life of its own in today’s NLL, deciding games that should have been taken care of five-on-five. Shoot-arounds are meant for the pre-game not during 60 minutes of actual ball.

One current NLL head coach told us last week that the power-play was the boringest, least compelling, snoozer part of any game these days. He just hates it from an entertainment standpoint, and man does he ever have one helluva point.

Today we’re taking a quick look at what ball players score most of their goals in five-on-five situations, the ones that rely heavily on special teams, and what teams score even strength the most too. All digits are based on the 2008 season.

We chopped off all special teams goals, power-play and short handed included. Although shortie markers are hugely important and a helluva lot more rare and tough to post than man-up goals, today it’s just about 5v5.

We also only included guys that scored 15 or more goals last year, which actually ended up excluding Jason Crosbie, who was just under that mark but did 100% of his scoring when everyone was on the rug. Crosbie scored eleven goals last year.

We also didn’t just look at simply total goals scored, but instead broke guys goals down based on what percentage of their scoring came from five a side situations.

Take a look at the numbers below and then hit the boards and answer these two questions? How important is having the best even strength team in today’s NLL? Can a team compete in today’s game with just an average power play?

And actually, one more quick Q… How exciting do you find power-play situations in the NLL?

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