Archive for the ‘Inside the Numbers’ Category


IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Craig Point, Rhys Duch share top postseason honors for 2013

May 13th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Washington's Rhys Duch (10) ends the postseason tied for top honors among Team 22 Money Ballers. (Photo: Dan Brodie)
Washington's Rhys Duch (10) ends the postseason tied for top honors among Team 22 Money Ballers. (Photo: Dan Brodie)

That’s all there is, there ain’t no more. The 2013 National Lacrosse League season ended as it began, with the Washington Stealth hosting the Rochester Knighthawks in a one-goal game. The two games were pretty much the same, assuming you don’t count the actual location, the winner, and the importance of the game. As you know by now, the Knighthawks became the first team in ten years to repeat as NLL Champions with a thrilling 11-10 victory over the Stealth. Similar to the final game last year, there were two different games, each 30 minutes long, and one team was held to a single goal in the second one. But unlike last year, the team that lost the second “game” won the championship. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Stealth’s Rhys Duch shoots to top of standings for NLL playoffs

May 6th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Rhys Duch had one of the best Money Baller games of the entire season in Saturday's victory. (Photo: Dan Brodie)
Rhys Duch had one of the best Money Baller games of the entire season in Saturday's victory. (Photo: Dan Brodie)

It’s not uncommon in team sports to have a player play an outstanding game in a losing cause. We see it in the National Lacrosse League all the time, particularly with goaltenders. In any 8-7 game you’ll have a goaltender that gives up 8 goals, almost four below the league average of 11.95, and still lose. This past weekend’s games featured a couple more examples, particularly one by our Team 22 Money Ballers regular season champ. Oddly, if you look at the numbers of the Rochester-Minnesota game, you might think that neither team had a great night. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Stealth teammates Bucktooth, Ratcliff set pace for playoffs

April 29th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

More than one Washington player scored a big goal on Saturday, including Brett Bucktooth. (Photo: Dan Brodie)
More than one Washington player scored a big goal on Saturday, including Brett Bucktooth. (Photo: Dan Brodie)

The National Lacrosse League playoffs are upon us and this is when the clutch performances become even more critical. Winning games during the regular season is obviously important, but in the playoffs, coming through when your team needs you could be the difference between playing for the championship and watching it on TV. In the division semifinals, we had no shortage of these clutch goals, but sometimes the Team 22 Money Baller points come from some unlikely sources. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Taking a closer look at top Money Ballers in various categories

April 26th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Kiel Matisz (46) was the top Money Ballers among all NLL rookies, and all of the Swarm. (Photo: Scott Pierson)
Kiel Matisz (46) was the top Money Ballers among all NLL rookies, and all of the Swarm. (Photo: Scott Pierson)

The Team 22 Money Ballers is your weekly look at the clutch performers in the National Lacrosse League. We look at the goals and assign the points and list the top point-getters in the league. But if you’re a stats geek like me, you want more. In this article, we’ll look at the 2013 Money Ballers numbers a little differently. For example, who were the team leaders? Who were the highest-ranking transition players, defenders, and goaltenders? Who had the best single game from a Money Ballers standpoint? But this article is not just for stats geeks. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Calgary’s Curtis Dickson wraps up title in dominant fashion

April 22nd, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Is Curtis Dickson celebrating his 2013 Money Ballers title? Nah, it's just a goal against Edmonton. (Photo: Dale MacMillan)
Is Curtis Dickson celebrating his 2013 Money Ballers title? Nah, it's just a goal against Edmonton. (Photo: Dale MacMillan)

What an ending! The 2013 National Lacrosse League regular season came to an exciting close this weekend, with one-goal games in Buffalo and Edmonton, a two-goal game in Minnesota, and a four-goal blow-out (relatively, anyway) in Washington. The playoff matchups are now set: the Rock are first overall, the Roughnecks are first in the West, the Bandits are out, and we have our first-ever crossover as the Swarm return temporarily to the Eastern division where they played from 2005-2008. With the close of the regular season also comes the close of another season of the Team 22 Money Ballers, and so without further ado, I am pleased to announce the winner … READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Duch, Crawford and Westervelt at top of crowded leaderboard

April 8th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Minnesota's Callum Crawford (98) threw down 8 points in Sunday's loss to Philadelphia. (Photo: Todd Bauders)
Minnesota's Callum Crawford (98) threw down 8 points in Sunday's loss to Philadelphia. (Photo: Todd Bauders)

It’s hard to believe there are only two weeks left in the 2013 National Lacrosse League season, and yet only four teams have clinched playoff spots while nobody has been eliminated. It’s still possible that five different teams finish 8-8. It’s also possible that three teams finish 10-6. As many of the individual games so often do, this season is going right down to the wire. This past weekend we had a wide variety of games to choose from, particularly from a Team 22 Money Ballers point of view. We had two different games where 28 goals were scored; one with a score differential of 2, the other with a differential of 14. There was a one-goal game in Calgary featuring thirteen Money Baller goals, and a one-goal game in Toronto featuring two. And we had the second-highest 2013 single-game Money Baller score tied not once but twice. Let’s dive right in. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Dobbie, Dickson reppin’ the Roughnecks at top of the table

April 1st, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Dane Dobbie put up 8 Money Baller points to help Calgary rally for a win in Washington. (Photo: Dan Brodie)
Dane Dobbie put up 8 Money Baller points to help Calgary rally for a win in Washington. (Photo: Dan Brodie)

With three teams already having clinched playoff spots, we had two more spots up for grabs this week in the National Lacrosse League. Both Philadelphia and Washington could have clinched spots, depending on the outcomes of three games. In fact, there was only one way that neither team could clinch their spot – the Wings had to get swept in their two games and the Stealth had to lose to the Roughnecks. Guess what happened? Let’s have a look and while we’re at it, we’ll check out the Team 22 Money Ballers numbers too. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Calgary’s Curtis Dickson takes control of overall standings

March 25th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Calgary's Curtis Dickson owned it when it came to clutch scoring in Saturday's win over Colorado. (Photo: NLL)
Calgary's Curtis Dickson owned it when it came to clutch scoring in Saturday's win over Colorado. (Photo: NLL)

There were only three games this past weekend in the National Lacrosse League, but no shortage of excitement. In the world of the Team 22 Money Ballers, we had a season record set for Money Baller points in a game as the Calgary Roughnecks came back from a five-goal deficit to beat the Colorado Mammoth. The Edmonton Rush had their best weekend in recent memory — possibly in franchise history — as they picked up two victories by a combined score of 31-19, extended their winning streak to five, pushed themselves squarely into first place in the West, and clinched a playoff berth. On the other hand, both Toronto and Buffalo got smoked in front of their home town fans, the two teams combining for 2.5 MB points. Shall we delve a little deeper into the games? Yes. Let’s. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Greer takes top spot for week as Billings keeps overall lead

March 18th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

Zack Greer scored a season-high 4 goals to help Edmonton defeat Rochester on Saturday. (Photo: Larry Palumbo)
Zack Greer scored a season-high 4 goals to help Edmonton defeat Rochester on Saturday. (Photo: Larry Palumbo)

Week 11 of the National Lacrosse League season featured two close inter-divisional games, and two not-so-close games between divisional rivals. We had a rematch of last year’s championship game, we had a rookie defender scoring a hat trick, we had a 3-7 team set multiple team records while blowing out a first-place team, and we sat on the edge of our seats watching another rematch waiting for the inevitable fights to spill over from last week’s brawl. Considering all of this, Week 11 was what your average NLL fan might call “typical.” As for the Team 22 Money Ballers, there was no change in the overall race, but our weekly winner scored more than half of his total Money Baller points for the season in one game. READ MORE »

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IL Indoor, Inside the Numbers, National Lacrosse League

Team 22 Money Ballers: Mammoth’s McBride, Rock’s Billings at top of charts

March 11th, 2013 by Graeme Perrow

A 7-point weekend helps make Colorado's Jordan McBride, center, the Money Baller king this week. (Photo: Larry Palumbo)
A 7-point weekend helps make Colorado's Jordan McBride, center, the Money Baller king this week. (Photo: Larry Palumbo)

It was a streaky and freaky weekend in the National Lacrosse League. All four of the games featured a long run — two had five-goal runs, one had six- and five-goal runs, and one had an eight-goal run to end the game. Last week’s Money Ballers leaders combined for 3 MB points total, a couple of players who aren’t known for hat tricks got hat tricks, one game featured 110 minutes of penalties, and another game didn’t have all that many penalties called but will keep the league office busy for a while anyway. But in the Team 22 Money Ballers world, we’re only concerned with the week’s top clutch performances and we had a few of those as well, so let’s get to it. READ MORE »

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