2024 NLL Player Rankings: The Lax Mag’s year-end awards schedule
After the first several weeks of the 2023-24 National Lacrosse League season are complete, The Lax Mag will publish a weekly NLL Player Ranking, examining the league’s Top 30 players from Week 1 right up until the end of the regular season.
TLM’s Top 30 NLL Player Rankings have nothing to do with reputations, career resumes, success in past seasons, whether we know a player personally, recognizing deserving players who’ve previously been passed over, player popularity, the size of their social media following, whether you slide into their DMs, or who others around the league tell us should get hype.
Our rankings, which only take into consideration a player’s performance for the current regular season, will be calculated using both our star-rating system after each game, but also a player’s season-long statistical position (based on per-game average, not full-season totals) across the league. Only players who have played two-thirds of their team’s games will qualify.
Click here for an even more in-depth description of our scoring system.
Josh Byrne, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Michael Hetzel)
With a weekend of regular lacrosse left, only a handful of players are in the running for our season-ending #1 spot (AKA The Lax Mag’s NLL MVP).
A few weeks ago, we narrowed it down to six possible players, but a seventh pushed his name into the conversation: Josh Byrne, Jeff Teat, Dhane Smith, Nick Rose, Wes Berg, Connor Fields, and now Mitch Jones too, who individually has had an extremely strong last month.
Realistically, our Top 4 players (Byrne, Teat, Smith and Rose), who are extremely close in our countdown calculations, are the most likely to finish first after the NLL’s upcoming final regular season weekend, but an epic end for one of the other three (and a flop finish for the previously mentioned four) could potentially propel them to the top.
This year’s second-to-last Top 30 can be found below, but before that, see when we’ll be announcing our year-end award winners, who are dictated by our Top 30 player placements, plus links to our awards from the previous two seasons. The final Top 30 of the season will be published in our MVP article.
Jeff Teat, New York Riptide (Photo: Brandon Hill)
The Lax Mag’s Annual NLL Awards
Clutch King
To be announced week of April 21
2022 Eli McLaughlin, Colorado Mammoth
2023 Connor Robinson, Colorado Mammoth
Rookie of the Year
To be announced week of April 28
2022 Jeff Teat, New York Riptide
2023 Jonathan Donville, Panther City Lacrosse Club
Transition Player of the Year
To be announced week of May 5
2022 Zach Currier, Calgary Roughnecks
2023 Zach Currier, Calgary Roughnecks
Defensive Player of the Year
To be announced week of May 5
2022 Mitch de Snoo, Toronto Rock
2023 Graeme Hossack, Halifax Thunderbirds
Goalie of the Year
To be announced week of May 12
2022 Matt Vinc, Buffalo Bandits
2023 Christian Del Bianco, Calgary Roughnecks
Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Michael Hetzel)
Most Valuable Player + Final Top 30
To be announced week of May 19
2022 Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits
2023 Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits
2022 Top 5 (of final 30)
1. Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits
2. Zach Currier, Calgary Roughnecks
3. Jeff Teat, New York Riptide
4. Joe Resetarits, Albany FireWolves
5. Ryan Lee, Colorado Mammoth
2023 Top 5 (of final 30)
1. Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits
2. Christian Del Bianco, Calgary Roughnecks
3. Jeff Teat, New York Riptide
4. Connor Fields, Rochester Knighthawks
5. Tom Schreiber, Toronto Rock
Nick Rose, Toronto Rock (Photo: Michael Hetzel)
NLL Player Rankings: Week 21
TW. (LW) Player, Team (Position)
1. (1) Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
2. (2) Jeff Teat, New York (F)
3. (4) Nick Rose, Toronto (G)
4. (3) Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
5. (5) Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
6. (7) Mitch Jones, Philadelphia (F)
7. (6) Wes Berg, San Diego (F)
8. (9) Mitch de Snoo, Toronto (D)
9. (8) Austin Staats, San Diego (F)
10. (12) Callum Crawford, Panther City (F)
11. (13) Will Malcom, Panther City (F)
12. (14) Robert Church, Saskatchewan (F)
13. (10) Jesse King, Calgary (F)
14. (11) Ryan Smith, Rochester (F)
15. (17) Clarke Petterson, Halifax (F)
16. (15) Doug Jamieson, Albany (G)
17. (16) Christian Del Bianco, Calgary (G)
18. (19) Jake Withers, Halifax (D)
19. (24) Keegan Bal, Vancouver (F)
20. (21) Lyle Thompson, Georgia (F)
21. (22) Mark Matthews, Toronto (F)
22. (18) Alex Simmons, Albany (F)
23. (23) Andrew Kew, Georgia (F)
24. (26) Brad Kri, Toronto (D)
25. (20) Chris Origlieri, San Diego (G)
26. (27) Graeme Hossack, Halifax (D)
27. (28) Tom Schreiber, Toronto (F)
28. (25) Matt Gilray, Rochester (T)
29. (29) Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia (F)
30. (NR) Nick Damude, Panther City (G)