2026 NLL Player Rankings: Our Annual Explanation

Connor Fields, Rochester Knighthawks (Photo: Micheline Veluvolu)

After the first several weeks of the 2025-26 National Lacrosse League season are complete, The Lax Mag publishes 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 only 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 averages) across the league (more on both breakdowns below). Only players who have played two-thirds of their team’s games or more will qualify.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Caroline Sherman)

Every Game: Star-Rating System

At the conclusion of every weekend, TLM will rank the top six players for each team from that weekend’s game or games (double headers). Players will be selected and ranked in order of the impact they had in that specific game(s). A player ranked first will receive six points, a player selected in the second spot will be awarded five, three gets four, four three, five two, and sixth gets a single.

This half of our ranking calculation will put an emphasis on individual game performances from Game 1 to Game 18 during the regular season - every performance is equally important no matter when it occurs.

While The Lax Mag’s new Team of the Week feature on social media will likely give you an indication of who did well in our star-rating system, the TOTW ultimately doesn’t factor into this analysis.

Full Season: Statistical System

For players that have played in two-thirds of their team’s games, we will take into consideration where they rank in a variety of per-game stats, including The Lax Mag’s Clutch Kings (a weighted goal-scoring system that grades game-tying, go-ahead and game-winning goals, including when in a game they’re scored and whether they’re even-strength, power-play or short-handed goals).

Jeff Teat, Ottawa Black Bears (Photo: David Pickering)

The following per-game stats will be used for players: goals, assists (so ultimately points), loose balls, turnovers (and other ball retention data), caused turnovers, blocked shots, shots blocked, face-off wins, special-teams scoring, shooting accuracy, and those previously mentioned Clutch Kings points. Plus, for goalies: minutes played, goals against (GAA), goals saved above average (GSAA), saves (save %), saves per minute (a stat we track to better analyze goalies who see above-average shooting pressure), assists and even goals. Wins are more of a team stat (some would argue GAA is a defensive unit + goalie stat, but we’re still including for this season’s stoppers), so we won’t be using that.

The star-rating will act as a Most Valuable Player approach (since a player’s impact within each game will be graded against his own teammates’ performance in that same game), while the season-long stats comparison will be more of a Most Outstanding Player approach (since he’ll be compared against both his teammates and rest of the league).

Our dual-approach analysis picked the following players as 2025’s end-of-season award winners, differing with the NLL’s own award recipients more significantly than in past seasons, our only matching being Matt Hossack for DPOTY…

MVP: Dhane Smith
Goalie of the Year: Matt Vinc
Defensive Player of the Year: Matt Hossack
Transition Player of the Year: Zach Currier
Rookie of the Year: Will Johansen

Mike Messenger, Saskatchewan Rush

While we focused on explaining our rating & ranking system today, in future weeks, we’ll provide far more in-depth details and analysis on what players did the previous weekend and why their per-game stats are so special and significant. We’ll also likely look at some GOAT-inspired data and how this year’s top performers compare to the past, especially when it comes to awarding year-end accolades.

Starting in the top spot this year is the NLL’s MVP from last season and our #3 ranked player heading into the 2025-26 NLL regular season via our annual preseason NLL TOP 100, Rochester Knighthawks forward Connor Fields.

While Rochester has yet to play many if any of this year’s stronger sides to start the season (that changes when they host Buffalo tomorrow night, 24 hours after playing in Philadelphia on Friday), Fields has been as close to offensively unstoppable as it gets.

Will Malcom, Colorado Mammoth (Photo: Jack Dempsey)

Heading into Week 7, Fields is averaging nearly four goals per game (3.67 to be exact) which is almost a full goal more than second on that list (Dhane Smith, Will Malcom and Tre Leclaire are all averaging a hat-trick per presently) and is also leading the league in points per game at 8.33. As The Lax Mag has noted before, an 8.0 season is rare, only GOATs John Tavares (twice) and John Grant were able to maintain that high an average over a full season – see every 7.0 or superior season in NLL history here).

Fields has also already jumped onto our Clutch Kings leaderboard, having scored both game winners in Rochesters’s two wins so far this season.

And maybe the most impressive stat is the reigning MVP’s almost inconceivable turnover total. For a player as involved in every aspect of his team’s offense to have given up the ball just three times in three games is unheard of in the modern game. Most players anywhere near Fields per-game average for goals are giving the ball away at least triple or quadruple the amount of times, usually even more in a single 60-minute game. If he keeps this pace up, Fields will finish with a scoring/retention ratio that would break the record books (more on that in future NLL Player Rankings editions this season).

CJ Kirst, Toronto Rock (Photo: Ryan McCullough)

Dhane Smith and Jeff Teat are hot on Fields’ heels in the two and three spots this week, while Mike Messenger, who has garnered more of TLM’s Team of the Week mentions on social media than any other player this season, coupled with one of this year’s most balanced full stat lines and most defensively dominate ones too, checks in at four.

Two rookies are already in our weekly Top 30 too, Georgia’s Michael Grace and Toronto’s CJ Kirst - Grace regularly registering impressive numbers on either side of centre while already playing a prominent role for the Swarm, and Kirst leading most offensive rookie categories while also leading a Toronto Rock roster in loose balls too. In fact, Kirst has one of the highest LB-per-game averages among non-face-off takers and full-time forwards, rookie or otherwise.

NLL TOP 30: WEEK 7

TW. (LW) Player, Team (Pos.)

1. (-) Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
2. (-) Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
3. (-) Jeff Teat, Ottawa (F)
4. (-) Mike Messenger, Saskatchewan (D)
5. (-) Will Malcom, Colorado (F)
6. (-) Brett Dobson, Georgia (G)
7. (-) Warren Hill, Halifax (G)
8. (-) Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
9. (-) Christian Del Bianco, Vancouver (G)
10. (-) Rob Hellyer, Ottawa (F)
11. (-) Mitch Jones, Las Vegas (F)
12. (-) Ryan Lanchbury, Rochester (F)
13. (-) Nick Weiss, Buffalo (D)
14. (-) Tyler Pace, Calgary (F)
15. (-) Keegan Bal, Vancouver (F)
16. (-) Jake Boudreau, Saskatchewan (D)
17. (-) Tanner Cook, Calgary (F)
18. (-) Callum Jones, Ottawa (D)
19. (-) *Michael Grace, Georgia (D)
20. (-) Brennan O'Neill, Philadelphia (F)
21. (-) Zach Currier, San Diego (D)
22. (-) Thomas McConvey, Rochester (F)
23. (-) Frank Scigliano, Saskatchewan (G)
24. (-) *CJ Kirst, Toronto (F)
25. (-) Brayden Mayea, Calgary (F)
26. (-) Alex Simmons, Oshawa (F)
27. (-) Doug Jamieson, Oshawa (G)
28. (-) Nick Chaykowsky, Oshawa (D)
29. (-) Tre Leclaire, San Diego (F)
30. (-) Clarke Petterson, Halifax (F)

*Rookie