The New York Lizards have made it into the playoffs after missing out on the festivities last season. With a 9-5 record they find themselves with the third seed in the playoffs and are traveling to face the Denver Outlaws out west this weekend. How did the Lizards get to this point and what has been the cause for their turnaround season?
The Lizards made a ton of big name acquisitions this season in their efforts to turn their franchise around. Combine that with the fact that they already had Drew Adams in goal and reigning rookie of the year Rob Pannell on attack and this team had franchise cornerstones in place.
With all the acquisitions, the offense was thought to have threats all over the field with Pannell being joined by Palasek and Crotty on attack while Seibald would come back healthy and be joined by Matt Streibel and Jo-Jo Marasco. Unfortunately, the offense seemed out of sync from the beginning of the season as they scored 18, 11, nine, 11, 11, eight and 11 goals in their first seven games as they got off to a 3-4 record.
It was not a coincidence that when the team went on its four game winning streak and ended the season winning six of their last seven games, that the offense started to click. As the Lizards head into the playoffs, they boast the worst offense out of all four playoff teams and were ranked fifth this season, behind the Boston Cannons.
They scored 177 goals all year and without Pannell on attack it would be scary to think what this offense would be without him. Pannell had 56 points this season to carry the team offensively. The Lizards offense was also helped by balance everywhere else as they had four 20-point scorers and five 10-point scorers. However, it seems that the offense has problems putting up points in some long stretches and in games they have scored 11 goals or fewer, they were 2-5. Anything above that and……wait for it…..they win. It is not simply because they outscore teams, it is because their defense is awesome.
Before I get to the defense, the offense struggles to get easy goals as well as they are terrible on man-up opportunities. New York’s power play is bad. The only team worse this season was the Charlotte Hounds who converted 23.8 percent of their man-up plays compared to the Lizards at 26 percent. That number isn’t because of a lack of opportunities either as New York has had 50 man-up chances this year, third highest in the league.
The key to the Lizard success has largely been to the turnaround on defense from a season ago. This year they ranked seocnd in the entire league in goals allowed behind the Rochester Rattlers as they allowed 155 goals. The man-down defense is also very good as they led the MLL in man-down defense having killed 79.5 percent of the opponents penalties. It also helps that they committed the second fewest penalties in the league behind Boston this season. Still, it is impressive to only allow eight man-up goals in an eitre 14-game schedule when you are one man down with the best players in the world on the field.
The main reason for success is the fact that Drew Adams is an absolute stud in net. Did you see him against the Denver Outlaws this past weekend? He had 22 saves and was a humongous reason why they didn’t lose that game as he stuffed about four point blank shots, including two from John Grant Jr. He may not be the best goalie statistically as he is ranked fifth in save percentage, third in saves and third in goals against average but he shows up when they need him to.
The mix of Kyle Hartzell as thebest offensive-defenseman in the league to go with defenders Brian Karalunas, Joe Fletcher and Steven Holmes and the long poles are pretty good. Also the SSDM unit of Steven DeNapoli, John Austin, and brothers Kevin and Mike Unterstein form a great rotation for taking on midfielders and preventing penetration.
Lastly, Greg Gurenlian gives them a great advantage at the faceoff X as he wins 61 percent of the faceoffs he takes. He gives the Lizards the advantage of scoring a goal and getting the ball right back to extend the lead and give their defense a rest as well.
New York is a team that goes by the expression “Defense wins championships,” hopefully the offense can do enough to push them to a MLL Championship.
