December 10, 2009
Analyzing the Supplemental Draft
by Kyle Devitte/
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2009 MLL Supplemental Draft, presented by Kyle Devitte. For refreshing, ferociously honest, but witty repartee with the lacrosse world’s medium-sized stars, read Kyle Devitte. Accept no laxstitutes.
Word going into the draft is that Toronto is having a fire sale on all of its US players. Hence the Joe Cinosky trade earlier this week, wherein the Nationals received the second pick in this very draft fromthe Bayhawks for Big Joe C. Toronto’s xenophobia is the rest of the league’s buffet. I expect to see some big-time movement around the league today. Too bad everyone else is missing out.
The first pick belongs to Chicago, which is good because they need some serious help. They need upgrades at goalie, defense, midfield, defensive midfield, and another Leveille brother to play attack for them. Can you pick “new uniforms” in the supp draft? Is that an option? They need those too.
It’s been five minutes of refreshing my browser and I see no names. Six minutes. Come on, the only thing people want to know is where Ryan and Casey will fall. Although it should be noted that even if a player is picked in this draft he has to sign a contract with the team that picks him in order to play this summer. Hmm. Maybe that’s why I’m the only one dumb enough to be doing this live. Seven minutes.
This is not going to be a fun experience. Eight minutes. Come on, I have to go to the bathroom…WHOA! THEY DID TWO ROUNDS IN NINE MINUTES?! WHAT? GREAT ODIN’S RAVEN!
1. Chicago: Casey Powell (Attack, honestly if you don’t know where he went to college you need to just stop. Stop. Put your helmet back on, run into the street. You’re embarrassing yourself.)
2. Toronto: Dan Dawson (Attack, Blazers)
3. Boston: Pat Heim (Midfield, Penn State)
4. Long Island: Ryan Powell (Attack, Cuse)
5. Denver: Garrett Billings (Attack, UVA)
6. Toronto: Mark Steenhuis (Midfield, uhm…Canada. And the Bandits.)
Round 2
7. Chicago: Jake Deane (LSM, UMass)
8. Washington: Alex Buckley (M, Brown)
9. Boston: Dan Cocoziello (LSM/D Princeton)
10. Chicago: Brett Moyer (D, Hofstra)
11. Denver: Brian Skakandi (LSM/D Hopkins)
12. Toronto: Brett Bucktooth (A/M, Cuse)
Must…breathe. Hold it, Kyle, hold it. In the immortal words of Matthew Lillard: “I’ll be right back.”
OK, quick hits on the first two rounds: Casey to Chicago is obviously a coup for Chicago … if he signs. Again, Toronto fulfilled its promise/duty to pick Canadians and Native Americans by nabbing Dawson, Steenhuis and Bucktooth.
Round 3
13. Chicago: Tom Zummo (YOU BASTARDS! M, NYIT)
14. Washington: Brett Garber (M, UMass)
15. Boston: Billy Looney (M, Navy)
16. Long Island: Joel Delgarno (A, OSU)
17. Denver: Steve Giannone (M, UVA)
18. Toronto: Billy-Dee (Williams) Smith (Sarlaac Pit guard/D, Bandits)
Did Toronto just draft Lando Calrissian?
Okay, that’s enough round-by-round coverage. This is the fastest draft in the history of man. Like I’ve seen eight-team fantasy football drafts go faster than this. My brother and I draft slices of pizza slower than this thing.
Hey guess what, it’s over. Took less than 45 minutes. For 12 rounds. Are we switching to team-by-team analysis halfway into this bad boy? Yeah, we are.
Chicago: Big time pick up in Casey Powell. If he plays. They also grabbed a couple of experienced midfielders in Jeff “I used to be Sonic but now I’m more like Tails” Sonke and Tom “Zoom zoom zoom” Zummo. The Machine also addressed their goalie situation by grabbing former Notre Dame keeper Joey Kemp with their first pick in the fifth round. They reclaimed former UMass LSM Jake Deane in the second round and he’s probably the only guy they called to tell them they were picking him up. See, Chicago does this weird thing where they just grab a ton of guys with talent and throw them all together in a blender and hope it works. Sometimes it does (their attack is very solid) and sometimes it doesn’t (their midfield is a hodgepodge of isolation specialists and stationary shooters) but if Casey signs on the dotted line this will go down as a franchise-changing draft for Chicago. What kind of change that will be remains to be seen.
Long Island: The Lizards are an offensively anemic team in need of some serious scoring power. Enter the Rhino. Ryan Powell was snatched by the Liz in the first round of the draft, but was passed over by Toronto and Boston. Toronto was never going to take him because he’s not Canadian (although he looks, acts, and talks like it) and Boston, presumably, has had its fill of Powells. Long Island was always the best place for RP to play, but will he play? It’s well documented – especially in this column – that the Powells do whatever they want. If Ryan doesn’t want to play in LI, he won’t and then the Lizards are stuck holding the proverbial bag. Long Island shored up other weaknesses by grabbing longtime MLL backup goalie Kevin Keenan and former OSU attackman Joel Dalgarno. Their best move was picking up former San Francisco Dragon star Greg “BEASTMAN” Gurenlian as insurance for ailing FOGO Pete Vlahakis. Definitely a solid draft for Long Island, even if middle Powell passes on middle-talent LI.
Denver: After jettisoning almost all of its older players in the offseason to make room for their new stars, the Outlaws went into this draft looking for … nothing. Denver is the only team that has backups at every position that could start on other teams. An extremely deep squad affords Brian Reese and company to go into these drafts looking to take chances on guys. Garrett Billings is the sole Canadian (aside from Long Island's Zack Greer and Dalgarno) that won’t be on the Nationals next summer. Billings lives closer to Denver than Toronto, so naturally he’s down with Outlaws. Brendan Skakandi is a capable LSM in the typical Hopkins mold of conservative ball-handling long poles. Steve Giannone is solid addition to a crowded midfield group, but if he finds a role on the second midfield line the former Cavalier might be on the perfect team to succeed. I was surprised to see a Donegar brother picked by Denver, but they snagged Michael Donegar in the 11th round. It’s worth noting, but that’s probably all it’s worth.
Washington: I don’t even know who is running this team. So many rumors swirl around the Bayhawks it’s hard to differentiate between who smelt it and who dealt it. Washington went all 2006 and snagged attackman Seth Goldberg and Josh Sims back to back in the middle rounds. Sims used to be one of the best midfielders in the world, but now he’s inconsistent and injury-prone. I have no doubt he can still play, but he won’t be tearing up turf like he did the last time he was a Bayhawk. Washington managed to grab the most guys that I’ve never heard of out of any team, but that’s not too uncommon for this franchise. Especially after last year’s revolving door lineup that changed literally every game.
Toronto: Possibly the easiest team to cover in this draft, Toronto just filled out it’s MLL roster with Canadian national team players. Essentially the Nationals handpicked every Canadian (save Billings and Dalgarno) unfettered throughout the entire draft. I mean, for whom else are the Canadians going to play? The Nationals are treating the 2010 MLL season like their personal training camp and frankly I’m a little bit pissed off at that. Sure it’s within their right to play whatever players they think are going to win them games, but what happens if the Nationals lose all their MLL games? Are they going to care? Are they even going to treat them like games or just glorified practices against Team USA B and C squads? I’m paranoid. With my luck they’ll win all their games and hoist the Championship again. Out of all the players Toronto acquired I really only want to see Mark Steenhuis play field lacrosse. He’s an exciting addition to my all-ginger team.
Boston: I have to be honest here, it’s like the Cannons picked every guy that I have preset jokes for in my mind. For me, this is the greatest draft ever. Pat Heim gives me Matt Damon jokes, Dan Cocoziello gives me Princeton and New Jersey jokes, Billy Looney gives me nautical jokes, but Jake Byrne — oooooh Jake Byrne gives me a holy trinity of Hair product jokes, bowtie jokes and mini-Matt Alrich jokes. I mean, they’re basically the same kind of player: catch, turn shoot, repeat — just one’s a hulking man beast and the other one looks like a Gummi Bear.
Looks like the MLL well is going to be dry for another six months. But we’re only a few months away from the NCAA season. I just hope teams are going to try and actually score this year instead of trying to win by boredom and possession. Make no mistake, kids, this decade is when lacrosse either makes the jump to be bigger than hockey or smaller than soccer. Pray for goals, wish for another messiah — this will be one of the biggest years in lacrosse.
Don’t worry, I have something planned.
