Warren Hill taking over, Calgary's youngsters deliver, and it's the Thunderbirds' title to lose. NLL Week 2 Overreactions.

Warren Hill took that personally

In the offseason, the Halifax Thunderbirds were pretty quiet. They added Brendan Bomberry, but otherwise, there weren’t many major changes and the Birds are basically running it back. This was a bit to the chagrin of some NLL pundits and Birds fans, who wondered if a change in goal might be in order. Last year, Hill had the worst GAA of his career excluding his rookie season in a backup or part time role. The same is true for his save percentage. With that as context, the chatter about replacing Hill was reasonable. After the Birds opener, that talk should be put to bed for a while. Hill stopped 49 of 51 shots, surrendering just two goals in an 11-2 win over Oshawa. The two goals surrendered ties a regular season NLL record for fewest goals in a game. Oshawa scored their second goal with just under two minutes left in the first quarter, and Halifax shut them out the rest of the way. The Birds team defense as a whole was tight and organized, playing more like a team that’s dialed in for the playoffs than a team in the season opener. Hill’s play in goal was the exclamation point. 

Calgary has the goods

The Roughnecks entered the season with fairly low expectations. In an offseason that saw Jesse King and and Curtis Dickson depart for Vancouver, while Dane Dobbie retired, the Roughnecks offense had a load of question marks. An opening game test against a team that has title aspirations would offer some good context to what Calgary might have this winter. The kids didn’t disappoint. While the knowns like Haiden Dickson and Tyler Pace were productive, the young weapons produced. Brayden Mayea had four points, and rookie Noah Manning had three. Kyle Pepper was impressive as a rookie in transition. They kept the loose ball count about even with the Rush, and that was helped by Justin Inacio going 79% facing off. The game was a bit similar to Ottawa/San Diego last week. Calgary got into an early hole, and while they fought hard, never could just close the gap and get back in front. They tied it at 13 in the 4th, and Calgary actually outscored the Rush 8-6 in the second half. The Roughnecks expectations likely remain low, and they may have some up and down games, but the talent is in place. 

Give Mike Messenger all the awards

Overreactions are usually about being effusive in praise or criticism to the point where it clearly is over the top. I don’t know if that’s possible for what Messenger did on Saturday night. Here are his stats against Calgary: nine loose balls, two caused turnovers, two blocked shots, two goals, three assists, and six faceoff wins. This has never been done before. No player in NLL history has recorded a stat line like that before. From opening whistle until the final horn, Messenger was around the ball making plays. He looks like a man born in the wrong century. He’d be perfectly suited to be on a medieval battlefield somewhere, but instead he brings that level of aggression and physicality to the lacrosse field. A special kind of year could be on tap for Messenger. He had ten points in the entire regular season last year; he’s halfway to that total after one game.

It’s the Thunderbirds title to lose

We already outlined the dominance of Warren Hill, but it really was a complete effort by the Thunderbirds. They got 11 goals from eight different players, with only Randy Staats, Cody Jamieson and Dawson Theede scoring multiple goals. Clarke Petterson had five assists. Jake Withers was his usual dominant self, winning 15/17 draws with 16 loose balls. It should be noted that Oshawa was without Joe Nardella, but 89% is 89%. Graeme Hossack was a lockdown force yet again.The game started ugly, with the Birds committing two penalties in the game’s first 2:17. But they only surrendered a goal one on of those penalty kills. In fact, despite racking up 14 minutes of penalties in the game, they killed off one foul after another. In my eyes, the only part of Halifax’s game that really needs cleaning up is the penalties. But the defense held Dyson Williams, Ethan Walker, and Alex Simmons to zero goals on a combined 32 shots on goal. The offense got production from up and down the lineup. Special attention will be paid to the injury report to learn the status of Thomas Hoggarth, who went down early with a non contact injury, but the Birds look like they have all the tools.