MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO - Toronto Rock vs Georgia Swarm at Paramount Fine Food Centre on February 22nd, 2025 in Mississauga, Ontario. (Photo by Ryan McCullough / Toronto Rock)

Disclaimer:

Evan Schemenauer is a Saskatoon based NLL writer. Random thoughts is a weekly column which outlines a wide variety of thoughts that Evan has on the NLL and lacrosse world!

The opinions in this column are Evan's personal thoughts. They do not reflect the opinions of other members of the LC Daily Staff.

My random thoughts…

Just when you think you’re starting to see patterns in this season and can try to make some sense of it, you get a week of wrenches being thrown into those patterns and are left with more questions than answers.

Albany beats Philadelphia.  Vegas beats Colorado.  Rochester beats Calgary.  And none of these games were even close.  It goes to show that you can never take an opponent lightly as teams that need to go on a roll to make the playoffs will be fighting twice as hard to get back into things.  We also saw Toronto lose to Georgia in overtime. You have to wonder if the fireworks of Tuesday happen if Toronto scores the OT winner.

And then there’s the top two in Saskatchewan and Buffalo.  Both got wins, in very different fashions, but it still sets up the biggest game of the regular season so far on Saturday night in Saskatoon.  If the Bandits win, they almost have first place overall wrapped up.  They would be at one loss, to the Rush’s three, and they would hold the tiebreak as this is the only time these two teams play this season.  On the flipside, if the Rush win, that puts them at 10-2 to the Bandits’ 8-2 and the Rush will hold the tiebreak.

There was some debate online as to which team is in first place, the Rush with 9 wins or the Bandits with a higher win percentage.  By Major League Baseball standards, it’s the Rush.  By NLL standards, it’s the Bandits.  But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because the issue will be settled on the floor on Saturday.

Interestingly, these teams have played in Saskatoon four times.  All four of those games have been one-goal games.  The Bandits won three of them, all in overtime.  The one game the Rush won was game 2 of the 2016 finals, where Jeff Cornwall scored with 12 seconds remaining to win the cup for the Rush.  There hasn’t been a game between these two in Saskatoon in six years, but if we get a repeat of history, look forward to a barn burner.

The Dominoes Fell

With the trade deadline just two weeks away, and a number of teams still in a tight mix for playoff spots, it was hard to guess exactly when certain clubs would look to the future. Given the number of teams still in the playoff race, rental players that are due to become UFA’s in August can attract top value.

A few months ago on Lacrosse Classified, Jamie Dawick made it clear that if Toronto didn’t turn things around, he was going to stockpile draft picks.  This is something Jamie normally avoids.  For many years he would trade his draft picks for veteran players, knowing he had an advantage to sign free agents that wanted to play closer to home. 

In 2021, Dawick didn’t have a draft pick until #58 overall in the fourth round.  In 2022, his first pick was at #28 (which was used to select Josh Dawick).  In 2023 their first pick wasn’t until the third round at #39.  Jamie even mentioned on Lacrosse Classified a while ago that having two first round picks in 2024 wasn’t like him.

But at 3-8, two games out of 8th place, the Rock would have to fight through several teams to get to the playoffs. Even worse, their injuries never truly went away. Dawick made the decision it was time to pull the plug on the year, give some young guys the chance to develop and gain assets.

A few things to keep in mind when we’re looking at players approaching free agency.  First, anyone that will turn 33 or older before December 31 is eligible to reject the franchise tag if they wish.  For the Rock and Desert Dogs, there are a number of players in this bracket.  For the FireWolves, only one player falls into this category, Callum Crawford, and injuries make him nearly impossible to move.  Secondly, if a team loses a UFA in the offseason due to that player signing elsewhere, and they are unable to replace them with another UFA of similar quality, that team is potentially entitled to a compensatory pick at the end of the first or second round in 2026. 

These compensatory picks make trading pending UFA’s difficult, because the team trading away the pending UFA has to receive more than the compensatory pick they’re losing out on.  By the same token, if you’re able to trade the pending UFA, then you’re not in the predicament of holding off on signing UFA’s in the summer and keeping that compensatory pick.  Its all very confusing, I know.

The first domino to fall was a blockbuster.  Nick Rose, the long-time goaltender for the Toronto Rock, was traded to Calgary along with Tyler Hendryks and a 4th round pick for Gowah Abrams, Robert Hudson and a 2026 1st round pick.

There is an element of surprise with the trade considering Rose has worked at the TRAC for many years and his tenure in Toronto.  Despite Rose’s performance last year, several Rock fans have short memories, blaming Rose for pretty much everything this season despite how many injuries the Rock have had, especially on defence.

The results this past weekend made this a deal that both sides could agree to.  Toronto’s overtime loss to Georgia put Jamie Dawick in a situation where he needed to evaluate the viability of the season.  On the flipside, its been obvious for some time that what Calgary needed to be a contender was goaltending.  That was on full display this past weekend in a lopsided loss to Rochester where neither Roughnecks goaltender looked good. 

At 6-5, Calgary is still in a playoff spot, but is one game out of a tiebreak mess for the final spot in the playoffs, so there is no time to waste, especially with two games against Buffalo in the next month.  Keep this in mind.  Nick Rose’s GSAA is 4.21.  Despite Toronto’s struggles, he’s still above league average this season.  Cam MacLeod on the other hand is -10.11, second worst in the league.  This is a huge step up for the Roughnecks.

Out of this trade, the key is the first round pick.  It will be a higher pick than Dawick would have received as a compensatory pick in 2026, and it alleviates the equivalent player dilemma.  The biggest question for Toronto is who will be their goaltender next season.  The most likely candidate is Nick Rose.  Keep in mind, Rose can refuse the franchise tag, and he’s still working at the TRAC, so there’s nothing prohibiting him from signing right back with the Rock.

Then the Rock doubled-down trading Mitch de Snoo and Chris Corbeil to Philadelphia for a 1st round draft pick in 2025.  Between this trade and the Rob Hellyer trade with Vegas back in 2022, the Rock now hold three first round picks in 2025.  If the season ended today, those picks would be at numbers 1, 3 and 7.  Like with Rose, de Snoo and Corbeil could re-sign in Toronto if they wished come August. The Wings’ struggles on defence made it clear where they needed to focus.

Then to wrap up a busy Tuesday, Vegas traded Shane Simpson to Philly for Holden Cattoni.  This is a different trade in that Vegas, a team with the same 3-8 record, isn’t stockpiling draft picks for the future.  They’re acquiring depth at lefty forward that they’ve been missing this year.  Plus, Cattoni still has one additional year on his contract, so he’s not a UFA in August, unlike Simpson.  With Simpson, he was a big profile trade for the Desert Dogs this past offseason.  But between injuries and not having Christian Del Bianco feeding him the ball, Simpson has only appeared in seven games with 3 goals and 2 assists.  The hope is that a switch in scenery will bring back his transition performances of the last few years.

As for who is still available that is a pending UFA this offseason from the three-win teams, Vegas has Casey Jackson, James Barclay, David Brock and Brandon Goodwin.  Toronto has Tom Schreiber, Dan Craig, Corey Small, Bill Hostrawser and Brad Kri.  I wouldn’t be surprised if between the time I write this and the time it gets published that another deal has been made.

Albany has just Colton Watkinson and Callum Crawford, where Crawford is on the IR and Watkinson can be franchised.  But keep in mind, its not impossible that trades are also made because teams want to restructure, and not just because players are pending UFA’s.

One final note, with a tight playoff race, these trades could be very beneficial to Vancouver and Halifax, both of whom play Toronto twice in the Rock’s final seven games.

Rush Roll In Vancouver

The 10-7 Rush victory over Vancouver was perhaps a little more flattering for the Warriors than reality was on the floor.  Three late goals with the result not in doubt allowed Vancouver to close the gap late in the game in which the result was quite lopsided from halftime onwards.

The start of the game was typical for the Rush as of late.  The game was tied 3-3 in the opening 10 minutes, with the Warriors scoring those 3 on just 6 shots.  You do have to give Aden Walsh some credit here.  He only allowed 10 goals, in a game where you could see in his eyes he wasn’t feeling well, trying to overcome a flu that kept him out of practice all weekend.

Then early in the 2nd quarter, an unusual situation occurred where Bobby Kid III left the bench early during a Vancouver breakaway and then hauled down his opponent from behind, resulting in two penalties on the same play, both of which were penalty shots.  Two penalty shots on the same play doesn’t happen too often.  The last time I could recall it happening was one team being down 5 on 3 and then taking two additional penalties when play resumed, resulting in two penalty shots.  Keegan Bal typically takes the penalty shots for Vancouver, and after missing the first, was sent back out and capitalized on the second by taking a more straight on running approach.  This happens with 10:18 remaining in the 2nd quarter, and on Vancouver’s 10th shot.

The Warriors wouldn’t score for the next 33 minutes, which is a recipe for disaster almost every single time.  While the Rush wouldn’t score the rest of the second quarter either and only took a 5-4 lead into halftime, the Rush defence limiting the number of shots and Frank Scigliano shutting down the few shots that Vancouver got through led the Rush to victory once the offense got going in the 3rd quarter.  By the end of the third quarter, the Warriors had just 23 shots on goal.  As much as I would love to break down the Rush’s defensive stats, the numbers from the league’s website simply weren’t accurate.  One CTO for the Rush is simply incorrect.

When Robert Church scores early in the 4th quarter and the game was practically over at 10-4, the late Warriors push with 3 goals on 15 shots in the 4th was far too little too late, and the Rush were the first team to 9 wins, which is likely the worst-case scenario line to getting into the playoffs.

As for the faceoff battle between the rookies Alec Stathakis and Jake Naso, Stathakis ultimately won the battle 12-9, but it was a good showing from Naso after being out of the lineup for nearly a month.  The Rush had done well without Naso and kept a number of battles tight despite being outmanned.  But continuing on without Naso long-term wasn’t an option.  Eventually those battles at the dot and trying to win 50/50 balls would have put the additional wear and tear on the likes of Mike messenger, Matt Hossack and the rest of the team and would have consequences down the road.

Post-game, Curt Malawsky was interviewed by the media, as he always is, and he went on a lengthy rant about while Dilks and Bal had great games, he questioned the desire of the rest of his offense, stating multiple times that the rest of the team wasn’t willing to go to the middle and take their lumps, and were simply hoping to shoot from the perimeter and hope for the best.  What Malawsky says here is true, but there’s a bigger problem.

This isn’t the first, or the second, or maybe even the third time that Malawsky has complained about the effort of his forwards to get to the middle of the floor.  Clearly the players are listening to these post game interviews and Malawsky has said the same thing in the dressing room.  But after multiple games with the same problem still occurring, its clear that the offense isn’t listening.

If most of the offense isn’t listening and the same problems are still happening, then Malawsky needs to seriously consider a shakeup.  He needs to make that difficult trade, trade away someone that isn’t fitting the system he knows and the system he wants, and get that crasher and banger that he needs to turn the team around.  Vancouver is on the outside of the playoff picture at the moment, but just one win away from being in. 

With all the expectations of this team, another season not in the playoffs would be a failure.  Their final seven games are a real mix.  On one side, three of them are against Toronto twice and Albany.  On the other side, they have San Diego, Buffalo, Georgia and Philadelphia.  With San Diego, Philly and Georgia, these are games that can decide playoff spots and losses are doubly difficult with tiebreaks in play.  I won’t be shocked if Malawsky makes the move to swap forwards before their next game on March 7th.

Thunderbirds Take Flight

Lost in the shuffle a bit is the fact that Halifax is on a four-game winning streak and sits tied for 3rd spot in the league with a 6-4 record.  Key to this turnaround is the Halifax defence.  During this four-game win streak, they’ve averaged allowing 43.5 shots on goal compared to 54.7 shots on goal in their opening six games.  In their last five games, they haven’t allowed more than 10 goals in any game.

Warren Hill has been playing better as well during this streak.  Perhaps I’m giving the defence more credit than I am for Hill in this defensive turnaround, but the defensive effort has meant less work for Hill each game, giving him a far better opportunity for success.

This past weekend, in a 14-9 win over Ottawa, the defence set the tone early and the game seemed like it was getting out of reach at the half, but a 5-0 Ottawa run in the third quarter gave the Black Bears a temporary 8-7 lead.  One of the keys for Halifax this night was keeping Jeff Teat at bay as much as they could.  Teat did eventually get a hat trick and 5 points on the night, but those 3 goals came off of 16 shots.  Teat is normally going to get something off of you, but most teams would gladly take 3 off of 16 any night.  Ultimately it was the 7-1 run to end the game that was the difference, and Zach Higgins, despite a strong game, wasn’t rewarded with the effort of the rest of his team.

Halifax does need to get some critical wins over the next few weeks.  Their next two opponents are Vegas and Toronto.  The second half of the season hasn’t been friendly to the Thunderbirds the last several years, so getting these wins is crucial when their season turns to a stretch of Saskatchewan, Ottawa, Georgia, San Diego and Buffalo before ending the season against Toronto again.  If the Thunderbirds can sweep the next two games, they’ll have a margin of error against that five-game push.  For the Thunderbirds to host a playoff game, winning the three games against the 3-win teams and winning two out of five against the rest will probably be enough, and that’s a realistic target.  Losing against the 3-win teams will make that path a lot more difficult.

One thing from this game was TSN introducing a spider cam to several possessions in the game, to give you an overhead view from the offense’s point of view.  The camera didn’t work well for me.  It was often zoomed too far out and it shifted significantly from left to right.  When you had a skip pass from one side of the floor to the other, the camera shifted too much and it made following the play much more difficult.  Perhaps if the camera is taught more things to get a proper shot, it might be helpful, but not with how it was operated Friday night.

Until next time…

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