2025 NLL Player Rankings: Goalie of the Year
While The Lax Mag’s National Lacrosse League Player Rankings typically orders the league’s Top 30 players from #1 to #30 since soon after the league’s opening weekend and right up to the end of the regular season, now that we’re in playoff mode, we’re shifting focus to our NLL year-end awards.
Specifically, who our rankings system (more on that here) says should win all of the NLL’s most important end-of-season honours (our award-winning history here).
Goalie of the Year
The 2025 Goalie of the Year award might be the widest open race we’ve seen in a number of years.
The previous two winners, Christian Del Bianco (2023) and Nick Rose (2024), led in nearly every important goalie stat during their recent GOTY seasons. Both backstops were considered by teammates to be the club’s most valuable during those years, Del Bianco of course also winning league’s MVP and Rosey nominated for MVP last year.
Although we had Ottawa’s Zach Higgins as an MVP maybe earlier this year and Matt Vinc has been Top 10 territory in our weekly NLL TOP 30 all season, neither netminder was considered a strong contender for the league’s MVP down the stretch, the NLL later announcing Dhane Smith, Connor Fields and Wes Berg as this year’s finalists for the award.
Higgins and Vinc were featured in our weekly rundown all season, Dillon Ward for most of the year, and our fourth to sixth ranked stoppers (more on that below) bounced around our 25 to 40 spots all season long. Rarely have so many keepers ranked that high in our weekly NLL TOP 30 from start to finish.
And no, Del Biano, who was sensational for the Vancouver Warriors after being dealt at the deadline by the Calgary Roughnecks, did not rank in our review. In order to qualify for our season-long analysis, as we outline annually, a player must appear in at least two-thirds of their team’s season. Del Bianco appeared in just a third of the season for Vancouver. Impressive as hell, but no legit pro sport on the planet would or should consider a player for a season-long honour when they played in so few games. Pretty sure the NHL has never had a Vezina winner (or any other award for that matter) play just 27 games. Want to look up if a Cy Young has ever been handed to a starter that’s played like ten times. Again, as we’ve mentioned before, the NLL needs to set some rules and award definitions to cut back on the confusion that clouds these awards annually. No other sport seems to go through this as much as we do.
So, who was The Lax Mag’s top ranked goalie and our pick for 2025’s NLL GOTY?
Frank Scigliano, Saskatchewan Rush
5. Frank Scigliano
Age: 33
Team: Saskatchewan Rush
Seasons: 13
From: Coquitlam, BC
Many award voters likely gave Frank Scigliano a high (or their highest)-placed vote on their ballots (voters are asked to pick their Top 5 in order), the big BC backstop finishing first in GAA (9.40) amongst starters and playing a leading role in a tremendous turnaround season for Saskatchewan. Second in the league for GAA was Vancouver’s Aden Walsh, who based on minutes played, would actually be considered the Warrior’s 2025 starter (not del Bianco). Scigliano ranked relatively high in other areas too, but after missing two starts (won by Rush backup Thomas Kiazyk) and not seeing the same workload (so, SOG both total and per game) as other top tendies, slipped a bit in our year-long analysis. His full stat-line was actually quite similar to what he did with San Diego in 2022 (he missed two GPs then too, and the Seals lost both times), but the big difference was his W/L record (8-8 vs. 11-4). Earlier this week, we mentioned how important save percentages were to league award voters, but look at the list of past GOTY winners and where their win total ranked (we did that for you earlier this year). Not matter how good they appear to be, goalies who play for crappy clubs almost (we highlight one later on here) never win this award.
Nick Rose, Calgary Roughnecks
4. Nick Rose
Age: 37
Team: Toronto Rock/Calgary Roughnecks
Seasons: 15
From: Orangeville, ON
Unfairly flogged by fans online for the Toronto Rock’s all-time rough start, Nick Rose was significantly better than the Rock’s team record right up until the day he was shockingly traded to the Calgary Roughnecks. As mentioned above, many oddly misconstrue a goalie’s overall worth to their team’s standings success, whether that team sucks or not. Sure, he had some quarters and even the odd game he’d like a redo early on, but that could be said of any stopper in the league. Award voters in this league often seem to like a good storyline to go along with their vote, and Rose playing a big role in getting the Roughnecks into the playoffs (during a season everyone had them counted way out early on) was certainly compelling. Just two goalies ranked in the Top 5 in five of the six following categories: GAA, Save %, Wins, GSAA, Saves/60 minutes, and goalie points. Rose and…
Dillon Ward, Colorado Mammoth
3. Dillon Ward
Age: 34
Team: Colorado Mammoth
Seasons: 11
From: Orangeville, ON
Like Rose, Dillon Ward ranked consistently high in most year-end netminding numbers, and had an extremely strong bounce back season after struggling last year, ultimately ending it on the Mammoth’s IR. Ward improved statistically across the board, and even set a career high for minutes played (1016:09). Ward’s statistical ranking but even more so his season-long star rating (see more on how we calculate our Player Rankings), most definitely suggests he was not only one of this year’s top-rated goalies, but the Mammoth’s MVP too. The team agreed, Colorado naming Ward their Gary Gait Award winner (team MVP) this year. It’s the sixth time Ward has been presented the Gait Award, by far the most in franchise history. Between his way above average stats and the value he provided his team this year, it’s a bit of a head scratcher that Ward missed being mentioned an official finalist for the NLL’s GOTY, but again, league voters rarely if ever vote for a goalie on a below-average team (Colorado finished 8-10 and missed the postseason, again). Exhibit B…
Zach Higgins, Ottawa Black Bears (Photo: Jonathan Tenca)
2. Zach Higgins
Age: 34
Team: Ottawa Black Bears
Seasons: 11
From: Courtice, ON
If we only graded goalies based on our star-rating system (again, more on that here, but basically, we rank each team’s Top 6 players in every game they play, in order, and attach a value to their placement), Zach Higgins would have hands down been The Lax Mag’s GOTY for the 2025 season. With his stats slipping in the second half of the season while the Ottawa Black Bears struggled against higher-level talent, Higgins lost his spot as our #1 ranked goalie in the final week of the season. The Black Bears were also bounced from playoff contention that same weekend. No goalie was relied on this year to keep his team competitive more than Higgins in Ottawa, helping the Bears win games they had no business being in and keeping Ottawa in a playoff-qualifying position during the first half of the season when Jeff Teat (the other player the team relies on far too much) wasn’t quite himself. Since the 2020 season, no goalie has dealt with more shots and made more saves than Higgins, who has consistently finished Top 3 in SOG and SV over that span. This year, he again led the league in shots seen with 925 and was just a single save behind Doug Jamieson (he was our sixth ranked goalie this year and just finished just outside of our season-ending NLL TOP 30) for tops in that category too. His full-season resume may not read GOTY in this league, but Higgins was a weekend away from being named our top tendy for 2025.
Matt Vinc, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Christian Bender)
1. Matt Vinc
Age: 42
Team: Buffalo Bandits
Seasons: 19
From: St. Catharines, ON
Although it would he silly to think so now, for many years, critics felt NLL HOFer Bob Watson was an overrated goalie with the Toronto Rock that only excelled due to the elite-level defensive he had in front of him. His consistent play, especially during the playoffs and during some down years in Toronto (in 2008, he was one of those rare ones to win GOTY while playing for an underperforming squad, the Rock just 7-9 and well out of the playoff picture), finally won most if not everyone over before his career closed: Whipper was and still is a shot-stopping legend.
Playing for the team everyone loves to hate today, Buffalo’s Matt Vinc, even after eight GOTY-voted seasons and two wins away from his stupendous sixth NLL Cup, has his fair share of critics. One off night, and most of the social media hate Vinc gets seems to come from inside Banditland.
No matter how voters vote, Vinc kinda had what you were looking for this year. During a season no one tendy truly dominated all goaltending game-day data (like del Bianco and Rose did over the previous two years), Vinc’s full stat line was about as strong as anyone else’s, the team tabbed him their co-MVP (he did really well in our star-rating system too, only Higgins just barely bettered him there), and as we’ve pointed out, voters love a winner, and Vinc led the league there too. In fact, Vinc has been the regular season W leader in four of the past five full NLL seasons. He finished Top 5 in both GAA and SV%, but it was the heavy-lifting numbers that put him over the top here. For a team that blocks at the rate Buffalo defenders do, Vinc still finished second in SOG (922) just behind Higgins (925), was three shots behind Jamieson (732) for saves made, and also led the league in minutes played (1080:51), something he hasn’t done since 2013. Plus, Vinc was the only goalie to score a goal this year and averaged fewer turnovers than almost any other starter this year. Overtaking Higgins during the last weekend of the regular season, Matt Vinc in The Lax Mag’s pick for 2025 NLL GOTY.