Tom Schreiber and Adam Jones were co-named as the 21st best player in the NLL on ILindoor. I'm probably biased, but it's hard to imagine that there's 20 players in the league who are better than Schreiber. Nonetheless, the Rock have 5 of the top 41 players in the league per ILindoor.
Rock win 13-10 tonight. Nice come from behind win - 9-6 ish at the third quarter post but, another one of those games like too many last year where the attack was muzzled for a lengthy period. I think they had four coming out of the first, and, were stifled nearly completely for two full quarters. Rose played full game, Jamieson played most, maybe all for NE. No Evans, no Crowley playing for NE. No Schreiber for Toronto, otherwise, looked pretty close to what I expect for the game 1 roster. Don't think Turner Evans played any of these, but, didn't notice him being placed on injured reserve or cut.........In any case, I think Leblanc, Jones, Reinholdt, and McArdle/MacDonald is a better four than they sent out any game last year......Jones takes the best righty defencemen away from the other guys, and, still either scores himself or makes it easier for others to do so.
Mikey MacDonald got released a few days ago. Also, I believe Evans is out until February, as is Rogers?? Anyhow, bought my seat for the season opener in Buffalo in 2 weeks.
Yeah, I went through the offseason thread and got reminded of the Evans and Gamble situations. Had forgotten about Rogers, but, the other young D help looks mostly decent so far. Maybe we'll get by. Yeah, so, with MacDonald waived, lefty and righty attack is pretty well set then, and, there are a couple guys hidden right now as Defence/transition that could play attack shifts to cover injuries. Lefties should score lots more than last year. If the D ends up being as good as last year, I think this team contends for the division, and, can hang around with anyone in a playoff game, and explode for late goals if needed. Here's hoping for a fun season, and, for a better result than last year in the East final, and what follows.
And, hey, NOT trading Leblanc for No. 8 seems to have been sort of a good idea.......Lefties have chipped in a plethora of goals through the preseason. Granted, most of the improvement is Jonesy's sniping, but, it feels like Leblanc is helping make this happen. Should be a more fun offence to watch this upcoming season. Hopefully reminiscent of last several finals appearances - 2005, 2010, 2011, 2015
I really think this offense, if they can share the ball properly, can really give the 2005 squad a run for their money with Schreiber, Hellyer, Hickey, Jones, and Leblanc. 2 of those 5 are elite talents, the other 3 are guys who could easily be the number 1 on other offenses in the league in my opinion.
It's all about the three H's - Hickey and Hellyer's Health. If those two can avoid the injury bug, this is a tough group to shut down. Any three-man grouping of the top 5 you listed can kill you on a given night.
Tried looking up Drew Belgrave's WLA stats. I found everything except for loose balls on the WLA site, which you'd think would be the one stat they'd be sure to include