PLL Entry Draft: How Each Team Improved

It was Day Three of no sports, but Monday, March 16 proved to be a pretty action-packed day if you are a sports fan.

The NFL was busy with the start of the 2020 league year. Four notable names, including wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, and running back David Johnson, were traded. Quarterbacks Ryan Tannehill, Teddy Bridgewater, and Philip Rivers, wide receiver Amari Cooper, tight end Austin Hooper, and a handful of other names signed long-term contracts as well that have them locked up with a team for the foreseeable future. Tuesday, March 17 might be just as exciting, as Tom Brady kicked off the day by announcing that he will not be returning to the New England Patriots and has agreed to a deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The PLL was also busy with the 2020 Entry Draft. The league welcomed 14 players onto seven PLL rosters, with the addition of two undrafted players that join the league’s player pool. The official 2020 PLL Draft results:

This draft was an opportunity for each of the seven head coaches to address vacancies in their rosters, and that’s exactly what they did. With the College Draft approaching in April and the questions around eligibility for senior college athletes, this draft became increasingly more significant. Two rounds and two selections per team, starting at the top with the Waterdogs.

Waterdogs

Head coach Andy Copelan came into this draft with four attackmen, four defensemen, one goalie, and one faceoff specialist. He solved one of those openings with defenseman and LSM Ryland Reese with the 8th overall selection, and with the first, he took the athletic and versatile Zach Currier.

Currier brings a lot to the Waterdogs in 2020. A PLL MVP finalist in 2019, he will join an offense with midfielders Drew Snider, Connor Kelly, Dan Eipp, Ryan Conrad, Ben McIntosh, and attackmen Ryan Drenner, Ben Reeves, and Kieran McArdle. Currier is a dangerous two-way middie who dominates on offense, defense, faceoff wings, and in transition. He can dodge from anywhere on the field and should meet Copelan’s desires to keep midfielders on the field and in transition offense.

Ryland Reese was a member of Team Canada at the FIL World Championship with Currier, an All-World defender while still attending college. In the MLL in 2019 with the Boston Cannons, Reese recorded 63 ground balls, 15 caused turnovers, six goals, and two two-point goals. He becomes the third player that Andy Copelan adds, joining Chris Sabia and Noah Richard, that was apart of the 2019 College Draft class, and he also joins veterans Brian Karalunas and Brodie Merrill on what should be a talented and athletic defensive unit in 2020.

With the league going in the direction of quick transition and deep-shooting from beyond the two-point arc, the Waterdogs added two of the top names in this draft.

Chrome

With the Waterdogs selecting Zach Currier first overall, the question now became whether or not Tim Soudan addresses a major positional need at defense or add one of the best attackmen in the game in Rob Pannell with the second pick. After losing Chris Sabia to expansion and Joe Fletcher to retirement and ranking as one of the worst defenses in 2019, it’s reasonable to ask the same question if Currier was to fall to the second pick.

Soudan went with veteran defenseman Jesse Bernhardt, a championship-level player and defender that will become an immediate leader and game-changer that Soudan can expect to start week one in Boston. He joins a defense with Joel White, Ryan Flanagan, Michael Manley, goalie John Galloway, and SSDM Will Haus (Bernhardt played with White, Galloway, and Haus with Team USA in 2018), and he should help improve a defense that struggled in the league’s inaugural season.

Chrome selected SSDM Donny Moss with the 9th pick, a veteran that will join a defensive midfield unit with Haus and second-year midfielder Max Tuttle. Moss played for Tim Soudan on the Rochester Rattlers in 2018, but for a team that was in need of impact poles, this selection is one of the head-scratchers from this draft. LSM Craig Chick, a rookie in 2019, was still available when the Chrome selected at nine, and in a chance to rebuild with youth, especially with questions marks surrounding the college draft, Chrome might have missed out on an opportunity for a young and talented defenseman.

Atlas

Were there any odds on Rob Pannell falling to three to join the Atlas, the team he talked about over the entire week leading up to the draft as the one he thinks he fits best on? If there was, we all probably should have taken it.

Pannell fits in perfectly with what Atlas has on offense. He will work behind the goal with attackmen Ryan Brown and Eric Law flanking him on each side, and midfielders Paul Rabil, Connor Buczek, Romar Dennis, John Crawley, and Joel Tinney roaming around the two-point arc and collapsing down on goal. Pannell has played with a handful of these guys over his career, and between 2015 and 2018, Pannell had more assists to Rabil (28) than to any other player, and Rabil had more assists to Pannell (13) than any other midfielder. Along with Tucker Durkin and Kyle Hartzell, the team and offense should have no issue when it comes to chemistry. Pannell’s younger brother, James Pannell, is also an attackman for Atlas.

In 2019, the Atlas played their best offense when initiating from behind the goal. However, midfielder John Crawley was the only one who really had any success through inverts. The addition of Pannell, who does most of his dirty work behind the goal, should have this offense clicking on all cylinders, and the Atlas looks to have the most balanced offense in 2020.

The selection of Craig Chick with the tenth overall pick might have been an easier decision than selecting Pannell at three. In my mock draft, I had the NCAA’s all-time leader in caused turnovers going third overall to the Atlas, and he happened to fall into their laps an entire round later. The three-time First Team All-Patriot League honoree was selected in the second round of the 2019 MLL Collegiate Draft to the Dallas Rattlers and was an All-Star and an MVP nominee as a rookie. With the loss of Noah Richard in expansion, Chick falling this far had to be a no-brainer for head coach Ben Rubeor and his staff. Chick will join a defensive unit with Durkin, Cade Van Raaphorst, Callum Robinson, Austin Pifani, and Hartzell at LSM.

My immediate reaction following this draft is that the Atlas are the most improved team in the league. Rubeor lost a starting attackman and a young defenseman to expansion, and he countered that by drafting one of the best attackmen in the game and adding another young defenseman that had a lot of playing time and gained a ton of experience in 2019. Along with the trade acquisition of Romar Dennis, this offense is elite, and with one of the best faceoff specialists in Trevor Baptiste and one of the best goalies in Jack Concannon, the Atlas are poised to flip the script on what was a disappointing inaugural season.

Archers

Coming into this draft, the Archers had two distinct goals. The first was to replace the loss of Christian Cuccinello to expansion and address the uncertainty around Pat Spencer (2019 1st overall selection) by finding a true X-attackman that can play with Will Manny and Marcus Holman. With Pannell being selected the pick before to the Atlas, this has been delayed to April’s College Draft where the Archers have the first overall pick.

The second goal was to add depth on both sides of the ball. Defensively, Jackson Place is recovering from a scary neck injury that he sustained in September and his status for 2020 is uncertain. The addition of possibly the quickest defenseman in this draft in Eli Gobrecht, drafted 4th overall, adds depth down low and another piece that head coach Chris Bates can rotate on his defense, which includes Place, Curtis Corley, Matt McMahon, Mike Simon, and 2019 All-Star Scott Ratliff at LSM.

On the offensive end, the Archers added midfielder Christian Mazzone with the 11th pick in the draft. The Archers suffered a heavy blow in expansion on the offensive end, losing Cuccinello, Dan Eipp, and Ben McIntosh. Mazzone adds another dodging threat from the midfield that will free up Tom Schreiber to have opportunities to find space for shots.

With the first overall selection in April’s College Draft, it is likely that Bates finds his X-attackman in Princeton’s Michael Sowers or Penn State’s Grant Ament, pending their decision on entering pro lacrosse with another year of college lacrosse eligibility, and with the 9th pick, they can look to add another offensive midfielder to play with Schreiber and Mazzone.

Whipsnakes

After losing four of his best offensive players to expansion, Whipsnakes head coach Jim Stagnitta came into this draft knowing that he needed to add an offensive player that can find the back of the net. Connor Kelly, Drew Snider, Ryan Drenner, and Ben Reeves combined for 72 points for the defending PLL champions in 2019, leaving Matt Rambo and Mike Chanenchuk (combined for 83 points last season) as the only primary offensive players on the roster. This made the decision to draft Zed Williams with the 5th pick a pretty easy one for Coach Stags.

Williams scored 444 goals in his high school career, and in 15 games last season he scored 32 goals and 44 total points. He is a goal-scorer who can play anywhere on an offense, and it will be interesting to see how the defending champions go about replenishing the rest of their offense around Rambo, Chanenchuk, and Williams.

With the 12th pick, Stagnitta selected SSDM TJ Comizio, a player that, like Currier, can do it all. Comizio had 14 points and 43 ground balls last season in the MLL and as a wing player, strong defensive midfielder, and transition threat, Comizio helps bolster the best defensive and transition units in the league (Jake Bernhardt, Ty Warner, John Haus).

Redwoods

With an attack featuring Jules Heninburg, Ryder Garnsey, and Matt Kavanagh; a defense with Garrett Epple, Matt Landis, Eddy Glazener, and John Sexton; 2019 Rookie of the Year Timmy Troutner (goalie); and the addition of Myles Jones, the Redwoods came into this draft looking like one of the best teams in the league.

The only question marks for Nat St. Laurent’s team was at faceoff and defense. Defensively, there are questions surrounding Matt Landis’ availability, as the Redwoods might lose him to his military service. This defense also lost veteran Brian Karalunas to the Waterdogs in expansion, so adding defensive depth was an area of concern for St. Laurent, an area that he felt inclined to resolve in this draft. The selection of Finn Sullivan, a 2019 MLL Defensive Player of the Year candidate and 2018 MLL champion, with the 6th pick will help add to what was one

of the most dominant defenses in 2019.

The Redwoods also took steps in solving the vacancy left at the faceoff position with Greg Gurenlian’s retirement. St. Laurent took veteran Greg Puskuldjian, whom St. Laurent has coached in the past, with the 13th selection. Last season with the New York Lizards, Puskuldjian won 55% of his faceoffs and recorded 94 ground balls. With the number of one-goal games and overtime games last season and the importance of goal differential come the end of the season, St. Laurent was determined to find a specialist that can win him possessions.

Chaos

With the last pick of the first round (7th overall), Chaos head coach Andy Towers made a splash by selecting two-time All-World goalie Dillon Ward.

Chaos goalie Blaze Riorden was the 2019 Goalie of the Year in the PLL, but after losing back-up goalie Charlie Cipriano to expansion and watching how good the goalie play was in 2019, Towers chose to add another starting-caliber goalie and a guy that he can be sure will make his 18-man roster each weekend. Riorden also scored 54 points last season in the NLL with the Philadelphia Wings and had 42 this season before the NLL suspended its 2020 campaign amid coronavirus concerns, so the possibility of Riorden playing some attack for the Chaos this season won’t come as a surprise.

With the final selection of the 2020 Entry Draft, Towers selected Canadian defenseman Jason Noble. The Chaos can hope that Noble, a three-time All-American and two-time All-Ivy selection at Cornell and a two-time member of Team Canada at the FIL World Championship, can help replace the loss of Brodie Merrill to expansion. The only question mark surrounding Noble is that he has been removed from the professional field lacrosse game for a few years, so it will be interesting to see how he performs at training camp and if he can crack the Chaos game roster in the first few weeks of the season.

Reaction

Who won this draft?  To answer that question, you need to ask yourself which teams improved the most and which teams would be ready if the season started this weekend.

The Waterdogs had a lot of areas to improve, but they took a considerable step in narrowing the list before the start of the 2020 season. The Chrome missed out on a young pole in Craig Chick in the second round, but they added veteran Jesse Bernhardt to a defensive unit that struggled in 2019. The Atlas got arguably one of the best attackmen in the game and young, athletic defenseman that can play in a ton of different spots on defense. The Archers had uncertainty at defense, so they filled it with a proven starter in pro lacrosse and added a midfielder to make up for the loss of McIntosh and Eipp. The Whipsnakes desperately needed an offensive player, particularly a goal-scorer, and they got that with Zed Williams. They also added a young short-stick defensive midfielder that will make the best short-stick defensive unit in the league in 2019 better. The Redwoods, like the Archers, had a question mark on defense and solved it with a proven pro in Finn Sullivan, and with the loss of Greg Gurenlian to retirement, head coach Nat St. Laurent added a specialist to compete in camp. Chaos now has the best goalkeeping situation in the league and replaced the loss of veteran and all-time great Brodie Merrill with a veteran pro in Jason Noble.

If the season was to start today, the Atlas would be the best team in the league. An elite offense, a young and improved defense, and the best faceoff specialist in all the land, the Atlas should rebound from a disappointing 2019. The Chrome, on the other hand, missed out on a young defenseman in the second round, and the decision might linger into the College Draft and 2020 season if head coach Tim Soudan can’t find another starting-caliber defender to replace Chris Sabia.

The Archers, Redwoods, Chaos, and Whipsnakes all have areas where they can improve. The Archers can possibly add a superstar X-attackman in April’s College Draft, and the Redwoods can add a superstar faceoff specialist. The Chaos could use another shooter to replace the loss of Myles Jones, and the Whipsnakes could use another offensive player or two to continue making up for the losses suffered in February’s Expansion Draft.

The Waterdogs still need another goalie and another faceoff specialist. With only one at each position, and both guys not starters on their respective teams in 2019, Andy Copelan could utilize the player pool, the trade window, and the College Draft in April to find pieces to fit the holes still present on his team.

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