NLL Power Rankings: Week 21
Every week during the 2022-23 National Lacrosse League season, The Lax Mag will publish updated NLL Power Rankings reflecting the previous week’s performances, as well as incorporating a team’s overall regular season rep, status, and success rate.
This week, we asked our Twitter followers who we should rank #1. Their response: Buffalo (42%), San Diego (29%), Toronto (18%) and Calgary (11%).
We also looked at the games each of those Top 4 teams, who are either #1 or #2 in their respective division, played against one another this year. Here are those results:
Buffalo Bandits 3-1
at Toronto 11-8W
at San Diego 7-6W (OT)
at Toronto 7-18L
vs. Toronto 11-10W
San Diego Seals 2-2
at Calgary 17-14W
at Calgary 10-14L
vs. Buffalo 6-7L (OT)
vs. Calgary 14-8W
Toronto Rock 2-2
vs. Buffalo 8-11L
at Calgary 11-10W (OT)
vs. Buffalo 18-7W
at Buffalo 10-11L
Calgary Roughnecks 1-3
vs. San Diego 14-17L
vs. San Diego 14-10W
vs. Toronto 10-11L (OT)
at San Diego 8-14L
So…
Buffalo Bandits 13-4 (4)
Last year Dhane Smith, Josh Byrne, Chase Fraser, Chris Cloutier, Kyle Buchanan and Tehoka Nanticoke played 17 games together while easily leading the league in team scoring. Their win over the Rock on Saturday night was the first time all six stars were on the floor together this season. The Bandits are healthy and will be a helluva lot to handle the rest of the way.
San Diego Seals 13-4 (3)
The Seals again pumped the breaks at a single straight L, last week getting by Las Vegas with relative ease after losing to Colorado. Unlike last year, when San Diego owned a concerning six-game losing streak late in the year, 2023’s Seals have responded with statement performances after four earlier losses. That’s actually kinda huge.
Toronto Rock 13-5 (1)
The Rock rarely allow as many as 60 shots, but have twice to the Bandits this year, both of those games resulting in losses, including this past weekend. Captain Challen Rogers registered his first hat-trick of the season while playing big minutes up front for the Rock. It’s the fourth time in Rogers’ career he’s had three in a regular season game. Get this, three of those four were against Buffalo. Rogers has one hatty in the playoffs too, against… the Bandits.
Calgary Roughnecks 13-5 (2)
Tyler Pace was on the team’s short term hold out list for the second time in as many away games, Calgary needing a big second half from their offense in order to squeeze out a 13-12 over Panther City last week. As often is the offensive case, the Roughnecks were led by Jesse King (3, 3) got good secondary scoring support from their forwards, and finished in transition too. And of course, Christian Del Bianco bagged another assist, his 19th of the season.
Colorado Mammoth 9-8 (5)
They completed a very Colorado-like comeback to force their game against Saskatchewan into OT (Eli McLaughlin’s super later natural hat-trick made that not-so-shockingly happen), but the Mammoth failed for a second time this year to win a fourth straight. A win in San Diego this Saturday would obviously be a nice bounce back heading into the playoffs. Although we didn’t include them in our top team record rundown at the top of this page, Colorado is 3-3 versus the four above them here, which includes Ws against everyone but Toronto, who they didn’t play this year.
Colorado Mammoth 3-3
vs. Calgary 9-8W
vs. San Diego 9-13L
at Calgary 9-13L
vs. Calgary 10-16L
at Buffalo 13-8W
vs. San Diego 15-14W
Rochester Knighthawks 10-7 (8)
It’s been about a month since a win would have clinched a playoff berth for Rochester, and although it took a while, the team virtually everyone had pegged as a postseason miss, well, they made it. In their win over the Swarm on Saturday, they got good spread-out scoring up top (versus relying too much on Connor Fields, which we concluded won’t work), Matt Gilray was strong in his two-way role (2G, 2A, 8LB), plus Rylan Hartley had one of his strongest starts of the season (46 saves, .821 SV%) . If they play like that (like they did through most of the first half of their season), Rochester will be a tough team to stop in, yep, the playoffs.
Georgia Swarm 8-9 (6)
Not having Andrew Kew in the lineup, a last-minute scratch, clearly isn’t ideal with the way he’s played this year, but Georgia got quantity & quality looks at the Knighthawks (outshot them 56 to 43), they just couldn’t keep up late in the game (Rochester outscored them 6-2 over the final 25ish minutes). After the run they’ve had, it’s kinda understandable, right? They host Halifax this weekend. Win and they’re in. Lose and their season ends once Saturday’s 60 minutes (unless there’s OT, which would be incredible) is up.
Panther City Lacrosse Club 10-8 (7)
Panther City was clearly the better team after two quarters, but the Roughnecks were too hard to contain over the next two periods, PCLC letting an important result slip away, 12-13. While Panther City struggled to secure Ws over the league’s stronger sides all season, like they did again last Friday night in Fort Worth, they did show they could compete with legit Cup contenders. If San Diego beats Colorado this Saturday, Panther City will get Calgary in the first round. If the results are the other way around, they’ll be in San Diego to open their first-ever postseason. They’re 0-4 against those two teams this year.
Halifax Thunderbirds 9-8 (9)
The Thunderbirds had their biggest crowd of the season (ever in fact: 10,008) and also had a one-game goal differential that looked similar to what we saw from them to start the season when Halifax owned New York 15-6 last week. As we mentioned in the Swarm’s spot above, if the T-Birds win in Georgia, they’ll qualify for the playoffs. A victory in GA and a Rochester loss to Philadelphia would get them to the #3 seed in the East.
Saskatchewan Rush 7-10 (11)
We said the vibe in Saskatoon couldn’t be overly positive after their postseason dreams recently died, but last week the mood on the floor after hometown (Warman, but close enough) kid Laine Hruska got his first NLL start + win between the pipes was pure positivity. Here are the goalies that have played for the Rush since the team parted ways with Evan Kirk: Adam Shute, Eric Penney, Cam Dunkerley, Peter Dubenski, Alex Buque and Hruska. That’s tied for the most goalies used in games over the past two years. Who’ll be Saskatchewan’s starter next year? Good question.
Philadelphia Wings 8-9 (10)
Entering the weekend, the Wings were still hopeful they could capture a playoff spot. By Saturday night that goal was gutted with the way things played out in non-Philly finishes. On Sunday, they needed OT to beat arguably this year’s worst team (10-9 over Albany). On paper, 2023’s edition of the Wings certainly seemed slightly better than last year’s roster, however, they made the playoffs in 2022. With an average age of 29 and change, as we noted a few weeks ago, Philadelphia was this season’s oldest NLL team.
Las Vegas Desert Dogs 5-12 (12)
Of the Desert Dogs’ five wins this year, four have happened at home, which is where they’ll end their expansion season this Saturday against the Rush. While none of their forwards are vying for the scoring crown, Jackson Suboch is a minor penalty shy of passing Vancouver’s Shawn Evan’s for the league lead. In fact, Suboch and Vegas teammate Emerson Clark averaged more PIMs per game than any other players this year. Suboch is second there too with 7:42 of minutes served on average in games, Clark the NLL leader at 9:24.
Vancouver Warriors 4-13 (13)
Will Reid Bowering get consideration for DPOTY? His name doesn’t seem to come up in these types of convos much, but at 210LB and 27CTO and 22BLKs, his resume reads finalist at worst. Bowering has also been on Vancouver’s IR for the past three weeks, which won’t help his chances since many voters make picks based on their more-recent memory than season-long story. After 20 years of awarding a DPOTY, never has a player from British Columbia, which Bowering is (Coquitlam), been named the NLL’s top defenseman. The only player outside of Ontario to win it was Taylor Wray (Edmonton, Alberta), tying for the trophy with Cam Woods in 2004. Since the league first started confirming three finalists for year-end awards in 2014, guess how many BC (or any other province or state for that matter) players have been in the running? Zero.
New York Riptide 4-13 (14)
The Riptide led last week’s game in Halifax for all of 18 seconds, the Thunderbirds immediately storming back and laying a wallop on New York on the scoreboard (6-15L), punishing them on the PP (3/4) and grinding them down after Connor Kearnan tussled and was then tossed for defending teammate Jeff Teat with his fists.
Albany FireWolves 3-14 (15)
Like the New York/Halifax game, a never-ending line of (not always deserving) bodies in the sin bin made the Albany/Philadelphia game difficult for either team to get much flow going until the fourth quarter, which had just two penalties called (50 minutes were handed out over the first 45). Also, Brent Mitchell is a tough SOB.