Random Thoughts: Is Matt Vinc the GOAT?

My random thoughts…

In today’s day and age in sports, we constantly thrive to discuss who is the GOAT at everything.  After the last soccer World Cup, I heard so many people talk about how Messi was the GOAT.  To me, he’s not even the greatest ever of his own country (Diego Maradona is).  But Buffalo’s NLL Cup win got me to thinking.  For some time, its been generally accepted that the greatest ever when it came to box lacrosse was John Tavares.  The stats backed this up.  He was the all-time goals and points leader despite playing several years in an MILL where the seasons were terribly short.  But with Matt Vinc winning the sixth NLL championship of his career, and twice winning three in a row, the question becomes, is Vinc the greatest box lacrosse player of all time?

For some, its tough to disconnect greatest ever to scoring goals.  And you can take this concept beyond lacrosse.  But Vinc has more titles.  He has more player of the year awards at his position.  While other forwards statistically have come closer to Tavares in terms of stats, Vinc’s lead in goaltending categories are mile ahead of the pack.  For example, Tavares’ 815 career goals is 147 ahead of 2^nd place John Grant Jr., or 22% ahead of Grant. His career points record of 1749 is 244 ahead of the second place Dan Dawson, or 16% ahead.  Dawson surpassed Tavares’ career record for assists.

On the other hand, Vinc’s lead on his fellow goalies in career stats:

• 16,872 minutes played, 5,552 minute more than 2^nd place Nick Rose, or 49% more minutes than Rose.
• Vinc has 11,170 career saves, 3,878 more than 2^nd place Rose, or 53% higher than Rose’s total.
• Vinc has 171 career wins, 55 more than Nick Rose, or 47% higher.

Even if Vinc retired today, Nick Rose would have to have four straight seasons at 14-4 just to catch Vinc in career wins.  And that’s the even scarier part.  If Vinc wants to, he’s in good enough physical shape to play another 5 years. 

The stat discrepancies between Vinc and the rest of the pack when it comes to goalies are Gretzky-like.  If you ask me who the greatest box lacrosse player ever is, its simple, its Matt Vinc.

The Newest Dynasty

You might think I’m going to digest game 3 of the final at some length, but in a 15-6 rout, there’s not a whole lot to digest.  At times in the opening half though, you wondered if this would be the Rush’s night.  They scored in the opening seconds.  Austin Shanks caught Matt Vinc off guard at the start of an offensive powerplay set.  And even when the Bandits started to roll at the beginning of the second quarter, the Rush stopped the run. They got themselves back into the game and they were only down one at the half.  As Jimmy Quinlan put it, if you knew at the start of the season you would be down one at half time in game 3 of the finals, you would take it every time.

And then… the wheels fell off at the wrong time.  The Rush looked tired.  The Bandits went on a quick run and there was nothing the Rush could do to stop it.  Having home floor advantage normally means something.  Not one single team in the playoffs with home floor advantage lost a series all playoffs long.  And this time it was the 19,000 strong in Buffalo that propelled the Bandits momentum in the third quarter that put the game out of reach.  And you’ve heard this from me before.  You can’t win games when you don’t score for 34 minutes.  It was a scoreless streak late in game 1 that cost the Rush and in part it’s a goalless streak in game three that cost them as well.  But this isn’t on the offense.  The only player in the Rush lineup that I can say had a good game was Jake Naso.

But at the end of the day, congratulations to the Buffalo Bandits.  They were the best team this season.  Despite some hiccups towards the end of the regular season, they were the team to beat.  And looking forward, the Bandits are still the team to beat next year.  The only way the Bandits are not the favourites to win the title at the beginning of next year is if Matt Vinc retires.

One thing that does need to be addressed is a particular Rush fan absolutely attempting to destroy the team for their performance in the second half of the finals. Yes, the performance was disappointing, it happened at the exact wrong time, and there isn’t a guy in the dressing room that wasn’t pissed at themselves for that performance. But this fan’s words went way beyond this. You need to take a major step back. The fact here is that the expectation for this team was to make the playoffs this season.  They did that, and then some. To me, everything beyond the opening round of the playoffs for the Rush was a bonus. This Rush team has one heck of a bright future ahead of it. Its biggest offseason business is to re-sign Robert Church. The Rush will likely have the least roster moves to make this offseason short of someone having to leave the game.  Keep in mind, Patrick Dodds sat out the entire season with work commitments. Levi Anderson barely played because Clark Walter played well beyond what was expected of him. The future for this Rush team is very bright. And the season isn’t a failure because they didn’t win a cup against a dynasty.

The Offseason

This particular offseason could be one of the more interesting ones we’ll ever see. And I say this being somewhat of a back seat passenger to the craziness of the 2018 offseason.

Yes, there is free agency in August and there is an entry draft in September, but there are two things that need to be taken care of before we can even worry about those two.  The two critical items being the CBA and the ownership situation of two teams.

It was reported several months ago that both Rochester and Philadelphia were looking to sell their teams. I’m not going down the wormhole of the rumour mill on this one as there are simply too many rumours floating around to be certain as to what is accurate and what isn’t.  But the uncertainty surrounding these two teams is an issue.  Do we start next season with 14 teams located exactly where they were this past season?  Do we have some teams relocating?  Do we have league contraction and a dispersal draft?  These are all very real possibilities.  And yes, it would be ironic if Rochester were to fold, and Vegas with the #1 pick of the dispersal draft takes Connor Fields for the second time (he was taken by Vegas in their expansion draft form Buffalo, but then immediately traded to Rochester).

It got me thinking as to whether you need to solve the number of teams and their location first before finalizing a new CBA or vice versa?  On one hand, negotiating a CBA with uncertainties over ownership won’t be easy.  On the other hand, prospective new owners would want to know that they have labour peace and defined terms for moving forward. Not having a signed CBA leads to the risk that the season doesn’t start on time and you’re funding losses until it gets sorted out. Increased risk can lead to doubts about buying a franchise.

I don’t expect to see World War 3 like Jamie Dawick coined it back before the end of the season, but this CBA will be tricky to negotiate. Do players want more money? Of course they do, and they deserve to be paid everything they reasonably can given the punishment they put their bodies through every year. The problem is that revenues for each team varies so wildly. Yes, you have Buffalo averaging over 17,000 fans at some pretty decent average ticket prices. But you also have teams that are clearly struggling to draw much in terms of ticket revenue.

The NLL doesn’t have much for revenue sharing in its agreements. The main form of revenue sharing comes from luxury taxes, which are charged to teams that exceed the salary cap. The total of the luxury taxes each season are split equally between the teams that don’t exceed the salary cap. With some teams in financial trouble, do we see increases to the salary cap and the player minimum and maximum salaries beyond inflationary increases? I don’t see it happening.

What we could easily see are changes to the CBA similar to what we saw in the last CBA that give players opportunities to earn more in certain circumstances. For example, the age a player could refuse the franchise tag was reduced by a year in the last CBA.  Also players that had already played 8 seasons would become UFA’s regardless of age were changed in the last CBA. I’m certain that the Christian Del Bianco situation needs to be addressed in this CBA, where a situation existed where Calgary could franchise Del Bianco for five years and if he didn’t want to report, he would be sitting on his couch for a long time. Do we see a limitation as to how long a player can be franchised, or perhaps if a player sits out a year and they’re a UFA that they’re free of their franchise tag?

Given the financial state of several teams in the league, but also the hope that more lacrosse players can be full time professionals in the future, what I would love to see is a CBA that gives more flexibility for the teams that have the means to hire players in more roles on the team, without it counting against the salary cap, so the players can live in market, earn their living with their team and grow some roots in the city. Granted some teams will be able to accomplish this, or are already accomplishing this, and others won’t for now.  But that’s okay.

I would also love to see a system where teams can opt to develop players in another league such as the ALL or an American equivalent, and still hold onto the players they just drafted instead of releasing them outright, giving the team the ability to cover their playing costs and inviting them to practice with the team a certain number of times per year. Currently, if you’re drafted and you can’t make the cut, the team simply releases you outright. The player would have the ability to refuse the development marker, just like a player offered a practice roster spot has the right to refuse it. I also think the draft needs to be reduced to three or four rounds as even third round picks have a hard enough time making a practice roster.

My hope is that come November, we have 14 teams, in-camp, with a signed off CBA, and each with strong ownership.  But that might not be possible.  If there is another dispersal draft, that changes the composition of teams, which in turn changes who those teams target in free agency and in the entry draft.  But its possible that free agency doesn’t start on August 1^st.  Its possible we don’t have 14 teams.  Its possible training camps don’t open come late October or early November.  The only thing that is certain, is that Toronto Rock will be drafting CJ Kirst with the #1 pick of the entry draft come September.

The UFA List

Keep in mind, this UFA list is unofficial, but going into this offseason, as always, there will be some big names up for grabs if these players fail to come to a contract renewal with their existing team by July 31. I’m not going to discuss restricted free agents here because RFA’s rarely get offer sheets and in the rare event they do, they’re always matched by the player’s existing team.

A quick reminders on the basics of free agency.  A player becomes a UFA if either:

1. They are 30 years old as of December 31, 2025 and have played six seasons in the league; or
2. They have played 8 season in the league regardless of age.

Each team has one franchise tag that they can apply to any pending UFA on their roster.  If a player is franchised, they are no longer a UFA, but they receive 25% above the league maximum salary.  Any player that is 33 years old as of December 31, 2025 can refuse the franchise tag.

Here are the key unofficial UFA’s for each team (* denotes can reject the franchise tag):

Albany – Ethan O’Connor*, Callum Crawford*

Buffalo – Chris Cloutier, Paul Dawson*, Nick Weiss*, Justin Martin, Matt Spanger*, Kiel Matisz*, Matt Vinc*, Kyle Buchanan*, Bryce Sweeting, Chase Fraser

Calgary – Reece Callies, Curtis Dickson*, Jesse King*, Curtis Dickson*, Nick Rose*, Tyler Pace, John Lintz*

Colorado – Tim Edwards*, Damon Edwards*, Robert Hope*, Jordan Gilles, Zed Williams

Georgia – Miles Thompson*, Mike Manley*, Liam Byrnes, Brendan Bomberry, Jordan MacIntosh*, John Ranagan*, Seth Oakes, Jeremy Thompson*, Joey Cupido*

Halifax – Johnny Pearson, Colton Armstrong, Warren Hill*, Tyson Bell

Las Vegas – David Brock*, Brandon Goodwin*, Casey Jackson*, Sheldon Burns*

Ottawa – Eric Fannell, Reilly O’Connor

Philadelphia – Tony Malcolm, Joe Resetarits*, Phil Caputo, Mitch Jones*, Evan Messenger, Shane Simpson, Chris Corbeil*, Mitch de Snoo*, Ryan Wagner

Rochester – Turner Evans, Brad Gillies*, Curtis Knight*, Dan Coates*, Ian Llord* Brandon Slade

San Diego – Kyle Rubisch*, Jesse Gamble*, Cam Holding*, Ryan Benesch*, James Barclay, Mike Poulin*, Zach Currier

Saskatchewan – Ryan Keenan, Robert Church*, Adam Jay

Toronto – Corey Small*, Brad Kri*, Dan Craig, Tom Schreiber*, Billy Hostrawser*

Vancouver – Riley Loewen*, Brett Mydske*, Kevin Crowley*, Ryan Dilks*, Christian Del Bianco, Keegan Bal*

Break Time

Just like last year, I’m going to take a break from Random thoughts for a bit and refresh for the events that will happen this summer.  Its time to spend some key time with my family and destress a bit.  As events develop this summer I’m sure to be back to provide analysis as things occur.

In the meantime, there is a lot of options to watch lacrosse all summer long.  With a number of free streaming options, most of them being on YouTube, watch games when you can.  View count is critical to getting sponsors.  If you’re able to sponsor these free streams, please do so as we need more of them to truly get more eyes on the sport.  And if you’re not able to sponsor games, support the sponsors.  Supporting the sponsors gives more ammunition for sponsors to spend their advertising revenue on lacrosse.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but here’s where you can go to stream games for free this summer.

• The OJLL on YouTube broadcasts several games per week from Ontario Junior A.  For advertising opportunities, please contact Colleen Grimes.
• The Six Nations Chiefs are broadcasting their home games and select road games on YouTube on the Darryl Smart Media channel.
• Port Coquitlam’s Junior A games are being broadcast on BC Sports TV
• Trickshotlive.com is showing Junior Salmonbellies, Adanacs and Lakers games
• BC Sports TV will be free streaming the Founders Cup in August in Calgary.  For sponsorship opportunities, contact Keith info@bcsportstv.com
• Select PLL games will be televised on TSN, ESPN and ABC.  If you have TSN+ or ESPN+ already, every PLL game will be streamed there.

Until next time…