NLL Insider

Behind the Scenes, Inside the Huddle, NLL

Stealth Behind the Scenes

NLL Insider will be posting blogs from Zach Heffner, a member of last year’s regular season Western Division champion San Jose Stealth squad, Zach has since started his own company, VERDICT Photography, and looks to promote the team and the sport through his photographs.

Zach joined the Stealth after a stint with the Chicago Shamrox and is currently a player with the San Francisco Dragons after putting in two seasons with the Chicago Machine. An NCAA National Champion while at the University of Virginia, Zach lists winning a bronze medal with the USA National Indoor Team at last years’ World Indoor Championships in Halifax, Nova Scotia as his top lacrosse moment.

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Inside the Huddle

Goaltenders: The Cup starts here

This week I’m going to provide some food for thought around the critical element of goaltending in the league. It’s next to impossible to ultimately win the Champion’s Cup without excellent goaltending, so let’s take a look at how some teams stack up in this department for the run to the Cup.

If you look at the NLL goaltender stats on Pointstreak.com, the goaltenders are primarily ranked according to their goals against average (GAA).

I prefer to rank them primarily according to their save percentage (SV%). A team with a weak defense can give up a lot of shots and ultimately a high number of goals. But even though the GAA number may be high, a goaltender can still have a very good SV% which, to me, is a more relevant indicator of the quality of the goalie.

Of the goalies who have played a significant number of minutes, Ken Montour of the Buffalo Bandits is easily the best tender to date in the league. He sports a spectacular .819 SV%, which is 41 percentage points better than his next closest competitor. His main goaltending partner Mike Thompson sits around 17^th in this group at .742 but Daniel Sams has tossed in 60 minutes of action at an unbelievable .882 clip. Buffalo has a good defense so if Montour continues to perform at his current pace, the Bandits should continue to flourish.

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Inside the Huddle

Looking Forward

Alright, enough of the technical analysis for now. The schedule is more or less halfway completed and it’s time to take stock of where every team sits in the standings. The trade deadline is looming and decisions will have to be made by many GMs based on whether they want to gamble on a serious shot at the Champion’s Cup or look to the future.

The West division is probably the easiest to analyze so let’s take a look at it first.

Colorado and San Jose are currently tied for first at 5-3 after the Stealth came away with a key road victory in the Pepsi Center on Saturday night. It was a critical loss for the Mammoth in terms of a division title given they now have only two home games remaining in their last eight and one of those is against Rochester. They also have to go through Buffalo and New York in the East division on the road.

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Inside the Huddle

Raggers and Chasers

I took in the Portland vs. Edmonton game at the Rose Garden on Saturday night. It had the potential to be a closely fought battle with the Rush playoff hopes very much on the line. With respect to this weekly piece, I focused on the specialty teams of raggers and chasers. If you look up the NLL special teams stats, you’ll notice they track power play percentage (PPPCT) and penalty kill percentage (PKPCT), along with short-hand-goals-against (SHGA) and short-handed-goals-for (SHGF). PPPCT and PKPCT relate to a team’s power play and short man, respectively, while the SHGF and SHGA relate to a team’s raggers and chasers respectively.

Raggers and chasers? What the heck are those you ask? Well, they are two special teams that can have a big impact on the outcome of any NLL game. The raggers are the players who handle the ball in their offensive end when they’re a man down (or men down). They either try to use up as much of the penalty time as possible (within the constraints of the 30 second shot clock) or try to score a short-handed-goal-for (SHGF). The chasers are the players who come on to the defensive end of the floor to check the raggers and either prevent a short-handed-goal-against (SHGA) or try to get the ball back for the power play.

Considering the relationship between the raggers and chasers, you can also do a quick plus/minus calculation to see how your team is faring in the raggers/chasers game.

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Inside the Huddle

The Faceoff

One of the key components of every NLL game that doesn’t prompt a great deal of discussion is the face-off. There are roughly 25-30 face-offs per game and each one of these presents the opportunity to gain a valuable possession for the offence. Simply put, in this game, you always want to have first chance at scoring whether it’s at the start of a quarter, after a goal by either team, or in overtime.

Of course the easiest way to gain an advantage in this facet of the game is to have a very good draw man. One only needs to take a quick glance at the stats to this point in the schedule to realize that Philadelphia’s Geoff Snider is dominating the category. He’s winning his face-offs at a monstrous .730 clip at this writing and the Wings just happen to be 5-0.

That face-off stat should obviously be bringing a big smile to the face of head coach Dave Huntley. Knowing that 3 out of 4 times there’s a face-off you’re going to be in possession of the ball is comforting news. And to make things even better, Snider’s back-up Peter Jacobs is winning at a .710 pace.

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Inside the Huddle

Pressure Defense

So far, in this series of articles, I’ve talked about: the two-man game; macro systems; the power play; the man down defense; and the “bench game.” This week, I’m going to discuss 5 on 5 pressure defense.

It seems we’re hearing a lot about teams playing aggressive, trapping, pressure D lately.  Over the past several years, many teams have utilized some form of pressure in their defensive schemes. There are a variety of methods and opportunities to apply pressure defense. It can be applied immediately in your attacking zone by your offense and/or your transition (T) players on a loss of possession. It can also be applied in the neutral zone (between the two face-off restraining lines), at half floor, or in your own defensive zone.

Teams generally pick and choose when and how they’re going to apply pressure D based on situations arising throughout a game. Among the reasons for applying pressure defense are: using it to try to force turnovers; changing the tempo of the game; taking advantage of the 10-second clearing rule; eating up shot clock time; or forcing the attacking team out of their rhythm or set offense. 

Let’s take a look at some of the pressure tactics used by NLL teams.

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Inside the Huddle

The Bench Game

For a full three quarters on Saturday night in Rochester, the Knighthawks and the Toronto Rock engaged in an old-fashioned, classic, defensive struggle. Both teams raced to and fro for 45 intense minutes featuring punishing defense (D) and brilliant goaltending. The score at the end of three quarters was 4-2 Rock.

Then, at the 47-second mark of the fourth quarter, John Grant Jr. (Junior) found himself with a breakaway on Rock goaltender Bob Watson. He cashed to make it 4-3 and you could sense the flood gates were about to open. They did. In a span of 2:42, the Hawks went from down 2 to up 2 at 6-4 and you knew the game was virtually over. Rochester went on to pump in near-record 9 goals in the quarter while cruising to an 11-4 victory. Clearly, Grant’s goal had triggered the avalanche that was to follow. But how did he get so open at such a critical point in the contest? 

The answer lies in the “bench game.”

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Inside the Huddle

Extra-man Offence, or the Power Play

Last week we took a look at the short-man or man-down defenses.  This week we’ll consider the power plays (PPs) or extra-man offences (EMOs). Power play is the traditional Canadian reference and extra-man offence the traditional American reference for the man-advantage or man-up situations. Both terminologies are used in the NLL.

The traditional EMO setup has a point man at the top, a left- and right-hand shooter and a left- and right-hand crease man. The point man is much like the point guard in basketball or the quarterback in football. Normally it is he who analyzes the defense, calls and triggers the plays and generally orchestrates the power play.

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Inside the Huddle

Man-Short, or Man-Down Defenses

Last week I talked about the macro systems that most teams use in today’s NLL. This week I’m going to begin discussing some of the micro systems that operate within the overlaid macro system templates.

Let’s start with the man-short defense (called the “short man” by most Canadian box players) or man-down defense (called MDD by most American field players). Players and coaches in the hybrid NLL use either terminology.

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Inside the Huddle

X’s and O’s: The Two-Man Game

Over the years, there’s been much discussion about the dominance of Canadian scorers in the NLL. Why do the Canadian offensive stars seem to have an advantage over their American counterparts? Why do the American NCAA field superstar scorers have so much trouble adapting to the indoor game? Why do the great All-America defensemen have difficulty stopping the best of the Canadian O guys? How come the Top 10 scorers in the league are guys with Canadian indoor heritage?

The answer is quite easy, actually. It’s all about what is known in indoor, or box lacrosse, as the two-man game. It’s experience.

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