1st Star – Corey Small, Victoria Shamrocks
Small has continued his great run of play from the NLL season – where he was arguably the Stealth’s best player down the stretch – to his time with the Shamrocks. Coming off a seven point night (three goals, four assists), Small is providing the Shamrocks with a great scoring option on the left side. He’s scoring goals in a variety of ways, even strength and on the power play, and his ability to find guys in traffic or under pressure is an undervalued trait in summer ball.
His 44 points and 19 goals are good for tops in the league, while he sits third in assists with 25 and is an early leader in the WLA MVP race, one would think.
At least one Shamrock has appeared in the WLA Three Stars since it came back on ILWT, a real testament to the depth and firepower Victoria has all over the line up.
2nd Star – Tye Belanger, Burnaby Lakers
Before the start of the year, the Lakers traded away goaltender Dan Lewis to the Coquitlam Adanacs to clear some of the logjam they have in the crease. They had four viable goaltending options, from Belanger to long-time senior goalie Joe Bell, it was still one of the bigger question marks on the team heading into the season. Those concerns were only affirmed as the Lakers started 1-2 and Bell struggled mightily, stopping just 74.8 per cent of the 119 shots against him for a 10.29 goals against average.
Since Belanger got back to the swamp, he finds himself carrying some of his fine form from the NLL, with an .830 save percentage. Belanger is also tied with Alexis Buque for the league lead in wins with four. He was strong in the win over Coquitlam, allowing just four goals and while he struggled in the win over Langley, he held strong against a late Thunder run to preserve that win as well.
3rd Star – Lewis Ratcliff, Langley Thunder
Lewis Ratcliff, to some, made the decision to leave the Vancouver Stealth and retire from the NLL this season prematurely. And much of those thoughts were confirmed by Ratcliff’s monster game to help Langley get a huge home win over a close competitor in the standings. With three goals and five assists, he was in on over half of Langley’s offensive production in the 14-11 win and looked like he was in fine form.
Ratcliff’s presence on the perimeter gives Langley the ability to operate with different looks as he draws attention away from slashers like Athan Iannucci and Pat Saunders. He gives them a well rounded approach to the offense and now that the Thunder are getting some guys like Brett Mydske, Nik Bilic and Joel McCready back into the lineup, they’re definitely looking more dangerous than they did at the start of the season.
