A few days after the Toronto Rock finished off winning its fifth National Lacrosse League Champion's Cup, the final Lacrosse-Network.com Experts Poll confirmed what we all knew...

That the Rock was the best team in the NLL this year.

Toronto earned all nine first-place votes in this week's ranking, finishing with a perfect 90 points in the wake of a league-best 12-4 regular-season record and a 19-13 victory over the Arizona Sting in the championship game.

Arizona, meanwhile, finished a very distant second, with 74 points. The Sting took major advantage of its first-ever playoff berth, ripping Colorado and Calgary in consecutive weeks to reach the title bout and vault from fourth place in the final regular-season Experts Poll.

Calgary placed third (71 points) after blowing a 13-10 fourth-quarter lead in the Western Division Final, a dismal end to the Riggers' 10-6 season.

Buffalo topped Rochester for fourth place, 66-59, despite the Knighthawks' Eastern Division Semifinal win; then again, the Bandits had been up by 29 points going into the playoffs.

Colorado (44 points) rounded out the top six, well ahead of Philadelphia (37 points) and Anaheim (25 points).

At the bottom of the rankings, Minnesota edged out San Jose, 16-13.

Our panel of nine experts includes a wide range of top lacrosse minds, including Outsider's Guide writers, players, and coaches. Scoring is on a 10-9-8-etc. basis, so that the maximum score a team can earn is 90 points and the minimum is nine points.

The complete rankings from this week's Experts Poll, with comments (final win-loss record is in parentheses; for playoff teams, overall and playoff records are listed):

FINAL                                           Pts  Prv
 1. Toronto Rock (14-4, 2-0)                     90    1
    After weak close to RS, superb in playoffs
 2. Arizona Sting (11-8, 2-1)                    74    4
    Ran into brick wall in Champion's Cup Final
 3. Calgary Roughnecks (10-7, 0-1)               71    3
    All together now: 'We blew it'
 4. Buffalo Bandits (11-6, 0-1)                  66    2
    Fourth-quarter capitulation in East Semi
 5. Rochester Knighthawks (11-7, 1-1)            59    5
    Good year, not good enough to topple Rock
 6. Colorado Mammoth (8-9, 0-1)                  44    6
    Gary Gait as coach in 2006?!?!
 7. Philadelphia Wings (6-10)                    37    7
    Expansion killing Lindsay's dream draft
 8. Anaheim Storm (5-11)                         25    8
    Hurt by trading good draft picks...
 9. Minnesota Swarm (5-11)                       16    9
    ...a lesson Swarm will need to learn
10. San Jose Stealth (4-12)                      13   10
    Can't wait for '06, to wash away awful '05