Going into the 2014 season, we expected to see a down year for American players with so many of them opting to instead play just MLL and with Team USA. However, those few Americans who have played this season have been very impressive. Still, with so few Americans left in the NLL, let’s take a look at how they have all fared.
Philadelphia consistently has the most Americans in the league and that remains true in 2014. The only teams without any Americans are Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver; Toronto has one on their practice roster in Eric Law.
The highest scoring American player in the league is Drew Westervelt who has 37 points. Westervelt was traded from Philadelphia to Colorado and he has been a big impact for the Mammoth where he is their third leading scorer.
The next leading American scorer is Casey Powell of the Mammoth who has 16 points in three games. So the Americans we see in the NLL today are not scorers, but more role players. In fact, most of the Americans in the NLL are currently defensemen or transition, but interestingly enough, there has not been an American goalie in the NLL for four years.
When we get to loose balls is when we see some more Americans in the picture. Joel White is sixth in the league with 70 and at eighth is CJ Costabile with 68. In fact, most American players of impact don’t have an impact on the stat sheet. Players like Brett Manney, Eric Hoffman and Kyle Sweeney are solid players overall but almost are never on the stat sheet as a major impact.
Other players like Eric Law, Gerrett Thul, Mike Manley and David Earl are still young players developing their game, but this year is at an all time low for American players. A lot of this is probably due to the 27 players not in the league due to the roster shortage.
Some American players who played in 2013 and not in 2014 are Brendan Mundorf, Paul Rabil, Matt Gibson (on PUP in Minnesota), Mitch Belisle, Ned Crotty, Pat Heim, Jeff Reynolds, Kevin Buchanan, Kyle Hartzell, Ethan Farrell, Ryan Hotaling, and Jarrett Park. It is easy to say most of these players are not playing because of team USA, which is the major reason we are seeing fewer Americans in the NLL this year.
Mundorf, Rabil, Belisle, Buchanan and Hartzell were pretty much locks to make their rosters. After that, however, with the shortened rosters, it’s hard to say that players like Crotty and Heim would be there. Then players like Farrell and Hotaling who are pure box players and good at what they do do not get the chances with the shortened rosters.
The moral of the story? The only Americans making rosters this year are defensive players. Mundorf, Rabil and Buchanan would be considered scorers, but even after that, Hartzell and Belisle are top defenders while Crotty and Heim are role players and Hotaling is a faceoff specialist at the NLL level. When will we see a time with American box lacrosse scorers again?
