NLL Insider

The 2009 NLL regular season is now over and many of the final results are pretty surprising when you look back a few months ago. Would you have believed that Buffalo would not finish in first after their dominating 5-0 start to this season. And what about Rochester making it to the playoffs after their ugly 0-4 start. Many of us thought that Boston would be better than your average expansion team but honestly did you imagine they could end with a 10-6 record, especially after losing their first 2 games of the year. In the West Calgary was the class of the division (and the league) from start to finish but it seemed like nobody wanted the last playoff spot.
Eight teams have made the playoffs. Are they the best 8 teams in the NLL? I don’t think so, but it doesn’t matter what I think because those eight teams are all ready to start the second NLL season. And the second season is the one that really counts. Check out the final Power rankings.

1 (1)	Calgary Roughnecks 12-4 Victory over Portland sends a message in case these teams meet again in the West final. Calgary has homefloor throughout the playoffs and if the NHL’s Flames don’t turn their series around (they’re down 2-0) the Roughnecks might be the only game in town.
2 (3)	New York Titans 10-6 Imagine the impact if Dan Dawson, Colin Doyle, John Tavares or Josh Sanderson had missed 3 regular season games for their respective teams. The Titans were without their MVP Casey Powell for three games and they still took first place. This team is good.
3 (2)	Buffalo Bandits 10-6 In the last 2 weeks the Bandits have lost to New York and Boston and given up what had once looked like a lock on first place. That’s not the way they wanted to head into the playoffs.
4 (4)	Boston Blazers 10-6 I know some will argue that Boston should be ahead of the Bandits after their dramatic OT victory at HSBC but they’ll get a chance to prove they are better soon enough when they meet in the Blazer’s first first playoff game.
5 (5)	Portland Lumberjax 9-7 Lost to the Roughnecks on Friday but they are already thinking about their upcoming playoff game against Colin Doyle and the San Jose Stealth.
6 (6)	San Jose Stealth 7-9 I’m sure Colin Doyle would have liked to break a few records in front of his old fans in Toronto but 111 points isn’t too shabby and he’s already thinking about the Portland game.
7 (7)	Philadelphia Wings 7-9 I still think the Wings are a better team than the Knighthawks but Rochester is headed to the playoffs. It didn’t help that Philly didn’t get a home game against the Knighthawks in their two meetings this year.
8 (8)	Rochester Knighthawks 7-9 Even though I’ve got them below the Wings, you have to give Rochester credit. They rebounded from an ugly 0-4 start to the season and they won they game they had to win against the Wings on Saturday.
9 (9)	Colorado Mammoth 7-9 Colorado came within a period of missing the playoffs for the first time. I don’t think there’s enough in the tank to upset Calgary, their playoff opponent.
10 (12)	Toronto Rock 6-10 Beat San Jose 15-11 to win their last game of the season but it meant nothing for both teams. Toronto was 4-3 in their last 7 games of the season terrible at times this season but too often lost very winnable games.
11(11)	Edmonton Rush 5-11 As it turned out, the Rush would have made the playoffs if they had won their last quarter of the season. Edmonton was close many times but just hasn’t learned how to be winners.
12 (10)	Minnesota Swarm 6-10 Lost 5 of their last 6 games to miss out on a very achievable playoff spot.

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