It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Call your family and friends and gather around the television for some holiday season National Lacrosse League action. Four games are on the docket this weekend ahead of the festive week of celebrations. As one of my holiday gifts to you NLL fans, I’ve compiled some intriguing numbers to get you ready for this weekend’s slate of games.
This is By the Numbers.
57 & 39 – Current Point Streaks of Mitch Jones & Jonathan Donville
The Philadelphia Wings Mitch Jones and the Las Vegas Desert Dogs’ Jonathan Donville are headlining names for a reason. Not only do they know how to grab your attention with highlight reel plays, but they are also some of the most consistent and dynamic point producers in the NLL.
It was exciting to see them battle each other on the floor last weekend – they posted eight and four points, respectively. I can’t wait to see what these two have in store for an encore performance when the Desert Dogs host the Wings on Friday night.
Both players have started this season on point-tallying hot streaks, but their ability to not have a goose egg in the points section of the box score goes back a couple years before this season. Donville has tallied at least one point in 39 consecutive regular season games, while Jones’ point streak currently stands at 57 games.
Donville has tallied at least one point in every regular season game in his NLL career (he’s also tallied a point in the one playoff game he’s played in), and Jones has tallied at least one point in every game he’s played in going all the way back to April 20th, 2019.
2,080 – Days Since The Halifax Thunderbirds’ Organization Last Played In Colorado
The Halifax Thunderbirds and the Colorado Mammoth are very unfamiliar foes. When they square off in Colorado in Week Four, this will only be the third time that these teams will have faced each other in the last five years. Believe it or not, the Thunderbirds haven’t played a game in Colorado since April 12th, 2019. That’s so long ago that the Thunderbirds weren’t even the Thunderbirds; they were the original Rochester Knighthawks.
If Saturday’s clash is anything like that 2019 matchup, we are in for a treat. That game ended when Kyle Jackson surged past Ian Llord, dove across the crease, and potted the ball in the back of the net milliseconds before his body touched the crease.
The Thunderbirds will look very different than they did five years ago in Colorado. According to what we know, we can expect Cody Jamieson to be out of the lineup again, so that means that Warren Hill, Graeme Hossack, Dawson Theede and Colton Armstrong will be the other remaining guys from that 2019 team.
It will be very interesting to see how many of these new Thunderbirds, who have never played in “The Loud House” that is Ball Arena, will fare in those hostile conditions with passionate Mammoth fans putting the pressure on.
7 – The Amount of Blocked Shots By The Rochester Knighthawks’ Ian Llord
Llord is back in Rochester this season (he first played for the original Knighthawks from 2013-2019), and he sacrificing his body for the new-look Knighthawks.
Llord has already been credited with blocking an NLL-leading seven shots this season (in only three games). The seven blocked shots has already tied his blocked shot total from the 2022-23 season, and he is well on his way to breaking his single-season blocked shot record of 21, which he set last season.
Llord has long been known as a big team guy who will step up whenever his team needs him, and that’s what he’s doing this season. The Knighthawks’ goaltender, Riley Hutchcraft, has faced more shots (175) than any other goaltender in the NLL this season. That means that Knighthawks defenders like Llord have needed to be on their toes a lot.
Llord has tried his best to make sure fewer of those shots get to Hutchcraft.
31 – Number of Turnovers The Saskatchewan Rush Have Caused As A Team
The Saskatchewan Rush have had one of the best defences so far this season. There are so many metrics that show just how elite that have been on the backend, but for the sake of keeping this short and sweet, I’m specifically going to look at the team’s total caused turnovers.
The Rush have caused 31 turnovers already this season. That is the 3rd-most in the league through three weeks of action – only the Colorado Mammoth and Albany FireWolves have caused more (they have each caused 32 CTOs). More impressive, though, is their 15.5 caused turnovers per game, which is the best in the NLL.
A good portion of those 31 CTOs have been forced by Matt Hossack – he already has a league-leading nine CTOs in only two games. But it’s not just Hossack who has been applying the pressure on defence this season. In all, nine Rush players have caused at least one turnover this season, with seven of those having caused multiple turnovers.