When Randy Staats has a good game, you don’t always see the full story in the final boxscore.
The Six Nations, Ontario native led the Swarm in its Home Opener with eight points (2G, 6A). Arguably the most impressive facet of his game last Saturday was how five of his six assists were primary ones.
But not all assists are created equal. Since the NLL defines an assist as “(a)ny pass or two passes, by a player or players, to a teammate who then scores a goal is an assisted goal,” that means a player can get an assist for a goal that he’s not really involved in just because he passed it to the eventual goal-scorer.
So how do we determine how impactful Staats’ dishes were on Saturday? The eye-test.
When evaluating how effective a player has been offensively, there are a number of intangibles we can’t properly value numerically — think setting picks, sealing an opponent, or operating as a screen. Along with a player’s floor vision, that’s generally the things we’re looking at when breaking down a play.
Applying those factors to Staats’ work on Saturday is telling. The 26-year-old’s lone secondary assist of the night came on Georgia’s second power play goal, and it was Miles Thompson’s 100th career goal.
Ball movement is always good as it spreads a defense around. Adam Bomberry stretched a little too far into Greg Downing’s zone in the penalty kill formation, which Lyle Thompson saw and took advantage of with his off-ball pass to Miles. There’s not necessarily a rating system I am aware of as far as how impactful a player’s assist was to the goal being scored, but it’s safe to say Staats did have a small hand in Miles’ goal if only because he drew the overzealous defensemen towards him and moved the ball around.
For his five primary assists, let’s break them down individually to help decide how important his efforts were and learn some life lessons simultaneously:
Out of his five primary assists, only one really didn’t need Staats, and that was Lyle’s second goal. Staats’ night was made up of crisp and timely passing via great floor vision and using his body to create an opportunity for Williams to score. To have a night where four of your primary assists are very dependent upon you is great.
It’s small sample sizes for right now since we only have a game under our belt, but you have to like what Staats did in that one game since it’s typical of what he does every game.
When I spoke with assistant coach Dan Ladouceur a few months back about Staats, he remarked, “(E)ven when he’s not scoring points for us, he’s doing good things like setting big picks out there, setting great seals for Lyle to come around and for (former Swarm forward) Kiel Matisz to move. Even though it’s not showing up in the score sheet, which traditionally a goal-scorer is going to measure himself by, he’s doing great things.”
Staats doing great things meant he was involved in half of Georgia’s goals on Saturday. That’s the kind of production throughout a season which can result in some new career highs.
The Swarm’s next home game is Saturday, Jan. 5 against the Vancouver Warriors. Hosting Country Night presented by Georgia Lottery, multi-platinum selling singer-songwriter Jerrod Niemann will perform a halftime and postgame concert in the Swarm’s Goal Zone Club. Early arriving fans will receive Swarm cowbells presented by Georgia Lottery.
Lower Level Tickets to Swarm Country Night featuring Jerrod Niemann start as low as $25 and can be purchased online at GeorgiaSwarm.com/CountryNight or by calling 844-4-GASWARM.
