Saturday, August 28, 2010

Boston Blazers Preview

The NLL Draft will be soon upon us. The NLL season is now only a few months away, and it's time to preview them.

The Boston Blazers bounced back last season from a devastating defeat to the Buffalo Bandits in the playoffs. They made the playoffs on the final day of the season, beating out the Rochester Knighthawks, but they barely backed in. They lost to Buffalo that night and needed Washington to defeat Rochester. Lucky for them, they did. But it once again proved Boston's inconsistencies with a season full of them.
Boston had one issue all season long; If Dan Dawson was shut down, so were the Blazers. They had some good players in Daryl Veltman and they went out and acquired Mat Giles, but it was not enough. They relied on Dawson and their goaltender Anthony Cosmo to get it done.
Boston finished fourth in the east and had to travel to Orlando for their playoff showdown. They lost similarly to the rest of their regular season: They had a lead, but Orlando adjusted to shutting down Boston's top scorer. Well, the Blazers were full aware of this flaw and used a golden opportunity to fix it.
The Blazers have lucked out on dispersal drafts their entire existence, having the number one pick to steal Dawson from Arizona and Cosmo from Chicago. This year they had a number two pick for the Orlando Titan's dispersal, and they drafted league MVP Casey Powell. Now with Dawson and Powell on offense, that was sure to fix a flawed offense. But even better, Boston made one of the bigger blockbusters of the last few years and acquired Josh Sanderson, the 2009 playoffs MVP. Similar to the Boston Celtics big three, the Blazers look to take this opportunity and win the whole thing.
With the best team in the east, Orlando, out of the league, their only real competition will be Toronto and maybe Buffalo might be a surprise team. But Boston has a real golden opportunity to make this their year.

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