NLL Week Seven - Washington Stealth at Rochester Knighthawks

This game features the bottom team from each division with Washington sitting at 1-4 and Rochester at 2-4. While the records are sub par, the teams that will be playing tonight are going to be different from the ones that got them there. Rochester will be without two of their top five points leaders (Cody Jamieson - 38 points and Jordan Hall - 21 points) and Washington will be without one of their top five leaders (Paul Rabil - 8 points).

While both teams are without star players, only Rochester will have them truly gone. We all know that Rabil was shipped off to Edmonton in exchange for Athan Iannucci. Nooch hasn't performed very well this season, currently sitting with zero goals and assists and actually has zeros all across the board. Just because he hasn't played a single game this season is no excuse for a star player like him to be this under performing, well, maybe it is a justifiable excuse.

Iannucci will team up Rhys Duch and Lewis Ratcliff in order to give Washington an offensive kick start that they have been very desperate for this season. Duch and Rat have combined for 20 goals (10 each) which accounts for 43% of Washington's total. With Zywicki out and Rabil struggling a little this season, the Stealth have become a little too dependent on their two forwards. Iannucci hopes to change that.

Rochester will have to put more emphasis on Mike Accursi and Cory Vitarelli along with two of their rookies, Stephen Keogh and Johnny Powless. These four players are very capable and can definitely score goals but they also aren't Jamieson.

My key to the game comes down to Rochester's defense. Rochester needs a strong showing to keep Washington out if they want to have a shot. Last week against the Swarm, the KHawks scored six goals. That's averaging one goal every 10 minutes! You can't win a game with that level of "offense" without a defense that is very solid in the back.

Rochester will be running their usual pressure defense while double teaming Washington's stars. That would have worked well if these teams played last week but Rochester will have to be extremely mobile today in order to get their shifts in time. Duch will be the number one priority for the Hawks to stop. The rest of Washington's offense is nothing to ignore though. Ratcliff has been improving his scoring with three goals in his first three games and seven in his last two. Brett Bucktooth has also been on a tear lately with five goals in his last two.

It will be interesting to see how Nooch plays. Will he return to his previous form or will he have some cobwebs to dust off from his time not playing? I personally think that he will start slow but by the time that the second half rolls around, he will be lighting up the game like he did in Philadelphia in the past and with the Langley Thunder during the summer.

The game could go either way. Rochester has the potential to score 22 goals like they did in their opener or score six like they did last week. Same with Washington, they hung in with Calgary last week to lose by one goal but they also got absolutely destroyed by Edmonton earlier in the season when they lost by 11. It will come down to how well Rochester's defense can contain Washington's front three.