Dispersing and Expanding in the Summer of 2008 in the NLL

June 19, 2008

All of you I am sure are like me and can�t wait for the next six and an half months to pass extremely quickly for the 2009 Minnesota Swarm season to start (projected start Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 7:00 pm Central). Before then, NLL front offices will be wheeling and dealing as they try to pull the wool over the eyes' of their dastardly counterparts.

As with every team, players come and go. This year will be no different with pending dispersal and expansion drafts, which will probably occur in July. Technically and unfortunately, the Swarm have already lost their leading scorer for 2008, Andy Secore. Secore was acquired in last year�s dispersal draft of Arizona Sting and Boston Blazers players. When those two teams suspended operations last year, the players for those teams went into a draft amongst the remaining teams. The caveat for the Arizona players was that they were to revert back to Arizona property after the 2008 season. Arizona is looking for a new owner at this time. Right now, that means one of three things will happen:

1. Arizona will find a new owner in Arizona and resume play in 2009 and have the rights to Sting players from 2007.
2. Arizona will find a new owner for the franchise in another city and resume play in 2009 and have the rights to Sting players from 2007.
3. Arizona will fold and the Sting players from 2007 will be dispersed yet again in another draft amongst the remaining players. The Swarm based on having the second best record and not making the Champions Cup will have the third to last pick in the first round of that dispersal draft and also the entry draft. At least, that is what I calculated.

Based on Andy�s breakout season last year, I would expect Andy to fall no farther than third in a dispersal draft behind Dan Dawson (Portland in 2008) and maybe Scott Self (Chicago in 2008). Basically, it means that if Andy Secore returns to the Swarm next year, Swarm General Manager Marty O'Neill will have to do some major horsetrading.

This summer there will be another expansion draft. The NLL is always looking to expand so it is almost a given that every year, the league will hold an expansion draft. One new team is definitely on board for 2009 and they are the Boston Blazers. They were supposed to start last year but due to the collective bargaining issues last offseason, they decided to wait a year. Any players they had before they made that decision were dispersed but unlike Arizona, Boston gave up their rights to those players. Rumors are that teams could appear in Vancouver, St. Louis, Seattle, Winnipeg, Halifax and my efficiency apartment but those are rumors as of now but look sometime later this month, hopefully soon, for the league to make a decision on which teams will join the league for the 2009 season.

The more new teams for 2009, the more Swarm players that will be picked in that draft to stock those teams. We know Boston will be picking, so that means the Swarm will lose one player as will the rest of the returning teams. If two other teams join Boston for 2009 and pick in the expansion draft, the Swarm will lose three players as will the rest of the returning teams. Any returning team can only lose as many players as are teams picking in the expansion draft. Whenever one of your players is picked, you can protect one more player until the allowable number of players have been picked from your team.

Since the Swarm have been the league, there have been three expansion drafts that the Swarm have had to provide players to. Each returning team is able to protect a certain amount of players. The two options for the number of players any team could protect was:

1. Ten runners and two goaltenders
2. Thirteen runners and one goaltender

The Swarm have always went with option one in those drafts because Marty likes goaltenders, goaltenders are valuable trade commodities and Marty would never dream of possibly losing Nick Patterson or Matt Disher and get nothing in return. A few factors that Marty may use in deciding who to protect will be:

1. These players are definitely not going to be available to be drafted by Boston or any other possible expansion team that will play in 2009. That means one goaltender and six runners are already protected:
   
   
   1. Nick Patterson
   2. Ryan Cousins
   3. Craig Point
   4. Sean Pollock
   5. Ryan Sharp
   6. Jon Sullivan
   7. Ryan Ward
   
   
2. What division will the Swarm be in next year? For 2008, there were seven teams in the East and five in the West. With Boston in for 2009, make that eight in the East as of now. If Boston is the only new team to join, I think the NLL has no choice but to realign. Minnesota since they are farthest west of the East teams is likely the choice to be moved out West. If more teams join and depending on where those teams are, maybe the Swarm stays East but I would say it is definitely up for debate amongst the league�s owners. If the team goes West, they would be having road games in Edmonton, Calgary, San Jose, Colorado and Portland. So Marty may try to protect a few more Western based players like:
   
   
   1. Andrew Biers
   2. Riley Kemp
   3. Rory McDade
   4. Justin Norbraten
   5. Kyle Ross
   6. Noah Talbot
   
   If they stay East, some of those guys I mentioned will definitely be exposed even though all of them would be definitely coveted by teams out west like Edmonton (4-12 in 2008), who could use some veteran leadership on defense that a player like Talbot or Biers could provide. Those players could be used in a trade to bring picks or some more offense to Minnesota. The Swarm started in 2005 with most of their players based in the West like Kelly Hall and Teddy Jenner but as the years have gone by, the team has become more and more East based. That trend will definitely continue if the Swarm stay in the East in 2009.
   
   
3. There are always players that have jobs that may not be as lenient in giving time off to play during the winter. If Marty knows this ahead of time, he may leave that player unprotected knowing he may not be able to count on him consistently during the year.
   
   
4. Marty will also look at the new teams coming in and gleam how they want to build their teams. In last year�s expansion draft, Boston took mainly American born players with a couple Ontario based players. Boston is definitely looking to still build their core with American players, so maybe Marty protects Dan Marohl, then knowing Boston would be interested in Marohl, Marty may be able to trade Dan to Boston for something instead of leaving him exposed for Boston to pick without giving anything up.
   
   
5. In conclusion, every expansion draft turns into a trade frenzy with many deals probably agreed upon before the draft occurs. Basically, if a team loses a guy in the draft, don�t be surprised if he comes back. In 2005, Brock Boyle was picked by Portland but Marty got him back in a trade the same day. In 2006, Jon Sullivan and Eric Pacey were picked by New York but Marty got them both back in a trade two days later. Only Scott Campbell in 2005 and Scott Stewart in 2007 were not reacquired by the Swarm.

The dates and details for both the dispersal draft and expansion draft and have not yet been announced. When they are, I will try to put a bit more of a blue and gold focus on each them.