The Stealth Dragon

Do you know what you are looking at?  If you answered your shoes you got it wrong.  The correct answer is "Everyone else in the West!" and even "Everyone else in the NLL!".  Thanks to a 4-0 start the Washington Stealth have first place all to themselves.  That is not the only place they're sitting on top of the league.  The Stealth offense has averaged just over 15.25 goals per game, more than goal higher than the next closest team, Colin Doyle's Toronto Rock who are averaging 14.0 goals per game.  Defensively the Stealth are in second place with 10.25 goals against per game, behind the Toronto Rock who have incredibly allowed only 6.6 goals against per game in their three wins over the Boston Blazers (twice) and the Rochester Knighthawks. [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Up on Top"] [/caption] It feels great to be on top of things after the first four games of the 2010 season.  Saturday's early season rematch with the Colorado Mammoth, in Colorado, will be a good barometer for the Stealth.  The Mammoth won two games last week and their offense looks improved from their first two games (losses to the Stealth and Edmonton Rush).  But the defense is still the same defense that let the Stealth run around them and scored 17 goals on opening night.  So my prediction for Saturday's match up is Stealth 17 and the Mammoth 10.  The Mammoth are better on offense than they were but the Stealth are still just as good as they were on opening night, if not better after a few more games playing together. If you have the Altitude TV network you can watch the game live this Saturday January 30th at 6pm Pacific Time. Random NLL Notes: After watching the first two Stealth opponents, the Colorado Mammoth and Edmonton Rush, play themselves the night after the Rush lost to the Stealth I felt like I had just watched two bad defenses play against two mediocre offenses.  Two days later it was not all that surprising when Bob McMahon's was fired as the Mammoth head coach.  Mammoth President and GM Steve Govett (he's a dual Canadian and US citizen as well as the all time leading goal scorer at some university named Radford, scroll to the bottom for his resume for some unintentional comedy) replaced McMahon as the head coach and scared the Mammoth players in to two overtime wins against Minnesota and Philadelphia last weekend.  Some try to argue that the coach in the NLL doesn't really do that much to which I will present Chris Hall and Troy Cordingley as my counter arguments to that any day of the week.  Coach Hall has done masterful jobs in game planning and preparing the Stealth for all their games this season.  Troy Cordingley has taken his D system that has won the past two Mann Cups for Brampton and the NLL Championship in Calgary to Toronto and got that team off to a 3-0 start, meanwhile Calgary which has most all of it's players back from last season are now 1-2 without Cordingley.  So the immediate "success" of Govett is probably just the players playing for their jobs because the coach has been fired, so they're next if stuff isn't working. Even though they're 0-4, the Buffalo Bandits defense was a much greater challenge to the Stealth than anything the Mammoth or Rush showed during the first two games in Everett.  The Bandits consistently stepped out and pressured the ball and forced the Stealth in to sloppy passing for most of the first quarter until the Stealth forwards got their heads on straight and started focusing.  Without playing against the Bandits defense I do not think the Stealth could have gone in Calgary and won the following night if the Stealth forwards had only played against the low pressure, non-disruptive systems the Mammoth and Rush brought to the first two Stealth games of the season.  Thank you Buffalo. Matt Beers can fight and fight well. Garrett Billings in Toronto is on his way to being Colin Doyle's next Rookie of the Year.  No offense to Rhys Duch, but seeing Garrett Billings production with Colin leading the offense shows how influential Colin was in Rhys success in 2009.  Thankfully Rhys can stand on his own as well, as shown by his continued success last summer in Victoria and complete lack of a "Sophomore Slump" to start this season.  But I'm going to pick an alternate reality, the true interpretation of what we're seeing in Toronto is that Rhys Duch taught Colin Doyle how to trust in a rookie and Garrett Billings is the beneficiary of this.  Good work Rhys!  That is all you.

Wow, three of the first five picks belonged to the Stealth.  And we took two American field players and lost Luke Wiles.  Luke was a perfect compliment to Jeff Zywicki's game.  But, I think Peter Veltman can play that same role, especially since he knows he's not a rental player this year but on the team because the Stealth really want him.  We'll miss you Luke.  Good luck in Toronto, I'm glad you're not in the West. Here's what I see happening.  Paul Rabil plays outdoor for the Boston Cannons.  I believe the Stealth really wanted Daryl Veltman, Peter's brother, but couldn't get the #1 pick.  So maybe the Stealth picked up Rabil to package up to send to Boston to get the younger Veltman and unite the brothers.  The draft analysis on nllinsider.com made it sound like the New York Titans also had lots of interest in Rabil.  So maybe Rabil goes to New York and the Stealth can pick up Jarrett Park, I don't think Rabil is worth picking up a British Columbia player like Jordan Hall.  Either way I think it's 50/50 that Rabil actually belongs to the Stealth when the season starts. Now, this doesn't mean I don't want Rabil around at all.  He's a BEAST, having him in the Stealth line up would make the team more athletic.  It's just that Rabil wasn't on my radar because he's an American east coast player and they Stealth have committed to drafting guys that are willing to relocate to San Jose during the season.  So based on that, there is a either a trade already setup or Rabil is willing to relocate to SJ. The second Stealth pick was a young Canadian shooter named Rhys Duch.  His selection was not a surprise.  I was expecting Rhys and Curtis Manning to be the Stealth's picks at #2 and #3.  I don't know much about Rhys because he's been playing in BC and those games aren't shown on TV like the college or MLL games that Rabil's been playing in.  The only thing I've heard about Rhys since the draft is from the NLL forums on Wingszone.com where someone from BC is saying the Rhys is a whiny player who won't report to San Jose because he wasn't even willing to play for Langley in BC.  Rhys will hold out and only play with his boys in Calgary.  I think the guy who said that is an idiot.  If Langley and San Jose are too far away then how is Calgary not too far away?  I could totally be wrong, but I doubt GM Johnny Mouradian would draft a guy at #3 without even talking to him to see if he's willing to come play for your team. Rounding out the top 5 was Kevin Huntley of Johns Hopkins and the LA Riptide of the MLL.  Huntley is Canadian born and his father is the coach of the Philadelphia Wings.  Huntley is also a left sniper, so he's a good commodity to have around.  NLL Insider ranked Huntley as a top 10 prospect and figured he'd be around for Philly to select at #9 to unite father and son.  But it didn't work out that way, Huntley is now going to play all his pro ball in California.  OR he'll head out east to Philly in a trade.  Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone on the Philly roster the Stealth are interested in picking up.  The Wings did draft San Francisco Dragon Matt Lalli in the 4th or 5th round, which I think was a response to the Stealth picking Huntley in the 1st round.  But Lalli and Who from the Wings for Huntley (and maybe someone else in a package deal) is something I feel could happen, but I can't figure out any specifics. What has been constant this summer is that the Stealth are cleaning house to build a new roster for new coach Jeff Dowling.  From where I'm sitting it appears that there are some guys on the '08 Stealth roster that Dowling feels we don't need around to take the next step.  And the only step left to take is winning the NLL Championship.  The roster turn over is shocking.  A top 20 league scorer is gone.  The best goalie in the world is gone.  Two defenders who played in just about every game are gone.  Another lefty forward that's played his whole career and *lives in San Jose* is gone.  The amount of change the Stealth are making is scaring me.  I feel it'll take a year to work everything out and get the three rookies up to speed. My faith in the team isn't wavering, but I'm starting to lower my expectations until I see what the roster looks like on opening day.  I don't want a team that's being built to compete in 2010 when they already had the best record in the West in 2008. No matter what the Stealth end up doing with these picks, at least they're not the Colorado Mammoth who spent their one first round pick on an unproven field player Matt Danowski of Duke and New Jersey Pride.  (The Stealth did this with Ryan Boyle in '05 and it worked out well for one season, but then everyone figured him out and he has not been as stellar since).  I just love to bash the Mammoth.