San Jose Stealth at Minnesota Swarm January 10th Game Preview

January 10, 2009
Author: tfitch

After a tough loss to start the San Jose Stealth’s 2009 NLL season, the Stealth will be right back in action tonight when they travel to face their new Western Division foe the Minnesota Swarm. Minnesota won theiir season opener 11-7, thoroughly shutting down the Lumberjax offense, even without their top defender Ryan Cousins or number one goalie Nick Patterson. I think Ryan Cousins will probably still be on the bench resting his knee this weekend, if he does play he may not be 100% healthy which would benefit the Stealth offense. Hopefully Cousins doesn’t risk any more damage to his knee by coming back too quickly from his surgery.

This early in the season, the biggest single factor in the game could be fatigue. Last night, the Swarm were off and the Stealth had to get up early and fly East after a tough game. I didn’t have to get up for my flight until 8:30 and I’m tired. With the distance and time change, I suspect the Stealth were up early today which won’t help them be fresh tonight.

Offensively, the Swarm have a good group of attackers, I’m just not that familiar with them because they have been in the Eastern Division until this season. The big names like Ryan Ward, Sean Pollock and Craig Point are easy to remember, the rest of the crew I’ll know better after tonight.

After Kevin Croswell’s performance against the Lumberjax last weekend it might not be a sure thing that Nick Patterson starts for the Swarm in goal tonight. Croswell was voted the NLL Goalie of the Week for his performance on the 3rd. Nick Patterson was benched for violation of an unspecified team rule last week, but if he is the “real” #1 goalie in Minnesota, then he’ll start this weekend instead of creating the drama that’d come from benching him again. These teams have enough to deal with just living their regular lives during the week and then having to come together for 48 hours during the weekend and play ball at the highest level possible, position controversy shouldn’t be added to the list.

The Stealth’s offense was gripping their sticks a little tight in the home opener. Passes were coming in low and the offense wasn’t fluid because of it. Historically the Stealth been more relaxed and loose on the road. The offense really needs to step it up and outscore the Swarm while the defense gets some more continuity from playing together.

Prediction:
No pick. I’m not certain the Stealth can beat Swarm this early in the season. Despite having training camp and the scrimmage in Colorado the defense, especially the short man groups, looked out of sync. There are too many new faces still figuring things out. Remember 2007 was a slow start for the Stealth too when they had 14 new players. We’ve got several months ahead of us to watch the team come together. The Stealth have been one the best, if not the best, road teams in the NLL the last two seasons. What they need to correct after last night is fresh in their minds, hopefully the Stealth turn things around and steal a win from the Swarm.

At the conclusion of this game all the teams in the NLL’s West Division will have played and only played against each other. I’ll be making some initial conclusions about how the final western division standings will look.

Go Stealth!!!