NLL Season Preview: Philadelphia Wings

The Wings were once the elite of the NLL. More championships than anyone else, back-to-back championships twice, stealing one from the mighty Toronto Rock in Toronto in the middle of their dynasty, the Gait brothers, Dallas, Hollywood Marechek, the list goes on and on. But over the last ten seasons, they've only made the playoffs twice and they lost both of those games. Numerous coaching and GM changes have made no difference, but current GM Johnny Mouradian was determined to change that. The demise of the Blazers helped, but Mouradian has made a few moves, including a blockbuster trade with the Rush, to vastly improve the Wings with a mind to return them to their former glory.

Acquisitions

Oh, nobody important. Just Dan Dawson, one of the most potent scoring threats in the league and a former MVP, and Brodie Merrill, possibly the best transition player in the game. But the changes don't end there. They've also added Nick Cotter, who scored 30 points for Boston last year, Mike McLellan who split time between Colorado and Edmonton, and Mike Hominuck, who took last year off but scored 20 with the Rock in 2010 and 47 with the Rush in 2009. First overall draft pick Kevin Crowley is expected to make the team and have an immediate impact. Crowley once said that he modeled his game after Dan Dawson, so playing with Dawson should help him progress even further.

Apart from Merrill, there are a couple of new faces on the defensive side as well. Former Wings captain Thomas Hajek returns to Philadelphia after a year in Boston. Brett Queener, a goaltender for the Hamilton Nationals of the MLL, played (on both offense and transition) for three seasons in Boston, and joins the Wings on transition. Field lacrosse fans may be excited to see the name Ned Crotty joining the Wings. Crotty is a superstar in the MLL, but hasn't made a name for himself in the NLL. Crotty played in 8 games with the Mammoth in 2011, and only acquired 4 points. The indoor game is quite different from the field game, but players like John Grant and Paul Rabil have been able to be successful in both. Not everyone can, and it is yet to be determined whether Crotty can make the transition (pun intended).

Another major change to the Wings is not technically an acquisition, since he already worked for the club. GM Johnny Mouradian will step behind the bench, replacing John Tucker as head coach for the 2012 season. Mouradian has been a GM in the NLL with the Stealth, Rock, and Bandits (winning two Championships with Toronto and three with Buffalo) and also coached the San Jose Stealth for two years.

Losses

There are fewer losses than acquisitions, but the players they are losing are pretty significant as well. Athan Iannucci, the NLL's single-season record holder in goals, was moved to Edmonton in the Brodie Merrill deal. Nooch scored his record 71 goals in 2008 and was named league MVP, and then had knee surgery that same summer. He played part of the 2009 season but the knee problems came back, and he sat out the entire 2010 season. He returned last season and put up better-than-decent numbers, but nowhere near 2008. 61 points is 61 points, but it's less impressive when you think about it this way: Iannucci scored 100 points in 2008, and has 98 points combined in the three seasons since then.

Also departing are former Rookie of the Year Ryan Boyle, who was released before training camp even started, and Shawn Nadelen, who retired to take a coaching position at Towson University.

As mentioned, last year's head coach John Tucker stepped down from that position but stays with the club, as its director of U.S. collegiate scouting.

Offense Preview

How bad was Philadelphia's offense last year? They scored in single digits in eight of their 16 games, and only reached 12 goals three times. Athan Iannucci had 61 points to lead the team, the lowest total for a team leader in the league – in fact, the lowest total for a team leader since 2008 when 54 points led the Rush and 53 led the Chicago Shamrox.

If the Wings had scored two extra goals in every one of their 11 losses, they still would have lost nine of them, and tied the other two. They were last in the East in goals scored, and with the 22 extra goals, they still would have been last.

The addition of Dan Dawson will change that. Dawson is one of the best offensive players in the league and has been for years, but not only because of his goal-scoring ability. In fact, last season he had almost twice as many assists as goals. Iannucci, on the other hand, had only 3 more assists than goals and even in his 2008 71-goal MVP season he only had 29 assists. Of course, passing to players like Sanderson, Powell, and Buchanan helped Dawson to get those numbers, but in Dawson's ten-year career, he's only had fewer assists than goals twice. His presence should help Drew Westervelt rebound from his 54 points last year, a drop of 18 from 2010. Ned Crotty led the MLL in scoring this past summer, and if he can figure out the indoor game, he could be another scoring threat for the Wings.

The Wings may also have the tallest first line in the league: Dawson is 6'5", and Westervelt and Crowley are both 6'4". The Toronto Rock currently have five defenders on their roster listed at 5'9" or less. NLL defensive coaches may want to shuffle their defenders a little based on height when playing the Wings.

Defense Preview

Philadelphia allowed the most goals of any Eastern division team, with 179. This was 11 below the next worst, Toronto. But strangely, 179 goals against would have been good for second in the west, behind only Colorado. Philly had three streaks during last season: the first six games, where they allowed their opponents to score as many as 11 goals only once and went 3-3; the next six games, where their opponents scored at least 13 all but once and they went 1-5, and the last four, where they were back at 11 or under but went 1-3. The Wings lost games with scores like 10-6, 9-6, and 9-7. If the offense had been able to do anything, there are a number of games that they could have won.

The addition of Merrill, Hajek, and Queener only makes this better. Leadership on the back end shouldn't be a problem; Hajek and Merrill have both been captains in the past, and Taylor Wray and Matt Alrich are entering their ninth and eighth seasons respectively. They will notice the absence of Shawn Nadelen, however. Nadelen was a solid defender who played ten seasons in the NLL, most of them with the Wings. I'm sure there are Philly fans who will be disappointed that they can no longer yell "Go Nads!" at the top of their lungs without getting in trouble. (Full disclosure: I stole that joke from a thread on the Wingszone message boards.)

Goalie Preview

The Wings finished last in the East in 2011, but that was through no fault of Brandon Miller. Stats-wise, Miller had a decent season, finishing 8th in the league with a 11.25 GAA and 6th in save percentage with 77.4%, but I think Miller's season was better than the stats might indicate. The Wings lost 11 games, but opponents scored 11 or fewer goals in six of those losses. When you play the Boston Blazers three times, hold them to 10, 9, and 5 goals, and only win one of those games, goaltending is not your problem.

Miller's backups will be Kurtis Wagar, who only played 60 minutes last year, and Ray Hodgkinson, who only played 46. Both had GAAs under 9 but with the limited minutes those numbers don't mean much. It is assumed that Miller will play the vast majority of time, but if he gets hurt, Philly could be in some trouble. Wagar has seen time with a number of different teams but never more than 72 minutes in any one season, and last year was Hodgkinson's first in the NLL. Former goalie-of-the-future Brodie MacDonald was sent to Edmonton in the Brodie Merrill deal, thanks to the little-known clause in the CBA that requires that Brodies and Matts be traded in pairs. (This is also why Colorado had to include Matt Zash when they sent Matt Vinc to Rochester. But I digress.)

Prediction

The Wings lost a former MVP (Iannucci) and a former Rookie of the Year (Boyle), which would usually indicate a rough offseason. But they also gained a former MVP (Dawson) and former Rookie of the Year (Merrill). Merrill is also a former Defender of the Year and a two-time Transition Player of the Year.

Can the Wings go from worst to first in the East? That may be too big a step for one year but it's not out of the question. They had solid defense and goaltending last year, and despite losing Shawn Nadelen, the back end improved with the addition of Merrill and Hajek. Their offense wasn't great at all, but adding Dawson, Crowley, Hominuck, Cotter, and McLellan, along with the possible emergence of Ned Crotty more than makes up for the loss of Iannucci and Boyle.

In a very tough Eastern division I see the Wings third ahead of the likely Powell-less Knighthawks. If the team gels, the Wings could be a contending team for a few years. But look out if they don't; thanks to the Merrill trade, the Wings don't have a first round draft pick until 2015. That's four full seasons away.