April 30, 2008
by Tom Borrelli, Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online
Even "Parity" Pete Rozelle would have been envious of NLL commissioner Jim Jennings this season.
All four East Division playoff participants - the Buffalo Bandits, Minnesota Swarm, New York Titans and Wings - finished the regular season 10-6. And for the first time since the league went to a 16-game schedule in 2002, no team reached the 11-win mark.
The Rochester Knighthawks (8-8), who won the Champion's Cup last year after going 14-2 in the regular season, missed the playoffs for the first time in the franchise's 14-year history, courtesy of a 12-11 loss to the Titans last Saturday night that was the team's fifth consecutive loss in one-goal games.
It's the first time a defending champion missed the playoffs since the 1991 Wings, who went 5-5 a year after winning it all.
Thanks largely to the division's commanding 14-6 advantage in games against its West counterparts, a playoff race for the ages ensued.
Since 1990, there had only been three two-way ties for first place. The Bandits and Knighthawks each went 12-4 to share the Central Division title in 2003; the Bandits and Wings went 8-2 in 1996; and the Wings and New England Blazers shared the top spot at 6-2 in 1990.
The only three-way tie for first in league history occurred in 1989, when the Wings, Detroit Turbos and New York Saints all went 6-2.
After the tie-breakers had been sorted, this weekend's pairings have the Wings traveling to Buffalo to face the Bandits Friday night at HSBC Arena, and the Titans are off to Minnesota to play the Swarm Saturday night in the Xcel Energy Center.
"We feel very fortunate to have home advantage for the whole playoffs," said Bandits coach Darris Kilgour. "The last game we had 18,000. If you go to a Bandit game, there are a lot of painted faces and orange wigs in the stands. Plus, we've been playing better at home than on the road; it's really been a big advantage for us."
The Philadelphia-Buffalo rivalry has to be the closest in league history. The teams split two games this season, each winning on its own turf, and the Wings hold an 18-17 lead in the regular season series. Six playoff meetings - four in Buffalo and two in Philadelphia - have been divided equally as well.
The Bandits, who have captured three titles, went 7-2 at home, where they won their last two games against Chicago and Portland to grab the top overall seed. Philadelphia, which has won six championships, was 3-5 on the road but still made it back to the postseason for the first since 2002.
"It's great to be in the playoffs and have an opportunity to compete against Buffalo," said first-year Wings coach Dave Huntley. "To have won in Toronto, I think that was a great experience for us to prepare for Buffalo."
Buffalo started off 3-4 but won seven of its last nine. Philadelphia began the year 6-0 and 8-1, but dropped five of its last seven.
"We're pretty happy with where we're going right now," said Kilgour. "We're looking forward to getting this thing started."
About the only lopsided statistic involving the league's two highest-scoring teams involves faceoffs. Philadelphia led the NLL, winning 71.7 percent, while Buffalo was dead last for the fourth time in the last five years at 37.3 percent.
Philadelphia won 59 of 71 draws in the two games against Buffalo, with Geoff Snider capturing 57 of 62. In his two years in the NLL, Snider has won an incredible 96 of 107 (89.7 percent) against the Bandits. This year, he also set league records for loose balls (244) and penalty minutes (103) in a season.
"Geoff is a ball winner for us," Huntley said. "He gets our transition game going not just on faceoffs, but out of the defensive end, too. He's been a great leader for our team and I'm expecting great things from him in the playoffs."
New York, which started off 1-4 and won nine of its last 11 despite playing just five games on its home turf at Madison Square Garden, authored the second-most dramatic turnaround in league history to reach the playoffs in just its second season. It is the first time a second-year franchise either captured or tied for the league's best record since the Rock went 9-3 in 1999.
The Titans made a six-game improvement from last year's 4-12. That was bettered by only the Albany Attack, who went 14-2 in 2002 after finishing 5-9 the season before.
New York's Adam Mueller is the first coach to lead three different teams to the playoffs. He was behind the bench when Minnesota made its first trip in 2006 and led Philadelphia to its last appearance in 2002.
"I think the guys did a great job in the second half," said Mueller. "If anybody had told me when we were 1-4 that we would have to go 9-2 to make the playoffs, honestly I don't know what our chances would have been."
The Titans' Casey Powell, who finished eighth in the league scoring race with 32 goals, 54 assists and 86 points, will be making his first postseason appearance since the 2000 championship game, which he lost to the Rock as a second-year forward with the Knighthawks.
"Casey has been a pleasure to coach the last two years," Mueller said. "He's one of the best competitors I've ever coached. He's a big part of why we've been so successful this season."
This will be the third time the teams have played in St. Paul this season. Minnesota, which started 6-0 but lost six of its last 10, took the first two, 16-9 and 12-6. It will be the first home playoff game in the history of the Swarm, which has lost its only two previous postseason games - both in Buffalo. The Swarm went 6-2 at home this season, but dropped its last two.
"We're not taking New York lightly at all, even though we've had some success against them in the past," said Swarm general manager Marty O'Neill. "We have to make sure we play to our best capacity and let the chips fall where they may."
Stealth best in the West
By virtue of last Saturday's 11-6 home victory over the Colorado Mammoth, the San Jose Stealth won the tie-breaker for first place in the West Division.
Both teams finished 9-7 and will host division semifinals this weekend. The Stealth meets the Portland LumberJax (6-10) Sunday afternoon at HP Pavilion, while the Mammoth hosts the Calgary Roughnecks (7-9) Saturday night at Denver's Pepsi Center, where Colorado led the league in average home attendance at 17,464.
San Jose, which attracted a league-worst 3,059 per home game, went just 4-4 in its own building, with two of those losses coming to Portland, which won three of its last six games.
"We've lost two games to Portland, but hopefully we can show up and put in the same kind of effort we had last week," said Stealth coach Walt Christianson. "We treated that game like a playoff game."
The Stealth went 4-4 during the second half of the season, but one of those victories was a 12-9 road decision over the Jax in the Rose Garden. But Portland countered with 12-10 and 12-11 victories at San Jose, both coming in April.
"I think it helps us winning in their building twice," said LumberJax coach Derek Keenan. "We really went in there needing to win those games in order to make the playoffs. We're pretty confident. We've played very well the last five or six weeks."
Colorado, which leads the league with eight consecutive postseason appearances, started 5-0, but went 4-7 the rest of the way. But the Mammoth is 6-2 in the Pepsi Center, including a 10-9 victory over the Roughnecks on opening night. Colorado won two of three against Calgary this season.
"We've had three real good games with them, and we're anticipating a fourth," said Mammoth coach Bob McMahon.
McMahon said he anticipates again being without All-Star forward Dan Carey, who had 22 goals, 27 assists and 49 points in the first 11 games but missed the last five because of a concussion.
Calgary lost seven of nine at one point, and appeared in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002 with a 4-9 record, before winning its last three games. But the Riggers went just 2-6 on the road, losing five straight away from the Pengrowth Saddledome before last Saturday's season-ending 12-8 triumph over the Edmonton Rush (4-12) at Rexall Place.
"We've started to play better of late, but we know we're headed into a bee hive," said Roughnecks general manager Kurt Silcott. "We have our work cut out for us, but we're feeling pretty good about they way we've been playing lately, and hope to keep it up."
The numbers game
Edmonton went 4-6 after Bob Hamley took over as head coach and general manager following an 0-6 start. The trade he made with Buffalo in March enabled Rush forward Dan Teat to set a record that may never be broken, at least until the league expands the length of the regular season.
Teat appeared in 19 games - 12 with Buffalo and seven with Edmonton - and tallied 16 goals, 35 assists and 51 points.
Likewise, a March trade that sent Lewis Ratcliff from Calgary to Toronto enabled him to appear in 17 games. He used the extra appearance to rank tied for second in scoring with 92 points on 42 goals and 50 helpers.
Contact Tom Borrelli at tbwrite@aol.com.
