Today begins the 2007 NLL playoffs as the Toronto Rock travel to Rochester to play the league best Knighthawks. Historically, the Toronto franchise has performed poorly in Rochester, having just one win at Blue Cross Arena in 14 visits (one visit in 1998 as the Ontario Raiders and 13 more as the Toronto Rock). On the positive side, the only victory for the Rock in Rochester came in the championship game in 2003. This year Rochester beat Toronto in both games they met. Providing Toronto gets solid goaltending from Bob Watson, they should stay in this game until the fourth quarter. In the end, Rochester’s potent offensive attack (league best 249 team goals) of Scott Evans (87 points), Shawn Williams (91 points) and John Grant Jr. (league leader with 111 points) will be too much for Toronto and Rochester will win by four or more goals.
Two more games are to be played Saturday night as Colorado hosts San Jose and Calgary hosts Arizona. Colorado and San Jose split their meetings this year with both teams winning at home. Colorado is the defending champions and has one of the best players in the league in Gavin Prout 89 points this year). Supporting Prout is a list of players including Dan Carey (76 points), Brian Langtry (67 points) and Jamie Shewchuk (53 points) to name a few. San Jose should not be overlooked as they also have a solid scoring punch with Luke Wiles (82 points), Colin Doyle (81 points), Gary Rosyski (76 points) and Jeff Zywicki (70 points). This game should be close to the end but Colorado has more depth than San Jose and they definitely know what it takes to win the cup so they will prevail. History is also on their side as San Jose has yet to win in the Pepsi Center (0-6 all-time in Colorado).
Calgary and Arizona are evenly matched as they both finished with a 9-7 record in 2007. Each team relies heavily on three main players: Dan Dawson (second this year in scoring with 107 points), Craig Conn (76 points) and Lindsay Plunkett (66 points) for Arizona, and Lewis Ratcliff (third this year in scoring with 104 points), Tracey Kelusky (88 points) and Kaleb Toth (75 points) for Calgary. Calgary had a disappointing season, in which they had a coaching change, and will be looking to redeem themselves in the playoffs. Calgary won the season series 2-1, winning one game at home and one game in Arizona. Arizona has only one win in six visits to the Saddledome but that one win was in the semi-final game in 2005, the year Arizona made it to the Champion's Cup final in Toronto. Calgary is on a two game winning streak (one of those wins was against Arizona) while Arizona is on a three game losing streak. This game should be a nail-biter until the end but I think Calgary will pull it off in front of their home crowd.
The first round of the playoffs will finish up on Sunday when the Buffalo Bandits host the Minnesota Swarm. Buffalo won both season match-ups versus the Swarm this season but Minnesota is hungry for their first playoff win in team history. Historically Buffalo has dominated Minnesota having lost only once to Minnesota in nine tries including a win last year in the first round of the playoffs in Minnesota’s first ever playoff appearance. Minnesota is led by Ryan Ward (75 points), Sean Pollock (67 points) and Dean Hill (53 points) while Buffalo is led by the legendary John Tavares (103 points), Kevin Dostie (62 points), Dan Teat (50 points), Mark Steenhuis (49 points) and Cory Bomberry (49 points). Buffalo will be without their number one goaltender as Steve Dietrich suffered an injury during a game April 13 but that should not be a big factor in the game. Minnesota will come out running and will make this game interesting but I think Buffalo will come out on top in this one.
The second round of the playoffs will be played next weekend (April 27 to April 29) with the Champion’s Cup Final being played on May 12. The winner of the Rochester/Toronto game will play the winner of the Buffalo/Minnesota game while the winner of the Colorado/San Jose game will face the winner of the Calgary/Arizona game. In this league, any team can win on any night and with only one game per round, the NLL playoffs are sure to be exciting.
*Photo originally posted on NLL.com
No comments:
Post a Comment