Some comments on tonight’s game:

• Watson was a little shaky at the beginning but settled down, and made some very nice stops in the second half. Cosmo was great all night. It seemed that Toronto kept trying to go five-hole on him all night, but there just wasn’t a five-hole. That’s probably why they asked for the goalie equipment check.
• Most games this season (the home games, anyway), the Rock have started out strong and then slowed down. They played a full 60 strong minutes in the last game, and tonight, the Rock’s best quarter was the third, but the 4th was pretty strong too. Overall, other than refusing to shoot the damn ball at times, they played pretty well.
• Like Rochester’s Mac Allen in the last game, another bad moustache. “Boston penalty to #12, Jon Durno, two minutes for unruly facial hair.”
• After the last goal, I was reminded of the 2001 NLL Championship game in Toronto. The other team (Philadelphia in 2001, Boston tonight) is up by two goals, but the Rock is putting on great pressure. Toronto scores a goal to bring them within one, and I immediately look at the clock to see how much time is left. In 2001, about 1.3 seconds. Tonight, 0.9. Just not enough time and the Rock lose by one.
• Nice to see Cosmo come out and congratulate Dan Ladouceur.
• Jason Clark is new to the Rock, and obviously hasn’t read the Rock 2009 playbook. A couple of times when he got the ball near the net, he turned and shot at the net. He doesn’t yet know that the way Rock do things in 2009 is to pass the ball around ten or fifteen times, ignoring decent shooting opportunities, before (a) shooting directly at the goalie’s chest, (b) dropping a pass, or (c) shooting and missing the net completely. I’m sure by the next game, he will have cleaned up his act a little and gotten with the program.
• There were a couple of goal reviews, all of which were quite obvious on the replay. I thought for sure that McGlone was in the crease on his goal, but replay showed clearly that he was still in the air when the ball went in.
• Rob Marshall is trying so hard to be Steve Toll, but he just can’t score. I like him though, he works hard.
• Cosmo twice stopped play when his team needed it by having the trainer come out to look at his equipment. Another skill he learned from Whipper while he was in Toronto.

The Rock won only their second home game of the year tonight, 16-10 over the Rochester Knighthawks. Watson played a great game in net, the D was solid, and most importantly, the boys played well for 60 minutes. There have been a number of games this year where they played great in the first half, or even the first three quarters, and then mailed in the rest and lost. Nice to see them play the whole game. Some other notes:

• Rochester’s Mac Allen should have been sent to the penalty box just for that moustache.
• Pat O’Toole did not have his best game ever. His brother was sitting a couple of rows in front of us and didn’t look too happy. He left at half-time and didn’t come back.
• Note to Rock shooters: We’re all really impressed with your accuracy, but hitting the goalie square in the middle of the chest does not help your team win games. In actual fact, you don’t want to hit the goalie at all.
• The Rock scored two shorthanded goals on the same penalty.
• One fight, Bonterre vs. Campbell. The look on Campbell’s face throughout the fight was “Oh crap, why the hell did I do this?” and with good reason – that Bonterre is one big fella. Only two punches were thrown in the fight, both by Bonterre, and it looked like he either broke or knocked out one of Campbell’s teeth with one of them.
• Seriously though, that moustache. Damn.
• What’s with Steve Dietrich leaving the field before the victory lap? I would have thought that was the first thing they told you when you became a Rock player.
• There was one goal called back after a review, but the review shouldn’t have been necessary. The shooter’s foot was definitely in the crease before the shot. Perhaps the ref was at a bad angle and couldn’t see that, but I could see it quite clearly from my seat. The review only took a minute, so it must have been pretty obvious to the ref as well after watching the replay.

Let’s not get too excited though, Toronto is now 4-7 and still in last place in the East. They have five games left to play, including one against league leaders Calgary and one against Boston who are second in the east. But the other three are all against teams with equal or worse records than the Rock (Edmonton, Philadelphia and San Jose), so we should be able to win at least two of those. The Rock beat Boston in OT a couple of weeks ago, so 3-2 or even 4-1 over the last 5 games is not out of the question. Rochester has played much better over the last few weeks than the first few (though that’s not hard – over the first few weeks they looked terrible), and Philadelphia has Iannucci back now, so things, as always, will be tight in the east.

If the Rock want to see the playoffs, they will have to keep up their strong play (for four quarters per game) and keep their fate in their own hands, rather than playing badly and just hoping that someone else plays worse.

We’re halfway through the NLL season, and it’s time to look over my pre-season predictions and celebrate the fact that I was 100% bang-on with all of my predictions. Well, almost.

OK, not almost. I got a few right, but in some cases, I’m not even close. In the East, it’s hard to get Buffalo wrong, I had New York contending, and Rochester near the bottom, but that’s about it. Philly didn’t weather the loss of Iannucci very well at all, and my fairly dire prediction for Toronto turned out to be really optimistic. I didn’t have high hopes for Boston, but they’ve turned out to be much stronger than I thought. I did say in my original prediction that they would be stronger than your average expansion team, but for some reason that didn’t get reflected in how I viewed the standings.

In the West, Minnesota hasn’t been the powerhouse I thought they might be, and Portland is not sucking. I got Calgary and Colorado pretty much right, and Edmonton is no surprise.

But in the East, if you swap Boston and Philadelphia in the standings, you get something very close to my prediction. In the West, if you swap Minnesota and Portland, same thing.

Note for the record that I made end-of-season predictions, not mid-season. There’s lots of lacrosse still to be played.

Former NLL player Ted Jenner wrote a column on nllinsider.com yesterday about steroids and how nobody in the NLL is taking them. Before I say anything else, let me say that I have no proof, evidence, or even the slightest hint that any NLL player is on steroids, HGH, or any other banned or controlled substance. It wouldn’t surprise me if the percentage of juiced NLL players is far less than the other major sports. But the reasons that Jenner gives for believing this are either naïve or blindly optimistic.

I don’t think it would surprise anyone if 70% of all NFL players were taking some sort of performance enhancing drug. The number of baseball players taking them has dropped dramatically in the last few years, but Alex Rodriguez is one of 104 players who have apparently tested positive during 2003, and nobody believes that number has dropped to zero. I have heard no steroid stats about basketball, but that’s a sport for mutants anyway, so nobody’s going to look twice at a six-foot-ten two-hundred-eighty pound man with raisin-sized testicles. The NHL, for some reason, is convinced that their sport is clean, and that seems to be what Jenner is saying about the NLL. The question for the hockey and lacrosse people is: what makes your sports so different from the others?

Sure, being a big bulky mass of muscle (see Mark McGwire or the “after” picture of Barry Bonds) would not help you as a hockey or lacrosse player. But that’s not what steroids always do. They don’t make you bigger; they allow you to train harder and recover faster. Some allow you to retain muscle while losing fat. There is no reason to believe that lacrosse players wouldn’t benefit from some use of these drugs.

From Jenner’s article:

There is no room for steroids in the ‘little brother of war’. It goes against everything the game stands for… But more importantly it’s about having that sense of Zen and being in a sort of Nirvana like state. A clouded mind can only hamper a lacrosse player’s ability to play at the top of his game.

First off, the whole “it goes against everything the game stands for” is nice to say, but a little idealistic. Does he honestly think that every single one of the 250+ NLL players has such a deep respect for the history and traditions of the sport that they wouldn’t consider taking a substance that could make them perform better? This is almost laughable. I’m sure that’s true for some, but for others, lacrosse is simply a fun sport that they are good at. If there’s a way for them to get better, illegal or not, some are going to jump at that chance. There have been frightening surveys of young athletes preparing and hoping to make the Olympics — when asked if they would consider taking a drug that would guarantee them a gold medal but would also kill them within five years, the majority of athletes surveyed said they would take it. It’s kind of a meaningless survey, since no such gold-medal-guaranteeing drug exists, but the thought processes of these athletes is clear.

Secondly, to my knowledge (and I could be wrong here), HGH and steroids don’t have any kind of “clouding” effect on the mind. We’re not talking about weed or LSD here. And give me a break with the “Zen” / “Nirvana” crap.

I think the one saving grace for the NLL here is that they don’t make a ton of money, so the incentive to abuse your body or risk your health is far less than if you were making millions as a football or baseball player. Someone who wouldn’t normally dream of taking steroids might change his mind for the possibility of a ten million dollar contract. The highest paid players in the NLL make about $25K a year. But there are high school students who are not athletes who take steroids simply to look good for the girls. These guys are highly competitive by nature, so who knows what lengths they will go to to give themselves or their team a slight competitive edge?

I’m not saying that NLL players are juiced, and I honestly think the majority of them aren’t. I believe that the vast majority are simply great athletes and work hard to take care of their bodies without drugs. But honestly, it is highly unlikely that that there are no NLL players taking steroids. Jenner’s deluding himself if he thinks otherwise.

Update to prove my point: The other day (May 2010), a Google search hit this article. The search was “what roids would i take to become better at lacrosse“.

A couple of years ago, the Toronto Raptors hired Bryan Colangelo as their new president and general manager. Colangelo was a successful GM in Phoenix, and is widely respected throughout the league. He replaced Rob Babcock, a rookie GM who did a lousy job with the Raptors and made them into a laughing stock. Hiring Colangelo was seen as a very important move for the Raptors, showing that they were willing to spend the money to hire the best person to rebuild the team, regardless of how much it cost.

This past month, the Leafs hired Brian Burke as their new president and general manager. Burke was a successful GM in Anaheim, and is widely respected throughout the league. Ignoring Cliff Fletcher’s brief stint as interim GM, Burke replaced John Ferguson, Jr., a rookie GM who did a lousy job with the Leafs and made them into a laughing stock. Hiring Burke was a seen as a very important move for the Leafs, showing that they were willing to spend the money to hire the best person to rebuild the team, regardless of how much it cost. (It also showed that they were willing to give Burke complete control over the hockey operations, something that Ferguson did not have.)

The Toronto Rock currently have Mike Kloepfer as general manager. This is his first such job in the NLL (i.e. he was a rookie GM when hired), and he has done a lousy job with the Rock, turning them into a laughing stock. Superstar Colin Doyle was traded away because he didn’t get along with rookie coach Glenn Clark — this before Clark had ever coached an NLL game. In return, the Rock got Ryan Benesch, who went on to be named Rookie of the Year in 2007. But Benesch was inexplicably benched for the last two games of 2008 and the first two games of 2009, and then traded to Edmonton for draft picks. Once in Edmonton, Benesch admitted that he had also had disagreements with Clark, and so he was also shipped off. The inescapable conclusion: “Disagree with Coach Clark, and you are outta here. We got rid of Doyle and Benesch for doing it, so don’t think your job is safe, regardless of how good you are.” The Rock are in trouble if Luke Wiles or Lewis Ratcliff (or, God forbid, Bob Watson) have issues with Clark. I wonder if Rock management has considered the possibility that if both Doyle and Benesch had issues with Clark, maybe it’s Clark who should have been fired?

See a pattern here? In all three cases, a rookie GM took over and screwed up the team. In two of those cases, he was then fired and replaced with someone who is successful and respected. And the guy’s name was Br[i|y]an. We can only hope that the Rock will follow the same pattern (even though they’re not owned by MLSE like the other two). So who’s the Rock’s Br[i|y]an?

The best GMs in the league right now would have to be Darris Kilgour and Marty O’Neill. Darris (who’s a helluva coach as well) is likely a Bandit for life, and I can’t imagine the Rock being able to lure him away from Buffalo, so count him out. Marty O’Neill has been named GM of the year for two straight years. He’s the original GM of the Minnesota Swarm, and they have improved every year. It’s likely that O’Neill won’t want to leave Minnesota while the Swarm are still improving, so until they’ve peaked he’s not likely going anywhere. Now, it’s possible that having my vote to win the west this year is not what O’Neill would consider to be the aforementioned peak, so he is probably out until at least the end of this season.

Would the Rock follow their fellow Toronto teams and grab a name from the past (Cliff Fletcher, Don Matthews, Cito Gaston)? There are three former Rock GMs currently in the NLL: Ed Comeau in New York, Johnny Mouradian in San Jose, and Terry Sanderson, who’s an assistant coach in Calgary. It’s unlikely they’d go back to Sanderson (who’d immediately trade for Josh again) since they only fired him two seasons ago and replaced him with the current guy. Comeau was never really given a chance — after only six games, he was fired and replaced with Sanderson. Mouradian is the only real possibility here, since he is the only one who wasn’t fired; he left to become the San Jose GM and coach. He’s since been named GM of the year and inducted into the NLL Hall of Fame.

Other possibilities:

• there is a Brian that has experience in the NLL — Brian Silcott. He’s never been a GM, but he has been an NLL and MLL player and MLL head coach, and he is the VP of the Portland LumberJax.
• Brian’s brother Kurt Silcott was the GM of the both the Buffalo Bandits and the Calgary Roughnecks. He’s currently employed by the Knighthawks, though not as their GM.
• Jamie Batley was GM and head coach of the Chicago Shamrox, and has also been the coach of the Colorado Mammoth.
• Chris Hall was the head coach of the Calgary Roughnecks for several years, though he’s never been a GM.

I know! I have the solution. It’s foolproof. Hire Whoopi Goldberg and have her channel the spirit of the late Les Bartley. She’d have to change her name to Brian first.

Update: Less than four hours after I posted this, the Rock have fired Glenn Clark and hired Jamie Batley as head coach. No mention of replacing the GM, and no mention of what’s happening to assistant coach Jim Veltman.

The Rock made another stupid trade today. 2006 2007 Rookie of the Year Ryan Benesch, who the Rock received in the Colin Doyle trade, and solid defender Derek Suddons were sent to the Edmonton Rush for a couple of draft picks. Benesch was benched for the last two games of last season and the first two of this season, but during the off-season, Rock GM Mike Kloepfer was quoted as saying that there was no problem with Benesch, and he was an important part of the Rock’s future. Guess not.

I don’t understand this move at all. First off, Benesch had a great rookie year (did I mention he was Rookie of the Year?) and his numbers did drop last year, but it’s not like they fell off substantially. He was still the third leading scorer on the team. Good defenders are never flashy and don’t put up big numbers, but Suddons was one of the better defenders on the team. And yet all the Rock get in return are two draft picks? Granted, next year’s draft is said to be one of the strongest ever, but still, you never know what you’re going to get with draft picks. And now, what do the Rock have to show for getting rid of Colin Doyle (who, incidentally was recently ranked number one on NLLInsider.com’s top 50 players in the NLL)? Chad Thompson, Cam Woods (traded for Kevin Fines) and a few draft picks. Thompson is decent and Woods is a very good defender, but I’d take Doyle over them any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I didn’t have a problem with the Wilson/Wiles/Hoar trade this past off-season, but after the Doyle/Benesch one, this one ranks right up there with the dumbest trades in Rock history.

Since I posted my predictions of the NLL East and West divisions, there have been a few changes in the league. The team rosters have been released, a number of players have announced that they will not play in 2009, but most importantly the Chicago Shamrox have ceased to exist, and their players scattered to the four winds in the umpteenth NLL dispersal draft. Here are my updates to my previous comments:

East

Toronto

All the rumours I’ve read about Craig Conn say that he’ll be ready for action mid-January, so me might miss the first two or maybe three games. If he’s fully recovered and as good as he can be, he’s a big addition for the Rock. The Rock also picked up Bill McGlone from Chicago, and I know nothing about him. He had 40 points in 16 games in 2007, which is hardly MVP-worthy but pretty decent, though his production dropped by 50% in 2008. Goaltending is still a concern. I watched the first game of the season, and the Rock’s offense looked pretty solid, even without Conn.

Buffalo

They’ve lost Brett Bucktooth, possibly for the year, and I forgot that they will now have Sean Greenhalgh, who missed all of last year.

Rochester

So much for “not many changes”. Grant is still gone, but so now is Scott Evans, and the Gaits reunite once again as Gary’s twin brother Paul is the new head coach. As far as I know, Paul has zero pro lacrosse coaching experience, so that will be interesting.

Philadelphia

Athan Iannucci had surgery in the off-season, and from what I heard, was supposed to be out for a couple of games at most. Now there are rumours that he should be back mid-season, and I’ve read at least once that he may be out for the entire season. Losing the reigning scoring champ and league MVP is a pretty big blow.

Also Peter Jacobs retired.

Boston

They were going to be a pretty decent expansion team anyway, and now adding former Goalie of the Year Anthony Cosmo makes them even better. Jake Bergey chose to sit out the year rather than play with someone other than the Wings. I think this is odd, considering the Wings have twice left Bergey unprotected in expansion drafts, and he was chosen by Boston each time. The first time he was traded back to the Wings, this time he decides to sit out. Perhaps the Boston GM shoud have given Bergey a phone call before picking him?

Chicago

Ummm, gone.

Prediction

Losing Iannucci is major, so Philly is no longer my pick to win the division. I’m a little more optimistic on Toronto and a little less on Rochester. Chicago was last anyway, so that doesn’t really affect anything. Boston got better, but I don’t think they improved enough to put them into the playoffs. End result:

1. Buffalo
2. Philadelphia
3. New York
4. Toronto
5. Rochester
6. Boston

West

Calgary

One thing I missed that’s different about 2009 for the Roughies is the return of captain Tracey Kelusky, who missed half of last season. Shawn Cable is not on the roster, but he only played 7 games last year (for 5 points), so that’s not much of a loss points-wise. Avery was released, so it’s only Campbell and King in goal.

San Jose

Much-hyped rookie Paul Rabil has been signed, so add one to the list of potential offensive stars on the Stealth.

Portland

The only change here is that Dallas Eliuk has now officially retired. No big surprise, and he wasn’t going to be playing anyway.

Prediction

No changes.

…and the Rock are tied for first overall! And that’s after the game! A few thoughts about the game:

• Great that we could watch it for free through nll.com!
• The video quality wasn’t any worse than the $7 B2 games from last year, I didn’t think. Not bad in a small window, but not really watchable full-screen for any length of time.
• Nice to see the Rock offense spread around — hat-tricks by Manning, Biernes, Wiles, and Ratcliffe. McGlone’s goal was very nice, and Manning’s seeing-eye goal to win it was nice too. Crosbie with 6 assists, Ratcliffe with 5, Wiles with 4.
• No Craig Conn. No big surprise.
• More of a surprise: no Ryan Benesch. He was benched at the end of last year, but Mike Kloepfer said during the off-season that there’s no problem with Benesch and that he’s a big part of the Rock’s future. Then he doesn’t play the opener. An upcoming trade, perhaps?

OK, this is getting ridiculous. There’s a news report saying that the owner of the Chicago Shamrox is trying to sell the team, and they might fold (as early as this week) which would require yet another dispersal draft. Is anyone else getting tired of this? The last time an NLL season began with exactly the same teams as the previous year (in the same cities) was 1993. Here’s what’s happened since:

• 1994: Removed Pittsburgh
• 1995: Added Rochester, removed Detroit
• 1996: Added Charlotte
• 1997: Removed Charlotte
• 1998: Added Ontario and Syracuse, removed Boston
• 1999: Ontario moved to Toronto
• 2000: Added Albany, Baltimore moved to Pittsburgh
• 2001: Pittsburgh moved to Washington, Syracuse moved to Ottawa, added Columbus
• 2002: Added New Jersey, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver
• 2003: Washington moved to Colorado, removed Montreal
• 2004: New Jersey moved to Anaheim, Albany moved to San Jose, Columbus moved to Arizona, removed New York and Ottawa
• 2005: Added Minnesota, removed Vancouver
• 2006: Added Edmonton and Portland, removed Anaheim
• 2007: Added New York and Chicago
• 2008: Removed Arizona
• 2009: Added Boston, removed Chicago?

Sometimes franchises fail because lacrosse just didn’t sell in that city (Ottawa, Anaheim). Sometimes they fail because of corrupt or incompetent ownership (Vancouver). In the case of Arizona, it was some mystery reason that made no sense — they shut down operations because the season was cancelled, but then the season was resurrected two weeks later. Arizona management announced that they had already shut everything down and couldn’t restart it in time (though every other team managed it), so they’d just sit out 2008 and return in 2009. Of course they didn’t return at all, so it sounds to me like they used the season cancellation as an excuse to fold up operations since they weren’t making much money. This is too bad (particularly for Arizona fans), since they had a very good team that made the finals twice in three years. The Chicago thing sounds like another mystery reason — their owners say that it’s just too difficult to manage the team in Chicago from their offices in Atlanta and LA. Mmmmmmkay. Never heard of phones? Email? Video conferencing? Hell, hire someone who lives in Chicago that can run things.

What the hell ever happened to due diligence, not only on the part of NLL ownership groups, but on the part of the NLL itself?

Apparently the Chicago owner announced that he wanted to sell the team during the middle of last season, which means that less than two seasons after he bought an expansion franchise, he’s trying to sell it. Did he not consider the “difficulty” of running a team from a thousand miles away before spending $3 million to buy an expansion franchise? Did the NLL not ask him how he intended to run the team from a thousand miles away?

Twenty-one NLL teams have folded or moved since the league was formed in 1987. Of those, four only lasted a single season. Compare that to the NHL, where a total of eighteen teams have folded or moved since 1917. Three cities (Pittsburgh, Washington, and New Jersey) have had NLL teams fail twice, and the New York Titans are threatening to make it four. Does this sound like a good league to purchase a franchise in?

Having said that, the Toronto, Colorado, Calgary, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Rochester franchises are all healthy. I don’t know about Edmonton, Minnesota, Portland, or San Jose, and I haven’t heard too much lately in the way of negative rumours about those four. I really hope that the late 90’s and early 2000’s were a kind of experimental phase for the NLL, where they tried lots of new markets, many of which failed. Now that they have a core of seven or eight franchises that are doing well and are unlikely to fold, perhaps we’ll see a little more stability.

I did my analysis of the NLL East two weeks ago, so now I’ll do the NLL west. I realized after I posted the east review that I should probably have waited for the rosters to be announced. I know about the major trades and such, but there are always players that are released and free agents signed that either aren’t announced or are announced quietly, so I’m partially going by last year’s rosters. Once the rosters are announced, I’ll look things over and post updates if necessary.

Calgary Roughnecks

2009 will be Calgary’s first full season with Josh Sanderson. Sanderson joins an already potent offensive group with Kelusky, Toth, Ranger, Cable, and Curt Malawsky, and they also signed Kyle Goundrey. The Roughnecks went 8-10 last year including the playoffs, but 4-2 with Sanderson in the lineup. Shooter is an impact player who will definitely have a positive impact on the ‘necks. The loss of veteran Steve Dietrich won’t make too much of a difference, since he played less than Pat Campbell last year anyway. The Roughnecks have both Ryan Avery and Matt King, both decent backups to Campbell.

Colorado Mammoth

In the past, trading Gary Gait away would be considered a major move for any team, but it’s almost a non-issue for the Mammoth since he’s been retired for three years. Actually, losing Gait is a plus for the Mammoth, since they picked up Andrew Potter and two first round draft picks from the Knighthawks essentially for nothing. Gee Nash is a top 5 goalie in the NLL and now has Andrew Leyshon backing him up. Gary Rosyski joins Gavin Prout, Dan Carey, and the always fun to watch Brian Langtry on the offense. This franchise has been at or near the top of the pack since they were in Washington, so it would be a mistake to count them out.

Edmonton Rush

The people who sew the names on the back of Edmonton Rush jerseys have really been earning their money in the past year. They made five trades in March alone last year (four on trade deadline day), and have made eight more since the season ended. In are veteran goalie Steve Dietrich, Spencer Martin, Cam Bergman, Andrew Biers, and Lindsay Plunkett, and out are Brendan Thenhaus, Kurtis Wagar, Matt King, Kyle Goundrey, Ben Prepchuk, and Dan Stroup. They also traded Troy Bonterre, but signed former Rock Tim O’Brien to play the same goon role. I’m surprised they released Stroup and losing Prepchuk will hurt as well. They also lost Mike Accursi who played part of last year with the Rush. Goaltending looks solid with Dietrich and Palidwor, but that’s a lot of offense to lose, especially for a team that was 4-11 and last place overall last year. Barring yet more trades, I don’t see the Rush contending anytime soon.

San Jose Stealth

Big changes for the Stealth! Former goaltender of the year Anthony Cosmo is gone, as are Gary Rosyski, Luke Wiles, Paul Dawson and a bunch of others. In are Peter Veltman and Matt Roik and a bunch of young kids. Colin Doyle posted his opinions on his blog after week 1 of training camp; he didn’t say whether they’d be better or worse, but he did say they’d be “bigger and a little more athletic”, and that the offense will “have a different flavor to it”. Not sure what he means by that exactly. Lots of the defenders are American rookies, and American lacrosse players tend to start with field lacrosse and learn box later. As Doyle says, “the learning curve will take some time”. With this many changes to the roster and this many American rookies, I don’t see the Stealth repeating as Western division champs.

Minnesota Swarm

The Swarm move from the East to the West division, and might be poised to take over the west. Goalie Nick Patterson showed he was the real deal last year, Craig Point was Rookie of the Year, and Ryan Cousins was Defensive Player of the year. The Swarm was third in the NLL in scoring last year, and had five players over 50 points, all of whom are returning. If the sophomore jinx doesn’t hit Point like it hit the previous ROTY, Ryan Benesch, I see the Swarm being a major player in the west.

Portland LumberJax

The LumberJax won the division in their first season, and then sucked rocks in their second season. Last year, they were pretty ordinary in the regular season, just squeaking into the playoffs, where they caught fire and went to the Championship game. Given all that, I have no idea how to predict what the Jax will do this year. The Jax lost Dan Dawson to Boston, and with all due respect to Brodie Merrill, he was their franchise player. Future Hall of Famer Dallas Eliuk has retired (or at least won’t be playing this coming year — there are rumours that he has not retired and may play in 2010, but he’s 44 now so I doubt that), but he wasn’t their starting goalie last year anyway. They did sign Dan Stroup and traded for defender Brad MacDonald, but the loss of Dawson might just push the LumberJax back down into “sucks rocks” territory.

Summary

New kids on the Western block Minnesota should take it. San Jose won’t repeat, but will still make the playoffs. Calgary and Colorado will be there too, as always, but there might be a pretty big gap between fourth place and fifth, with Portland and Edmonton finishing out of the playoffs.

Prediction:

1. Minnesota
2. Calgary
3. Colorado
4. San Jose
5. Portland
6. Edmonton

Update: After Chicago vanished and the rosters were released, I updated my predictions.