Clutch Kings: Clooch so clutch
#12 Chris Cloutier, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Ben Green)
Last week, our top two Clutch Kings went toe-to-toe in one of this year’s most electric games when Week 2 chart-topper Connor Kearnan’s New York Riptide bumped Week 1 leader Blaze Riorden and the Philadelphia Wings in a 13-12 thriller.
Both collected clutch-countdown points to push further ahead of the pack.
This week, the two money ballers found themselves in (separate) extremely close contests, again. In fact, both were involved in games that needed an extra frame to be decided. Shockingly, neither collected a single Clutch King point over 60+ minutes of mayhem.
With that said, Kearnan & Riorden held such a commanding clutch lead, they still sit #1 & #2 today.
While they came up empty in the money-goal grabs, last week still had some significant game-sealing snipes.
Dan Dawson, Toronto Rock (Photo: Ryan McCullough)
Three players so far this season have scored two game-winning goals: Chris Cloutier, Eli McLaughlin and Dan Dawson. All three secured their second last weekend, however, Cloutier’s was easily the most spectacular, icing the game in OT during Buffalo’s 18-17 barnburner against New York.
Cloutier sits reasonably high on our leaderboard below, but believe it or not, he’s scored just three goals that have registered. In addition to his OT blast in Week 9, he also scored a fourth period even-strength clincher against Rochester, plus a less dramatic go-ahead goal in that same game. Prior to this year, Cloutier had single game winners in two previous seasons with the Bandits. Amongst all of Buffalo’s big-name goal getters, only teammate Josh Byrne is ahead of Cloutier in our clutch tally. So far this year, Cloutier has clearly been quality over quantity for the undefeated Banditos.
McLaughlin, however, has been a GWG regular throughout his career. During his previous six seasons with the Colorado Mammoth, McLaughlin netted 12 game winners with a single-season high of 4 in 2019. He sits just outside of our Week 9 leaderboard below.
Meanwhile Dawson, who had scored 21 game-winning goals previous to the current campaign, has been a regular in that stat column for most of his history-making career. Of Dawson’s 8 goals this year, 50% have registered in Clutch Kings as either a game-tying, go-ahead or game-winning goal.
In comparison, here are the NLL’s current Top 10 goal scorers, their regular-goal total, their clutch-goal total (GTG, GAG or GWG), plus the clutch-goal percentage. Only Kearnan and Byrne come close to Dawson’s high-end percentage.
1. Dane Dobbie (19/4/21%)
2. Connor Kearnan (17/8/47%)
T3. Lyle Thompson (15/5/33%)
T3. Tom Schreiber (15/4/27%)
T5. Ryan Lee (14/3/21%)
T5. Wes Berg (14/5/36%)
T5. Robert Church (14/5/36%)
T5 Ben McIntosh (14/4/29%)
T9. Kevin Crowley (13/3/23%)
T9. Corey Small (13/3/23%)
T9. Josh Byrne (13/6/46%)
While Dawson may not be scoring at the same rate he did during his prime, the Rock vet is still seemingly proving significantly valuable with his clutch touch for Toronto this year.
Dawson is 4th and Cloutier 12th in the updated TLM Clutch Kings. Both are only tied for 44th in the league’s regular goal-scoring rundown.
Also, correction from previous weeks. Thomas Hoggarth had been credited with an extra OT winner that he hadn’t actually scored. We subtracted it if you’re wondering why he sank a bit below. Sorry :)
While the Clutch Kings scoring system can be found under out Top 20, for a more detailed breakdown of how our Clutch Kings are calculated, see a full explanation in our opening edition.
NLL Clutch Kings: Week 9
CKs Rank. Player (NLL Rank), Team, CKs Points (GTG/GAG/GWG)
1. Connor Kearnan (2), New York, 14.00 (6/1/1)
2. Blaze Riorden (T26), Philadelphia, 12.25 (1/3/1)
3. Austin Staats (T18), San Diego, 11.00 (4/2/1)
4. Dan Dawson (T44), Toronto, 11.00 (1/1/2)
5. Ben McIntosh (T5), Philadelphia, 10.50 (0/4/0)
6. Brett Hickey (T12), Philadelphia, 10.25 (2/2/1)
7. Josh Byrne (T9), Buffalo, 10.00 (1/5/0)
T8. Lyle Thompson (T3), Georgia, 9.00 (4/0/1)
T8. Matt Rambo (T12), Philadelphia, 9.00 (2/1/1)
T8. Patrick Dodds (T36), Panther City, 9.00 (2/0/1)*
T8. Stephen Leblanc (T88), Halifax, 9.00 (0/1/1)
12. Chris Cloutier (T44), Buffalo, 8.50 (0/1/2)
13. Dane Dobbie (1), San Diego, 8.25 (2/2/1)
14. Wes Berg (T5), San Diego, 8.00 (0/4/1)
T15. Andrew Kew (T21), Albany, 7.50 (2/3/0)
T15. Thomas Hoggarth (T44), Rochester, 7.50 (0/1/1)
17. Robert Church (T5), Saskatchewan, 7.25 (3/2/0)
18. Zed Williams (T77), Colorado, 7.00 (1/1/0)
19. Connor Fields (T12), Buffalo, 6.50 (1/2/0)
T20. Holden Cattoni (T12), Rochester, 6.50 (2/3/0)
T20. Kiel Matisz (T65), Philadelphia, 6.50 (0/2/1)
T20. Sam Leclair (T57), Colorado, 6.50 (1/1/1)*
*Rookie
Scoring System
First 3 Quarters (GTG/GAG/GWG)
Even-Strength Goal: 1.00/1.50/2.00
Power-Play Goal: 0.50/0.75/1.00
Short-Handed Goal: 2.00/3.00/4.00
4th Quarter (GTG/GAG/GWG)
Even-Strength Goal: 2.00/3.00/4.00
Power-Play Goal: 1.00/1.50/2.00
Short-Handed Goal: 4.00/6.00/8.00
Overtime (GWG)
Even-Strength Goal: 6.00
Power-Play Goal: 3.00
Short-Handed Goal: 12.00