Intros are for the uncool.
Cannons
Biggest Strength: Lyle Thompson.
The period in the header might as well be seventeen exclamation points. As a pro lacrosse writer serving a life sentence, I’m not allowed to have a “favorite team”. Except...I’m from New England. We don’t live and breathe by our teams, we wake up and inhale everything our content lungs can hold and never breathe out. We wake and bake our biases. So, when I tell you that Cannons fans have been waiting for a player like Lyle Thompson to join the team, you know that I’m speaking from both worlds. Normally there is an adjustment period for Lyle when he transitions from box to field - the passes, they’re just too fast and too short for field play at first - but without an NLL season this year, Lyle is all the way dialed in to field for the first time since his Dane days.
Biggest Weakness: Roster Depth
I don’t see how this defense with its May-December romance construction works at the highest level. Leadership is great and so is potential - but you need something in the middle to connect the two and the Cannons don’t have that. The best defender on the ENTIRE roster is Zach Goodrich. Full stop. There is a similar problem in the midfield where you have a ton of shooters - Connor Buczek, Paul Rabil, and Deemer Class - but not a lot of proven initiators. Show me someone who can draw a slide that doesn’t play attack. You can’t. Maybe that’s the plan though because the frontline actually has TOO many players on it. You cannot dress 8 attackmen each game. It’s impossible. This team hoarded way too many off-ball players and hoped that Thompson, Drenner, and Rehfuss would just sort it out somehow. Well, they can’t all play so you better get one of those guys to play midfield or you’re going to be scraping blood off your jerseys all summer.
Player to Watch: Chris Hogan, Hypebeast
Look. We all knew he was going to make it to training camp. He’s now made it past another major obstacle to get on the 25-man roster. But one question remains: Is Chris Hogan going to start a PLL game? At this point, he is. You can hate it all you want, rail against the lost opportunity for another pro to make it on one of these teams, but what you’re missing is what Hogan brings with him: Attention. I wrote about it when he announced that he was going to play earlier this year and I think most of those points still hold. No one knows what he can do until he does it or doesn’t. This Cannons team is going to need all the extra coverage angles they can get because they’re still an expansion team and the wins aren’t going to come easy.
Favorite Player: Zach Goodrich, Lock-on SSDM
I already called him the best defender on the team and he doesn’t even tote a six-foot pole, but maybe he should? You know he could play as a purely defensive LSM and it would free up Reece Eddy to do some more transition work and they could two-pole on draws. Maybe that’s too much tinkering, but the point is that Goodrich plays like he was built in a lab by a coach that was sick of losing to midfielders that kept getting switches off of the pole. He is the perfect six on six SSDM. The rope units don’t play for the press, but sometimes they deserve the attention anyway - this is one of those times.
Chaos
Biggest Strength: Two Man Games
If you want to know how the Chaos changed their fortunes in the pubble and went from one of the worst teams in group play to a playoff bracket busting behemoth, one need look no further than their Canadian roots. The pairs offense initiated by big/big picks and rolls up top and on the wings changed the fortunes of the Chaos as much as the benching of certain players. One of the catalysts that perpetrated that change was Dhane Smith, who was able to impose his physicality on mismatches and fore slides just by leaning on his defenders. And nobody passes out of a double like a Canadian. You all think it’s just great hands - it’s the awareness in tight spaces that sets our neighbors to the north apart. Now, the team is a little depleted due to the international restrictions, but the personnel is still there to run this same system. If your defense can’t navigate picks then they can’t defend Towers’ team.
Biggest Weakness: Everyone believes in us!
It only took one practice for the “don’t sleep on the Chaos” claims to start leaking out. Listen, we get it. You need something to motivate your team and one of the best ways to do that is to convince them that it’s just the staff and the fans that are on your side. Sports teams have been doing that since sports were invented. But, man - you made it to the title game. You bounced back from four losses to win playoff games. You can’t say no one believes in you. Or that people are “sleeping” on you. And by the way - any media member that says not to “sleep” on a player or a team is not to be trusted. None of us actually say that to each other - it’s social media coding for negative clicks. This team doesn’t need that. It’s almost beneath them to even use that same motivation. I believe in Chaos - both the ephemeral concept of it and the pro lacrosse team. Aw, you guys can’t even help yourself, can you? That’s so cute.
Player to Watch: Josh Byrne, Video Game Attackman
There is a lot of roster turnover to be concerned about, but Josh Byrne’s return is like seeing that the star of your favorite movie is coming back for the sequel. Byrne has always been fun to watch, it just hit another level in Utah last summer. There are players that play with manufactured flair - where an around the world BTB pass is just sauce - and there are players that compete with actual unforced elegance and style. Byrne is the latter; nothing about his game is forced. That fluidity carries over to his teammates and helps to define the style of this entire Chaos team. I still want one of those controller button Byrne T-shirts from last year’s highlight, too. So. Hook your boy up if you’ve got a Large or a shmedium.
Favorite Player: Max Adler, Face-off Technician
The most integral part of the off-season - besides finally trading Dillon/Dylan/Dai-lon Ward - was the acquisition of Adler. Tommy Kelly is gone and in Cannons blue instead of Chaos red, all hail the new king of the X. Adler’s consistency is his greatest asset, as he has been able to adapt and reform himself to different opponents and somehow improve with each year in the pros. That being said, the PLL will be different as the best draw men in the world await him in showdowns across the country. I’ve always enjoyed Adler’s affable nature after games, too. If you’re looking for a guy to talk to after the final whistle he’s a great choice. That might be a little too “inside lacrosse” (pun intended, snitches) but it’s true and should be lauded.