NLL Insider

It’s a relatively quiet weekend in the NLL with only 5 games, including a rare Thursday night encounter in Edmonton tonight. With most players holding regular jobs there is always a chance that a key player might have to miss the game because the Thursday game means at least two days off work for the team travelling. I haven’t heard of any key players from Buffalo who won’t be playing tonight but it reminds me of a game that I worked for Roger’s Sportsnet a few years ago when Buffalo played at Calgary. One of the Buffalo players asked me not to mention his name too often on the telecast because he had called in sick at work and was concerned that his boss might find out what he was really doing. I won’t mention his name now but you can probably figure out who it was by the fact that it was pretty much impossible to honour his request. In fact like most nights of his career he was probably the most talked about player on the floor. 

Buffalo at Edmonton. 

Last week the Rush showed a lot of character by going into Denver and earning a win after a tough loss in Portland the previous night. Those types of victories are huge confidence builders with young teams. Darris Kilgour will not allow his Bandits to be over confident this weekend. He noted during that the Rush lost in overtime to the Calgary Roughnecks this season and Calgary plays a very similar style to Buffalo. The Bandits are not going to go undefeated all season and this could be the first loss if Edmonton continues to get great perfermanced from Ryan Benesch, Dan Teat and company. If I had some guts I would take Edmonton but until Buffalo loses I’m sticking with them every game.

Edmonton at San Jose.

I’ve said a few times that San Jose is better than their record. They have lost twice to the undefeated Roughnecks (once without their number one goalie Matt Roik) and were also beat by the Minnesota Swarm after travelling across the country one day following the a tough game against Calgary. They did win quite easily the last time they met a tired team (Rochester) and they have to win this game or they can start making plans for April – because they won’t be in the playoffs. Its time for San Jose to prove they are a good team. The Steath need a winning streak and it will have to start now. It won’t be easy as Edmonton showed us last week that they don’t take any nights off.  Colin Doyle will make sure San Jose gets the job done.

Portland at Boston.

I went back and forth on this one. Portland has competed every game so far and have  got excellent goaltending from Matt Disher. Boston is coming off a fantastic weekend with two wins against Philly. In their second victory they played the kind of defense that makes a coach gush with pride, holding the Wings to just 2 even strength goals.  Dan Dawson, Daryl Veltman and Anthony Cosmo had strong games and will be counted on to continue that level of play if Boston wants to earn a playoff spot in their first season. I’m interested in the battle of the sophomores. I picked Boston’s Matt Lyons as my breakout player of the year and he hasn’t disappointed .He had 5 goals in  his last game and is third on the team in scoring with 16 points in 4 games. But what about Portland’s Cory Conway?  He  leads the team with 25 points in 5 games.  It should be a great game and I’m taking the home team Boston to continue their winning streak.

Toronto at Rochester.

Forget about Rochester’s 0-4 record. Pat O’Toole and his teammates don’t like to lose to the Rock  and have never lost a regular season game to Toronto at Rochester. Paul Gait won’t have to pull any tricks out of the bag to motivate his boys. His biggest concern will be to squeeze some offence out of the quiet Knighthawk sticks. On the other hand this is the first chance for the Rock players to impress their new coach Jamie Batley. Many will be playing for floor future floor time and some will be playing for their jobs. Forget about the standings and the Power Rankings. This game will have the intensity of a playoff match and will be a war. I’m picking Toronto to win for their new coach.

New York at Colorado. Colorado plays their third consecutive home game and hope to avoid their third consecutive loss. If they lose you can bet that there will be some major changes in Denver. If you had looked at Colorado’s schedule before the season started, the last two games would have been the ones that you thought you could easily pencil in wins. Not many of us expected much from Portland and Edmonton was on the 2^nd half of back to back games on he road. This game never looked like an easy one as the Mammoth meet the New York Titans fresh off three victories. Casey Powell is on route to become the first American to win the scoring championship since the days when there were no Canadians playing and Ed Comeau has his team playing  with confidence. On top of their troubles the Mammoth have lost the services of their number one goaltender Gee Nash. Curtis Palidwor has been signed as a replacement and much like Nash, Palidwor can be sporadically bad but often spectacularly good.  I’m taking the Titans to win this behind another 8 plus points from Powell.

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