When the ball went to X – with Jordan Wolf, with inverting midfielders, or in 5-on-5 situations – the Chaos defense crumbled. There was no support. Cutters and stepdown shooters were wide open. Brodie Merrill’s offseason departure was the single biggest loss for any PLL team; Chaos misses his off-ball defense.

7. Matt Gaudet mic’d up

Phew. Gaudet did not shut up. He cackled after goals. He said mean stuff with the intent to irritate, and boy, did he irritate.

He’ll have a target on his back for the rest of the tournament. Players – on Chaos and other clubs – are pissed. Who the hell does this rookie think he is? For me, this story is less about Gaudet’s chirps, and it’s more about the Chaos’ (lack of) response.

The reigning regular season champs let him run his mouth. Chaos allowed eight straight goals to end the game as Gaudet gloated.

Zero swagger. Zero arrogance.

Gaudet called out the 2019 Defensive Player of the Year. He called out the 2019 Goalie of the Year. And Chaos didn’t do a damn thing about it.

8. Finally.

Rob Pannell will be making his PLL debut. His presence at X can help the Atlas offense (obviously) and the Atlas defense (huh?).

Atlas shot 20.8% on shots initiated from X last summer. Yuck. League average hovers around 26.6%. Pannell should propel this offense to a top-2 team from X in both volume and efficiency.

More initiations from behind the cage (and fewer shots taken while sprinting towards goal-line extended) will put them in a better position to defend transition. Opponents torched Atlas in transition, shooting 40.9% in 2019. That has to change if the Bulls want to make a run.

9. Matt DeLuca or Charlie Cipriano?

Who gets the starting nod in cage for the Waterdogs: head coach Andy Copelan’s guy Charlie Cipriano or 6-foot-6 rookie Matt DeLuca?

Whoever gets the nod will be put to the test. According to the emergency goalies who saw shots from everyone this week, the Atlas has by far the hardest shots in the league. Paul Rabil, Connor Buczek, Romar Dennis, Ryan Brown, and company will let it fly from range with some serious velocity.

10. Waterdogs’ two-way play

Copelan built his team around two-way players. Zach Currier, Danny Eipp, Drew Snider, and Kyle McClancy are his most versatile. Today, we finally get to see what their roles will look like.

McClancy projects as a defense-to-offense type; Eipp and Snider are the opposite. Currier will take faceoff wings, and if he had a week to rest between games, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him play 40 minutes per game. However Copelan deploys these four, he can accomplish his goal: Substitute less.

“I really don’t want to be a team that just subs all game,” Copelan told me earlier this spring. “And then before you know it, you spend 30% of the game subbing and 70% of the game trying to score a goal. I think we can sub less and hopefully be more productive.”

That tough, two-way mindset is woven into the Waterdogs’ DNA. Remember: These players were left up for grabs by their original clubs. There are no superstars, no egos; it’s just a group out for revenge. Josh Schafer spoke to Currier, Brodie Merrill, and Ryan Drenner about the team’s unselfishness.

Thanks for reading!

Spread the word, submit any questions you want to see answered in this space to me on Twitter (@joekeegs), and I’ll talk to you tomorrow!