The Major League Lacrosse season starts Saturday, April 21. These team-by-team previews — in order of finish as projected by US Lacrosse Magazine contributor Phil Shore — were written before the MLL collegiate draft.

Find those results here.

1. Ohio Machine
2. New York Lizards 
3. Dallas Rattlers
4. Denver Outlaws
5. Chesapeake Bayhawks
6. Florida Launch 
7. Atlanta Blaze
8. Boston Cannons 
9. Charlotte Hounds

Charlotte Hounds

2017 Record: 6-8
Coach: Jim Stagnitta (3rd season)

Power Rankings (Scale of 1-5)

Offense: ⭐⭐⭐
Defense: ⭐⭐
Faceoffs: ⭐⭐⭐
Goalie:⭐⭐

Key Losses: Robert Duvjnak, D; Brendan Fowler, FO; Casey Ikeda, D
Top Returners: Joey Sankey, A; Mike Chanenchuk, M; John Haus, M
New Arrivals: Tyler German, M; Adam Osika, M; Jake Richard, M

MVP Watch

Joey Sankey, A

Sankey has been the model of consistency since being drafted in the second round of the 2015 MLL collegiate draft. In each of his three seasons, he’s scored 20-plus goals and totaled 34-plus points. He’s also been an all-star in each of his professional seasons.

Under-the-Radar Star

John Crawley, M

The midfielder was an honorable-mention All-American his senior season at Johns Hopkins, and then was selected in the fourth round of the MLL collegiate draft. He brought a great return on investment, playing in eight games and finishing sixth on the team in points (16 points on 13 goals and three assists). The players ahead of him were the team’s core stars: John Haus, Ryan Brown, Joey Sankey, Mike Chanenchuk and Kevin Crowley. Stagnitta also likes that he can play Crawley at both midfield and attack. “He ended the season scoring [three] against New York,” Stagnitta said. “He has the ability to do a lot of things for us. I expect he will step up and have a real impact on our team.”

Scouting Report

Three things you need to know about the Hounds

1. It may be a rough start.

The Charlotte Hounds feature a lot of talent, but they also won’t be 100-percent available in the beginning of the season. John Haus (Penn State), John Crawley (Notre Dame), Ryan Brown (Marquette) and Mike Chanenchuk (Sacred Heart) all have assistant coaching positions at the collegiate level, which could conflict with certain games early in the season. Kevin Crowley won’t be available until after his NLL season is complete. That’s five of the top six scorers from 2017 that could miss action at the start of the season. “Two years ago we started 3-0,” head coach Jim Stagnitta said. “Last year we started 0-3. We have to do better with or without the guys considered our mainstays.”

2. Young defense.

In the final game of the 2017 season, the Hounds took on the New York Lizards. Playing close defense were David Manning, Brendan Hynes and Michael Howard. Last season marked the first game action for any of the three defensemen, and by the end, they combined to play 22 games. Outside of long-stick midfielder Michael Erhardt and defenseman Brett Schmidt, there isn’t a lot of experience on the defensive side of the ball. Stagnitta is still optimistic. “This will be a big year to find out where those guys are,” he said. “Brendan Hynes showed signs of brilliance. Michael Howard, he’s a big, strong, athletic guy, played at Virginia, can get up and down the field. … How we perform this year will depend a lot on how they come back for year two and progressed.”

3. Need better goalie play.

After four years of being a backup, Charlie Cipriano earned the starting goalie gig for the Hounds in 2016 after he won eight games. He struggled in 2017, however, posting a 14.04 goals against average and a .488 save percentage, both of which were eighth among qualifying goalies. Stagnitta said the job is still Cipriano’s, but Charlotte will need him to play better. “He got hurt last year. I don’t know if he was ever 100 percent after that,” he said. “Forty-five percent in the faceoff and under 50 percent in cage, we put a lot of pressure on the defense. They were not prepared to handle the amount of pressure we faced. It’s amazing we were even in the hunt down the stretch.”

Biggest Question Mark

How will Kevin Massa do taking over for Brendan Fowler?​

In 2017, Brendan Fowler set career highs with nine goals, four assists and 13 points. He also, however, won the fewest faceoffs of his career (excluding his 2014 season, when he only played in six games) with 156. He had his lowest faceoff winning percentage (47.6), which was the second consecutive season his winning rate decreased. Massa has a smaller sample size, and he also struggled in 2017  at 39.4 percent, but the Charlotte front office felt it could get value in Fowler and that it was worth giving Massa a shot. “Massa is a grinder. He can make it ugly. He can make it a scrap,” Stagnitta said. “My thought was we have some talented guys on the wings with Haus and Erhardt and now [Jake] Richards and [Adam] Osika. We have guys who can pick up ground balls in transition. If we’re going to be at 45 percent, I’d rather scrap, get a ground ball, and get closer to 50 percent. On his worst days, Massa can usually turn it into a ground ball.”

Enemy Lines

What the opposition has to say about Charlotte

“I don’t know if they’ve done anything too crazy to improve their situation. They’ve been teetering on the cusp of playoffs. … Faceoff-wise will be interesting. Fowler put them in some great situations. We’ll see if Massa can do the same thing. …  Cipriano is a consistently good goalie, but I don’t know if he’s a championship goalie. It’s not that he’s not capable, [but] he hasn’t showed it yet. … I like their personnel.”

Number of Significance

9

Nine is the number second-year attackman Matt Rambo wears. It’s also the number of goals he scored in his first taste of MLL. After winning the Tewaaraton Award and helping the Maryland win the national championship, Rambo played in just six games for the Hounds. He should be available for the entirety of the 2018 season, and Stagnitta has high expectations for the third overall pick. “He’ll have an opportunity to be a catalyst on offense,” he said. “He can feed as well as he can score. With a partial year of MLL under his belt and [being] focused on this, we expect big things. Playing with [Brown], that’s a pretty good combo.”

Bottom Line

Charlotte has talent. It’s why the team is always in playoff contention. There are concerns in 2018, however. How many games will players with new coaching commitments play in the early going? Does the team have enough depth to cover for missing stars? What will the young defense look like? Do they improve at the faceoff and goalie positions? It all may be too much for this young team to recover from.