NLL Week 2 Primer

The NLL season opened with a banger of a week one. The crowd in Oshawa sold out the building for their new team, and were treated to an instant classic 8-7 victory over Toronto. Buffalo raised a banner and used a big second half to fight off a frisky young Georgia team. San Diego was fast out of the gate and leaned on Ottawa all night, while Colorado went into Vancouver and spoiled the Warriors home opener. It’s a lighter slate in week two, but it should be another fun weekend. 

FRIDAY

Who: Oshawa FireWolves (1-0) vs Halifax Thunderbirds (0-0)

Where: Scotiabank Centre, Halifax

When: 6:00pm, EST

The Spread: Halifax favored by 1.5 (+114), game total set at 22.5

SATURDAY

Who: Calgary Roughnecks (0-0) vs Saskatchewan Roughnecks (0-0)

Where: Sasktel Centre, Saskatchewan

When: 8:00pm EST

The Spread: Saskatchewan favored by 1.5 (-135), game total set at 21.5

STORIES TO WATCH

Light calendar week

Only two games on the calendar, but at least they aren’t at the same time. The light week is a bit of a head scratcher.  There are a lot of schedule dynamics at work and maybe I’m missing the forest through the trees, but through two weeks, the NLL will have seen 11 of its 14 teams make their debut. Which, fine, I guess, but two weeks into a pro sports season you’d think everyone would have gotten a game in. We are still awaiting the season opener for Las Vegas, Rochester, and Philadelphia. All three will play their first game in Week Three, when there’s a pack seven game weekend to watch. In a way, Week Two is really just a nice little appetizer to that. While two games isn’t much, there’s a lot to look at. Oshawa had a great home opener, now they head on the road to one of the most raucous buildings in the NLL. The Nest will be rocking for the Halifax home opener, if the FireWolves come out of their with a victory, they will have made a serious statement. Out west, the Rush home opener sees the Roughnecks come to town. The bright green turf will be on display, don’t adjust your sets. Saskatchewan has key pieces of their team that took Buffalo to the brink in the NLL finals last year, getting out to a good start against what many experts expect to be a down Calgary team is the opening note they need. 

New look Roughnecks

Curtis Dickson, Jesse King, Dane Dobbie. Calgary’s first, second, and fourth leading scorers from last year. Dickson and King took their combined 214 points and signed with Vancouver, while Dobbie finally surrendered to father time and retired. That’s nearly 280 points, about half the offense from last year, gone. Tanner Cook, Tyler Pace, and Haiden Dickson return. Youngsters like Brayden Mayea will have to step up. First round pick Noah Manning could be counted on to produce right away. The expectation is that this is a rebuild type of year for Calgary. Justin Inacio should help them from the faceoff spot to get plenty of possession, it’ll just be a matter of working out what Calgary does with it. There’s a lot of young gifted talent on the defensive end. Kyle Pepper was another first round pick, and last year Jack Follows appeared in 17 games and had 13 CTOs with 39 loose balls as a rookie. 

Under the radar Thunderbirds?

Halifax enters the season with, according to DraftKings, the 4th best odds to win the title at +850. They posted at 11-7 record a year ago. The offense returns, including Randy Staats off a 100+ point season. They added Brendan Bomberry to get even deeper. Thomas Hoggarth and Clarke Petterson got new deals. Ryan Terefenko has been at a TPOY level over the past few seasons, Graeme Hossack is widely considered the best defender in the league. The Birds have all the pieces, but all the preseason talk has been focused on the Buffalo four peat, Vancouver’s free agent splashes, and other teams who were busier in free agency. The Thunderbirds have a chance to go under the radar a bit at the start of the season and stack some wins, starting with their home opener.