A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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Taking a break from the Rush vs. Mammoth game to post this story. Saturday night was my first regular season game at the Rose Garden. It was quite exciting for several reasons. First and foremost, because the Lumberjax lost. Actually, I think that should be, because the Lumberjax lost! The exclamation point is much better. It helped the Stealth, that’s priority one. And it was a shocker that it happened at all.
It’s not the first thing I remember about the game, but when I remember it, it was the one thing that I liked the least. The freakin’ Lumberjax blare music during the game at rock concert levels. I mean really loud. My little nephew was with me and he’s not a loud talker and I’ll be damaged if I was able to hear anything he was telling me or asking me. I actually saw the refs motion to the scoring box during play to turn it down and they did. I’ve been to four arena’s now and they all play music during the game play, but this was intrusive instead of ambient. I hope it gets turned down even further going forward.
Next up, where are the stats for the game? There are a couple of things that I want to check out and there’s nothing to be seen. I know that people were trying to follow the game through the box score and there wasn’t one. I was in the #lacrosse room on irc.chatstop.net during the first half and unbeknown to me, I was giving the only score updates that anyone had. And now that the game’s over I want to see how many face-offs Jamie Hanford won and how many ground balls those produced for Jarrett Park.
Now that I’m finally talking about game play, let’s keep it going. Face-offs were the deciding factor in my opinion, it was the only part of the game that was unbalanced. New York’s free agent acquisition Jamie Hanford is continuing his dominance he had in Colorado the past couple seasons. Pat Jones is a fine face-off man and I did not expect him to get dominated like he did last night. The domination was completed by a lack of coaching adjustments by Portland. On _every_ face-off the Titans put three men behind Hanford and one in front. Portland countered with two in front and two behind. So NY starts with a 3-2 man advantage every single time. Hanford would control just about every single draw and pull it back to the odd man advantage. Jarrett Park was first and clean off the back line, he’d scoop it up and start a NY possession. The plan of attack remained the same for four straight quarters and Portland (specifically Derek Keenan) never adjusted for it at all.
I thought I’d get to this later in the post, but I’ve already raised the issue. Derek Keenan was making no adjustments on something as simple as face-off setups that never changed. The Lumberjax offense was not getting open looks in the first half, was down 8-3 and Keenan was waiting until halftime to discuss it with his players? There’s nothing to discuss, put a third man behind Hanford to even up the face-off setup. By the middle of the first quarter it was apparent that Pat Jones was not going to control the draws, make the adjustment. You’re down 8-3 because everyone on offense is trying to make the extra pass (or shooting it straight in New York goalie Matt Vinc’s chest). Abandon ship, put the ball in Dan Dawson’s stick and follow his lead. In the 2nd half Dawson was unstoppable, but in the 1st half he was bottled up in the team offense. The games aren’t long events, if you’re going to make changes it needs to be done in a 2 hour period, not in practice getting ready for the next game. Keenan has proven to be a very capable GM and has assembled a roster that I’d be worried about the Stealth playing athletically. But with Keenan behind the bench the only thing you have to fear is that your initial game plan was much worse than Portland’s. If you plan well and/or can make adjustments you’ll be stay ahead of a Keenan coached team. In reality, Keenan just needs to shave his head and start screaming again. Two years ago in 2006 when he lead the team to the regular season West title his head was shaved and it would turn red as he screamed at his players. Players will listen to that coach and they’ll want to go out and play hard and often because they don’t want to be on the bench with the scary coach. Last year and this year Keenan’s got hair and isn’t scary (or persuasive) to the players. If the offensive woes of 2007 continue the problem won’t be on the floor. The roster is stacked, the problem will be the coaches.
Now I want to get back to the action on the floor. Watching the Titans I got to see a couple of things. One of my favorite former Stealth’s, Jarrett Park, was playing. (Toronto’s Cam Woods is my other favorite former.) And I saw Jordan Hall make his professional debut. Jordan played a good game for it being his first professional action. He is already on the EMO squad, not bad for a rookie. And he hustled all over the floor. Two times I remember him running all the way back on defense after turnovers and actually having a positive impact for NY as result of getting in and breaking up a fast break. IIRC, Jordan was a middie in college, or he at least was a middie on the 2006 Canadian World Field team, so he knows how to run and he did. Now back to Jarrett Park, he’s my vote for the most under-rated player in the NLL. If the face-offs continue like this all season, and Park’s ground ball numbers balloon because of it, everyone will take notice, but for now he’s just another face in the crowd. Jarrett is lightning fast, I mean he caught Mark Steenhaus from behind on a fast break when Steenhaus had a good 10 yard head start. Speedy Steve Tool is the Transition legend and Josh Sims gets lots of good press in the Denver area despite being a jerk, but I’d pick Jarrett over those two in a race anytime. Go Jarrett, I miss you much. Please find a way back on the Stealth roster.
On the Portland roster there were some highs and lows. The low was the start of Dallas Eliuk. The nllinsider.com forums have some excuses about league mandated pads that Dallas is in hate with, but I don’t care. If it means that everyone is now wearing the same pads, then that’s even less of an excuse. Eliuk was pulled 5 1/2 minutes in the game after giving up 5 goals. He wasn’t making many saves, but he wasn’t getting any help from his team either. Two, maybe three, of those five were Power Play goals for New York. On the high was Dan Dawson’s second half play. Dawson finished with 5 goals and 4 assists for 9 points on 11 Lumberjax goals. I predicted he’d have 7 points on 13 goals. But 9 points on 11 goals, he’s the central cog in the offense. And the thing is, everyone knows this and they still can’t stop him!!! He’s awesome and I’m so glad that we get to watch him this season while we’re in Portland. I don’t know what our excuse will be for buying Lumberjax tickets next season when Dawson’s not in PDX. Stop Dan Dawson, Stop the Lumberjax. I dare you.
Bottom line, Portland lost to a team that they are better than on paper in basically every aspect. Going in to the game I couldn’t name a single NY Titan defensive player except Pat Merrill because was getting press all summer. After watching the game I still can’t and they shutdown Portland. Good for them, bad bad bad for Portland. The analysts on nllinsider.com unanimously picked Portland to win – all seven. No one thought New York had a chance except New York. How Portland lost this game to a team that traveled cross country and had an inferior group of athletes is beyond me. Unless there are some major changes, my thoughts about Portland finishing last in the West will prove true.