Ah yes… The illustrious rankings of power. Where figuring out what team belongs were in relation to every other team is an exercise in futility. What do you value more? Stats? The Eyeball Test? Advanced Analytics? (HA! Just kidding. MLL doesn’t really have those yet.) There is only one thing that is clear at this point and that is that the New York Lizards are the king of the mountain until someone manages to push them off.
Let’s keep the same tiered format as last week in an effort toward consistency and to mitigate the frustration of splitting hairs. (Note: teams are listed alphabetically within each tier.)
Tier 1:
New York Lizards
Still undefeated. Still on top until proven otherwise. What more is there to say at this point? This team is stacked all over and doesn’t seem to have an ego. That’s dangerous. Very dangerous.
Tier 2:
Chesapeake Bayhawks
The Bayhawks haven’t faced the league’s top competition yet, and sit at 3-1. Peet Poillon dusted off his scoring jacket against Charlotte and you could tell he was glad to finally pot a pair. This offense is humming right now. Next week’s game against New York will be a better test of where this team belongs in the grand scheme of things.
Rochester Rattlers
Is there a team happier than Rochester that the NLL season is over? The Rattlers are fast and they shared the ball really well against Denver. Five different players grabbed two goals on the day and Jordan Wolf brought home the hat trick. Bonus points for the John Ranagan/Pat Harbeson match up commentary during the broadcast on this one.
Tier 3:
Denver Outlaws
How the mighty have fallen. Denver’s defense looked like they took a tour through a glue factory on their way to the game. In other words, they just looked slow. Jesse Schwartzman did his best to keep his team in it, making 16 saves. Anthony Kelly, who has been such a stalwart at the faceoff, had trouble against the Ortolani/Poppleton combination. The Colorado Mammoth got knocked out of the NLL playoffs so don’t be surprised to see some familiar-yet-previously-absent faces when they play Florida on Saturday.
Boston Cannons
I really thought the Cannons could do it, but in the end there wasn’t enough firepower (get it?!) to take down the Lizards. Facing the league alpha dog in back to back weeks isn’t fun, and the Cannons gave them a run for their money, but the team just can’t seem to close out a W. They should have some fresh faces when they visit Charlotte on Sunday though.
Tier 4:
Charlotte Hounds
In four games Justin Ward has 2 points. That’s it. Last year he was the lifeblood of this Charlotte team and this year he’s pretty much AWOL. If Ward isn’t effective it makes six on six sets much easier for other teams. Someone needs to light a fire under the Hounds’ offensive players, stat. (Negative points for the clock at their home stadium too. I swear clock issues added half an hour to the broadcast.)
Florida Launch
The Launch finally put a win together. Granted it was over an Ohio team that’s still struggling to find its mojo this year, but Charlie Cipriano did a great job filling in for Brett Queener, making 18 saves and only allowing 12 goals. Kieran McArdle continues to be an absolute force. With Cornell’s season over Connor Buczek should arrive shortly, which the midfield unit will no doubt appreciate.
Ohio Machine
Brian Phipps went from being Defensive Player of the Week to allowing 15 goals and only making 7 saves. Those numbers aren’t going to win you many games in MLL. On the plus side, Peter Baum continues to be the on-field equivalent of electric kool-aid. Steele Stanwick was back in the mix dishing out helpers, and Marcus Holman made his presence known as well. Give these guys a couple more weeks to get their groove back and we might see the Ohio team of yore, or at least last year. If Jim Dailey sticks around, and he should considering the secondary scoring he’s providing, it will help their depth, too.
