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Chaos vs. Archers Preview

By Katie McNulty | Jun 12, 2021

Where to Watch

  • Sunday, June 13
  • 3:45 p.m. ET
  • Live on Peacock

Major Matchup

Adam Ghitelman is coming off of one of the best performances of his professional career. Ghitelman posted an 82% save percentage, which was a career-high for him. His 17 saves led the Archers to an 18-6 win against Atlas. Ghitelman will need to have another dominating performance against a Chaos offense that contains NCAA career goal record holder Mac O’Keefe, human highlight reel Josh Byrne, Wes Berg, Chris Cloutier and Dhane Smith.

Blaze Riorden, who is considered by many to be one of the best goalies in the world, will need to stand on his head on Sunday to stop the Archers’ offense. Riorden had a 61% save percentage last week in a 13-7 loss to the Whipsnakes, but he has a major task on Sunday with the Archers, who are leading the league in shooting percentage at 47%. The tough part about the Archers offense is that they don’t rely on just a couple of guys to score. In last week's win, they had 11 different goal scorers.

Archers live and die by their defense

Head coach Chris Bates said it best in the postgame conference on Saturday. “We’re gonna live and die with our defense.” Everyone knows the Archers can put the ball in the back of the net, but their defense is one of the best in the league. They only gave up six points to the Atlas on Saturday. 

Headlined by Matt McMahon, who led the league in caused turnovers in 2020, Warren Jeffrey, Graeme Hossack, Mark McNeill, Latrell Harris, Dominique Alexander and Scott Ratliff, this is a shutdown defense, and it’s only going to get better. Archers' first-round pick Jared Conners will be making his PLL debut on Sunday. Conners was a First Team All-American at Virginia and brings a championship-winning mindset with him. He helped lead the Cavaliers to two National Championships.  

Chaos look to stun the Archers again

Just like last week's matchup against the Whipsnakes, on paper, the Chaos are not expected to win this game. Only 12% of fans are picking Chaos to win. Still, this means nothing to Chaos. After losing the first four games of the Championship Series, the Chaos found their spark and defeated the Archers in the semifinals last season. 

If they want to win on Sunday, Max Adler will need to step it up at the stripe. He only won 30% of his faceoffs against Joe Nardella, so it was hard for the Chaos to slow down the Whipsnakes offense. Every time Chaos would score, it would just give the Whipsnakes another chance to take control of the ball. 

Adler goes up against Stephen Kelly, who won 10 of his 23 faceoffs against Trevor Baptiste last week. If Adler can go at least 45%  from the stripe against Kelly, it will give a major boost to this offense. Once the Chaos offense gets its flow going, they could be unstoppable.

What’s at stake?

If the Archers defeat Chaos, nothing is better than starting the season 2-0 going into a bye week. 

For Chaos, getting a win against one of the top teams in the league right now would give them a huge boost heading into week three. 

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