The second week of the 2022 Premier Lacrosse League season continues with a matchup between the two teams at the top of the standings.
Both Atlas LC and Cannons LC enter Saturday’s contest following six-goal wins to open the season.
Let’s take a look at which team has the edge in Saturday’s matchup.
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Atlas (-2.5) vs Cannons
| Atlas Odds | -210 |
| Cannons Odds | +165 |
| Total | 24.5 |
| Time | Saturday, 6 p.m. ET |
| TV | ESPN2 |
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.
Despite both teams boasting six-goal victories in week one, the Atlas sit as 2.5-point favorites against the Cannons. After high-scoring wins by both teams, the total is set at 24.5 on most sportsbooks, and is even as high as 25.5 at Caesars.
The Atlas are just the 10th team to be 2.5-point favorites in the past two seasons, a spot that has been historically hard to cover. Since the 2021 season, 2.5-point underdogs are 7-2 against the spread and have won outright six of those nine times.
While historical ATS records have little to no bearing on the potential outcome of a game, the sportsbooks' decisions to make the Atlas heavy favorites is a clear sign that they value their win over Redwoods more than the Cannons' win over the Waterdogs.
And in my opinion, the sportsbooks got it right.
The Atlas offense looked truly unstoppable last Saturday. The attack line of Jeff Teat, Chris Gray and Eric Law was highly anticipated coming out of training camp, and it lived up to the hype. It's pick your poison when it comes to the Atlas.
Both Teat and Gray can make you pay as feeders, dodgers and shooters. They are two of the most complete players in pro lacrosse, despite being extremely young.
They are complimented by the best off-ball attackman in the past decade in Law, who is lethal around the cage as a finisher and has shown he can distribute the ball when he needs to, as well.
In addition to its star-studded attack line, the Atlas offense also features Bryan Costabile, Dox Aitken, John Crawley and Romar Dennis — athletic midfielders who can spread out the defense with their range.
The offense plays a truly unselfish brand of lacrosse, and it's going to cause problems for opposing defenses all season long.
While the Cannons secured a six-goal victory of their own, they did so while giving up the second-most shots in the entire league in week one. While the Cannons put up points early on Sunday, their defense wasn’t all that impressive and relied heavily on starting goaltender Nick Marrocco to bail them out.
Marrocco finished the day with a league-high 19 saves and helped stifle the Waterdogs’ late comeback attempts.
The Cannons also benefited heavily from a nearly perfect first half from face-off athlete Stephen Kelly, whose 73% win percentage at the stripe led to a lop-sided amount of possessions for Cannons.
Overall, the Waterdogs were incredibly sloppy on offense, and it was tough to gauge how good the Cannons' defense in front of Marrocco really is.
Based on both teams' offensive performances from week one, I like this game to go over the total of 24.5.
I also think that the Atlas will have a big possession advantage thanks to face-off athlete Trevor Baptiste and the fact that their offense should draw numerous favorable matchups, particularly when going up against any short-stick defensive midfielder — not named Zach Goodrich — that the Cannons have.
The Atlas picked the Redwoods' defense apart all over the field in week one, and I expect them to do the same against this Cannons team. So, I’m going against the 2.5-point underdog trend and taking Atlas -2.5.
Additionally, I’m also eyeing the over for Law’s player prop of 3.5 points. Law is coming off a seven-point outing in week one, which saw him benefit heavily from the presence of Teat and Gray. I think he’ll have similar success against the Cannons.
Furthermore, the last time Law faced the Cannons, he recorded seven points. In his last 12 games, Law has scored four points or more four times — a decent success rate for the current price of -120 on DraftKings — so I’m willing to bet over 3.5 points at that relatively cheap price.
Picks: Over 24.5, Atlas LC -2.5, Eric Law Over 3.5 points
