The National Lacrosse League’s Sharp Shooters

March 20th, 2009 by Paul Tutka

Mike McLellan, New York Titans

Inspired by a recent email from reader Jim Lewis, who pointed out what a fantastic (and accurate) season John Tavares was having, today’s Inside the Numbers segment is gonna take a closer look at who in the NLL is hitting the net (and keeper) and those that are missin’ the mark most nights.

After the jump, found out who this year’s most accurate snipers have been and which guys might wanna sharpen their dulled-down twigs.

We basically looked at two percentages when looking at this year’s most accurate and successful shooters.

Number one, the most obvious, their shooting percentage. Pretty self-explanitory. Pretty obvious.

And number two, we took a look at how many shots players took that actually hit the net/keeper (aka target), compared to how many go whizzin’ by the cage (on goal % below).

We also wanted to focus on the heavy hitters, so only included guys that have taken over 50 shots and have scored at least ten goals this year. And although we only included ten plus goal scorers in the “good” accuracy department, for the guys that have low percentages, there was no goal cut-off.

So this year’s top ball players when looking at their shooting percentage meshed with their on-goal shooting percentage…

Player	Team	Goals	Shots	On Goal	SH%	OG%
Mike McLellan	NYT	22	71	60	31%	85%
John Tavares	BUF	30	88	70	34%	80%
Curt Malawsky	CGY	16	74	67	22%	91%
Colin Doyle	SJS	23	106	91	22%	86%
Roger Vyse	BUF	20	57	41	35%	72%
Kasey Beirnes	TOR	17	62	49	27%	79%
Tom Johnson	SJS	12	53	43	23%	81%
Tracey Kelusky	CGY	14	82	69	17%	84%
Casey Powell	NYT	26	112	87	23%	78%
Josh Sanderson	CGY	20	94	74	21%	79%
Dane Dobbie	CGY	24	108	83	22%	77%
Pat Maddalena	NYT	22	102	79	22%	77%
Gay Bining	BOS	14	73	58	19%	79%
Peter Morgan	POR	16	69	52	23%	75%
Brenden Thenhaus	BOS	15	94	77	16%	82%

Mike McLellan, who got tons of praise for his work on the power-play and shooting accuracy last year, is showing he’s no pro-fluke, killing the percentage numbers again this year.

Also impressive from the numbers above are guys like Roger Vyse and Tom Johnson, two guys very much considered secondary threats on their teams, but both dominating the accuracy charts above a lot of the more high profile ball players on their squad.

Check out the guy’s that have had trouble connecting this year, below…

Player	Team	Goals	Shots	On Goal	SH%	OG%
Joe Walters	ROC	5	66	36	8%	55%
Ryan Boyle	NYT	8	104	58	8%	56%
Geoff Snider	PHI	6	69	39	9%	57%
Kyle Wailes	PHI	8	84	47	10%	56%
Gary Rosyski	COL	7	83	52	8%	63%
Ryan Ward	MIN	18	114	70	16%	61%
Paul Rabil	SJS	8	63	41	13%	65%
Kevin Ross	MIN	11	87	57	13%	66%
Jason Henhawk	ROC	9	65	42	14%	65%
Frank Resetarits	SJS	6	53	36	11%	68%
Chad Culp	MIN	9	77	52	12%	68%
Daryl Veltman	BOS	22	165	110	13%	67%
Mat Giles	PHI	16	107	70	15%	65%
Luke Wiles	TOR	20	146	98	14%	67%
Jeff Zywicki	SJS	21	132	87	16%	66%