2025 NLL Player Rankings: Transition Player 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).
Transition Player of the Year
When the NLL was first formed, originally known as the Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse League and then soon after rebranded the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, virtually every player but your goalie played a role that today would be consideration a transitional one.
It was only after more and more Canadians started crashing the MILL and the late coaching legend Les Bartley established a more offense/defense style of ball with the Toronto Rock in the late 90s and early 00s that forwards, defensemen and later transition players were set positions. Sure, some players excelled significantly more on one side of centre than the other, but in the early Eagle or MILL era, you’d be expected to battle wherever the play took you.
Not only is that no longer the case, positional play is even more specialized in today’s modern game (far more!), and true traditional transition players are rare. While strict O/D play has taken over the pro game, today’s coaches would kill to have players that are equally as electric at either end of the floor. Again, the good ones are a rarity in today’s on-and-off approach.
Steve Toll, Rochester Knighthawks
When the league’s TPOTY was first awarded back in 2007, Steve Toll was voted the first top transitional player. For those that never saw him play back in the day (and only know him for this), he was a D-first player, loved scooping loosies, was fast as fuck in any offensive press, would score backbreakers in transition, and likely would have been a caused-turnover leader (an interception master) had the stat been tracked during his playing days. That’s essentially what a traditional NLL transition player was, still is, but also isn’t based on the TPOTY’s track record.
Today’s “transition” players are graded more on versatility, whether they play a majority of their minutes up front or back in their own end, it doesn’t seem to matter. With that said, superstar point producers like Dhane Smith or Lyle Thompson, who are both exceptional offensively but also back track a ton and sometimes up front again on the same shift, are largely ignored when it comes to recognition here.
Anyways, until this award is defined (like say the NHL does with the Frank J. Selke Trophy, given “to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.”) the finalists for this one will continue to include an array of players that sometimes have nothing more in common than a “T” in their team selected position.
So, without any further ado, here are The Lax Mag’s Top 5 ranked transitional players for the 2025 NLL regular season, plus out pick for this year’s TPOTY at #1.
Jake Withers, Halifax Thunderbirds (Photo: Trevor MacMillan)
5. Jake Withers
Age: 31
Team: Halifax Thunderbirds
Seasons: 6
From: Peterborough, ON
With more and more teams saving a game-day spot for (usually) American face-off specialists (some even full-on FOGOs), Jake Withers had his hands full at the dot this year. In 2024, he easily led the league in face-off wins, his 360 almost a full 50 better than the next closest competitor. This year he led the league by just a single FO victory (299), with Albany’s Joe Nardella (65.1%) owning a slightly higher FO% over Withers too (63.3%). It was Withers’ lowest season-ending percentage of his career, but still better than virtually everyone else in the league. Withers set new single-season highs in assists (16) & points (21), and as usual finished with filthy defensive data too (227 LB, 21 CTO, 16 BLKS).
Jake Boudreau, Saskatchewan Rush
4. Jake Boudreau
Age: 26
Team: Saskatchewan Rush
Seasons: 3
From: Brampton, ON
Last year, Jake Boudreau finished seventh in our year-end TPOTY analysis. Much earlier during the 2025 season, he ranked as high as second in our transitional positional breakdown as part of our weekly NLL TOP 30, a list he was on from our opening edition to the soon-to-be-announced final chapter. Boudreau is a hustle & energy type player, but also combines that with skill, speed and darting athleticism, allowing him to push the Rush’s potent offensive press to league-leading levels that make him almost uncontainable once he has his sights set. Saskatchewan’s speedster plays that traditional two-way style that so many of the league’s early TPOTY winners did too. He had a six-game stretch where he went goalless (twice pointless even) from mid-Feb. to late March, which slowly distanced him from the three players below, but make no mistake, Jake Boudreau is a two-way freak that provides the Rush with way above average value at both ends. A league-voted TPOTY seems unlikely this year (or maybe not, he’ll get love no doubt), but either way, Boudreau is destined to win this award multiple times before he calls it quits, there’s no doubt.
Owen Grant, Vancouver Warriors (Photo: Jordan Leigh)
3. Owen Grant
Age: 25
Team: Vancouver Warriors
Seasons: 2
From: Newmarket, ON
Back in late January, we felt Owen Grant had arguably the NLL’s most impressive full stat line (so, both offensive and defensive numbers) and mentioned him as a frontrunner for this very award. While Grant comes in as our third highest ranked transitional threat, both statements are still very much valid. In just his second season in the NLL, Grant has quickly and easily matured into one of the league’s top two-way talents. He became an even greater defensive asset for the Warriors this year (just look at the quality of player he’s usually defending), is a tank in transition that saw a statistical spike across the board (versus his impressive rookie run), and is playing well beyond what you’d expect from most second-year pros. Grant has that rare combination of size, skill, speed and smarts, allowing him to impressively impact both on the defensive and offensive side. A Swiss army-knife skillset? Sure, but only if the main blade is what Crocodile Dundee carries.
Ryan Terefenko, Halifax Thunderbirds (Photo: Trevor MacMillan)
2. Ryan Terefenko
Age: 27
Team: Halifax Thunderbirds
Seasons: 4
From: Sinking Spring, PA
As part of our weekly NLL TOP 30 analysis, we’ll often pull the Top 100 individual player averages for goals, assists, loose balls, caused turnovers and blocks throughout the season (although ultimately our ranking system takes all that into consideration weekly anyways). At the end of the 2024 season, not a single player had stat-per-game totals strong enough to rank in all five of those key categories. This year? Two players hit all five: Zach Currier and Ryan Terefenko. Terefenko smashed all of his previous single-season offensive highs (most set just a year ago), all while averaging fewer turnovers this year too. You rarely if ever see that type of ratio swing. While he may not be as high on Halifax’s defensive depth chart as his teammate ranked #5 here today (Terefenko is 100% part of their deadly defensive core though, that was no slight), no player for the Thunderbirds plays as prominent a role in transition than Terefenko, who showed no mercy pressing & pestering up the floor this year. After averaging just half a goal per game during Halifax’s first six this year, Terefenko went on an all-time run through Weeks 10-14, netting 12 goals (most defenders or transition player didn’t have 12 all season) and averaging four points per during that sensational stretch. In an away win versus Philadelphia on Feb. 8, Terefenko had 3 goals, 3 assists, 10 loose balls and 5 caused turnovers. In fact, leading into the last weekend of the regular season, the player-ranking point gap between Terefrenko and Grant was so slim, had Ryan not scooped 17 loosies (plus two helpers) in his last game (it was the fifth highest one-game total for a non-face-off taker this year) he’d have finished third and behind Grant on our year-end transition player list.
Zach Currier, San Diego Seals (Photo: Jonathan Tenca)
1. Zach Currier
Age: 30
Team: San Diego Seals
Seasons: 7
From: Peterborough, ON
When it came to old school transition players in today’s modern game, few did it like Zach Currier, who played solid D, hustled like hell in transition, and produced plenty of points on the press too. He was the league’s TPOTY of the year in both 2022 and 2023, and looked likely to be a favourite for the honour in each ensuing season. Swerve… His goal scoring dropped drastically under new bench bosses in Calgary last year (went from 15 goals to just a career-low one) and his league-leading defensive data degraded significantly from what we were used to seeing from Currier in those two previously mentioned award-winning campaigns. Currier did not make our transitional Top 5 last year and never even cracked over Top 30 over 21 weeks. Traded to San Diego over the offseason, Currier was repositioned to playing a ton of offense for the Seals this year, a surprising switch that often took him out of the traditional transitional role we were so used to seeing him in. Prior to this year, Currier averaged about a shot per game over his six seasons in Calgary. This year? He was getting nearly five full looks per game at the opposition’s goal. When other versatile two-way players have made similar opposite-floor moves in the past, while they’ve seen significant offensive statistical increases like Currier experienced this year (18G, 29A), their defensive line always took a decent dent. That did not happen to Currier this year. In fact, Currier saw improved loose ball and caused turnover totals, all while still finishing with double digit blocks. Logically and historically, none of this comes close to adding up, but Currier somehow pulled it off. An always uber-athletic defensive asset, especially when the Seals were shorthanded, Currier played as unique a two-way role this year as we’ve seen from any player ever before (try to find someone else, but spoiler alert, his stat line is unmatched in the modern era). And as we mentioned in Terefenko’s breakdown above, Currier was one of only two players in the NLL to have per-game stats strong enough to rank in each of these Top 100 categories this year: goals, assists, loose balls, caused turnovers and blocks. Put him in whatever position or role you want, Zach Currier will find a way to, well, do it all.