The Stealth Dragon

Last Friday nights' lacrosse game was a very rough defeat to arguably the best team in the league. Despite the Stealth holding a 12-10 lead more than half way through the 4th quarter the Wings woke up and put their typical 4th quarter smack down on their opponent, scoring 5 goals in just 4 minutes to make a 12-10 game a 12-15 game. The Stealth did their best to keep Athan Iannucci quiet during the game, but he broke loose two times for quick two goals spurts, finishing with 4 on the night. His long, long stretches of quiet time were interrupted by those quick explosions that really get the Philly crowd in to the game. After thinking about it, the game came down to one play. Nooch's second goal of the game which he scored 7 seconds after his first goal. Something happened in that scoring sequence that made Anthony Cosmo instantly lose his cool and he started punching Nooch in what turned in a one sided fight as Nooch didn't really know if we could even hit the goalie back. The real travesty of the fight is that Eric Martin jumps in the fight to 'help' Cosmo and he automatically gets ejected for being the 3rd man in a fight. It was a bum deal, Meat really should have know better. His heart was in the right spot by defending his goalie, but it was the wrong time and place to do it and it cost the team dearly. His absence was possibly the deciding factor late in the game when he could have been out there on the field slowing down the Wings offense when they started rolling. All the other defenders did a good job, but Meat's efforts truly are not replaceable. Thankfully this was just a regular season game so while the Stealt loss combined with Colorado's win in Calgary means we're no longer tied for first place we're still in the playoffs and still positioned to run through the West in the playoffs. The only team we haven't beaten is Portland who the Stealth haven't had the opportunity to pick on yet, but will three times in April. I believe we are now on a collision course to return to Philly in the playoffs and show them what we learned from playing them last week. Tim Booth did a commendable job, but we should pull a Buffalo and drop back on the faceoffs to a settled defense. If another team does this and beats the Wings then Darris Kilgour needs to get some recognition as a coaching genius to identify a way to win by losing draws. The quick goals Philly scored on draws were the scoring difference in the game. If they had been prevented it could have moved the outcome to the Stealth's favor. Now the Stealth can return home for the first time since February 9th, and I can return to a hopefully sunny California for an afternoon of sitting in an arena before heading right back to the airport. Having watched the Wings play the Stealth and previously the Mammoth, I can hardly wait until April 11th when I get to see the Wings in person as they smash up the Portland Lumberjax. It is going to be quiet a show.

Friday night the Stealth go to Philadelphia to take on the upstart Wings and their high octane offense lead by MVP candidate Athan Iannucci. Nooch has been Michael Jordan like this season. He's the league's leading goal scorer, the defense knows that he is going to score, but it doesn't matter what they do, he gets his goals. If the Stealth were to lose this game but hold Nooch to one goal I think that would be a good victory in itself. Since the Stealth are going to win and hold Nooch to one goal it is going to be like two wins for one. In the Wings last outing they were torn apart by the Buffalo Bandits. Buffalo conceded face-offs to Geoff Snider the entire game and instead of coming out of draws in unsettled situations the immediately dropped back to a settled defense and disrupted the Wings offense. This game was also the first time all season the Wings had to play two games in one weekend and they may have been fatigued. Their usual game style, as I saw when they played the Mammoth on Altitude, is fast fast fast with a big helping of near full court pressure. This doesn't lend itself to multi-game weekends, but that isn't case this time around. The Stealth on the other hand have won three in a row thanks to an offense that is hitting their end of season form and it's not even April yet. The Stealth offense is playing great and the defense has been equally effective the past two games, only giving up 8 goals in both matches. In between the offense and defense lies the transition, and transition is where the the Wings destroyed the Mammoth and the Stealth have to prevent the Wings from winning the game. The Stealth have a better roster compared to the Mammoth to match up with the Wings. The Stealth are young, American and ready to run. I've said it before and I'll say it again, as long as the guys on offense get off the floor in time our young defense can get back and cutoff Nooch's fast breaks the Stealth won't have much to worry about. Friday night is forward AJ Shannon and Brendan Miller's first game as a Wing after being traded from Edmonton and Chicago two weeks ago. The Wings were very active the past couple weeks leading up to next weeks trade deadline. They mainly dumped players who hadn't already played in all their games and AJ Shannon is the only addition to the Wings day to day roster. Shannon is a good veteran and should pretty seamlessly integrate to the Wings high powered offense. The Stealth on the other hand have made no moves this season and aren't expected to make any moves. The roster has been set since training camp and is central to their best start in four seasons. This is the Stealth's final game against an Eastern Conference team and a victory is key to maintaining the drive to 1st place in the West. Just like I said at the start of the season, if you don't win your Eastern conference games you most likely can't win the West. The Stealth are 2-0 and the Mammoth are 0-1 and still have to play Buffalo and Rochester to go. Going 3-0 compared to 0-3 is a huge difference the maker the Stealth can't let slip away from them. Prediction: Another close game, but it will go in the Stealth's favor 14-12. The Wings are rested and this is the second week in a row the Stealth have travelled or else I think the game would be closer to the Buffalo-Philly result. Cosmo is the game MVP for all the saves he gathers against the Wings' 70 shots on and off goal. Go Stealth!

I watched the NLL Game of the Week last night. Philadelphia went up to Rochester and did a good job of showing what a second tier team looks like when it plays a top tier team. Philly just didn't look sharp, they consistently dropped passes on Man Up in the first half. And that directly corresponded to when Rochester pulled away. Matt Roik didn't look like his All Star self from the first half of the season. He let in 6 I think before he was pulled in the second quarter. Rochester on the other end capitalized on every opportunity early, jumping out to the lead and never looking back. Their offense is older and more mature than the Philly and it showed. Steve Toll is really amazing. He picks so many passes out of the air, it's almost incomprehensible. Think about it, he doesn't just knock the pass out of the air, he only ever picks the pass out of the air. That means no matter where he pokes his stick at, he's got the head open to the direction of the ball and picks it. It's amazing, picks not knockdowns. It's amazing to watch the guy, he probably picks four or more passes a game. He's a pleasure to watch. Rochester had the majority of the penalties and still won the game. I don't know if that happens regularly as a stat, but the penalties slow them down. The final score was 10-12 and I don't think it was even that close. Philly never quit and kept trying to come back at the end, while Rochester appeared to be on cruise control just trying to get out of the game w/o incident. If it had gotten back to a one goal game, the Knighthawks would have put in a couple more as needed. Next week is Philly again and the New York Titans, won't be that interesting since it'll be about the 5th or 6th time Philly will be the Game of the Week, but I get to watch Jarrett Park play for the Titans and that'll be a good time.