Jeff Teat, Ottawa Black Bears (Photo: Jordan Leigh)

The Lax Mag’s Clutch Kings tracks an individual player’s game-tying, go-ahead and game-winning goals, then weighs them based on when they’re scored (first, second, third or fourth quarter, plus OT), but also in what on-floor situation they’re finished (even-strength, power-play or short-handed goals). The Clutch Kings countdown calculates the league’s most money goal scorer all season long, crowning the king at the conclusion of the current NLL campaign. Click here for a more detailed breakdown of Clutch Kings scoring.

Previous to 2026, Jeff Teat led the National Lacrosse League in regular season goal scoring from 2023 (his second season in the NLL) to 2025.

Over his first four seasons in the league, Teat ripped a ridiculous 204 goals during an unheard-of pace to start his NLL career.

With all that said, Teat rarely broke into The Lax Mag’s Clutch Kings leaderboard over those first four high-production seasons.

That changed this year.

Although Teat scored the fewest (yet still higher than most) goals since his rookie year this season, he dominated our Clutch Kings calculations throughout 2026. Even though his Ottawa Black Bears had one of the frostiest final five games we’ve ever seen a team end a year with (Ottawa was 8-5 and destined for the playoffs, but then went 0-5 and missed the postseason, again), Teat topped our season-ending leaderboard with relative ease.

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While our clutch-scoring math takes much more into considering than the goal itself (like when it was scored and in what on-floor situation), no player this year scored as many combined game-tying, go-ahead and game-winning goals than Teat. Plus, no player did more fourth-quarter damage than Teat, who this year scored 47% of his 44 goals in the final frame.

Teat led the league in go-ahead goals (9) and had the second highest game-tying goal total too (7). He scored 45% of all Ottawa go-ahead goals this year (so, essentially one of every two Black Bears leads was courtesy of Teat) and nearly a third of the team’s game-tying goals were scored by him as well.

While the addition of Rob Hellyer this year most definitely helped ease some of the offensive burden Teat has routinely dealt with, when it came to the critical goals we calculate for Clutch Kings, Teat was relied on heavily (probably too much) to shift the outcome of games. While Hellyer had 32 goals this year, only three gave Ottawa the lead, and just one tied the score.

Over those previously mentioned final five losses that kept Ottawa out of the postseason, the Black Bears scored a combined ten game-tying and go-ahead goals (which is very low over that many games, unless you’re regularly playing with the lead, which they weren’t), and nearly half of them came out of Teat’s twig.

While Ottawa’s season ended anticlimactically, over the course of the full season, our money math confirms, no one came up as consistently clutch as Jeff Teat.

As The Lax Mag does every season, below we examine what on-floor situations players scored most of their goals in during the 2026 NLL regular season.

Josh Byrne, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Jeff Crawford)

Even-Strength %

Josh Byrne, Buffalo (36) 100%
Chris Boushy, Toronto (28) 100%
Brock Haley, Saskatchewan (19) 100%
Zach Currier, San Diego (22) 95.5%
Marcus Klarich, Vancouver (21) 95.2%
Adam Poitras, Las Vegas (34) 94.1%
Dalton Young, Philadelphia (15) 93.3%
Tanner Cook, Calgary (49) 89.8%

Event-Strength Goals

Tanner Cook, Calgary 44
Josh Byrne, Buffalo 36
Connor Fields, Rochester 35
Andrew Kew, Colorado 35
Jeff Teat, Ottawa 34
Alex Simmons, Oshawa 33
Keegan Bal, Vancouver 33

Every single one of Josh Byrne’s 36 goals this year were scored in an even-strength situations. It’s the first time in his career he didn’t burry a single special-teams goal, although in recent seasons, Buffalo teammates like Dhane Smith, Ian MacKay and even Kyle Buchanan have been more dominate on the power-play than Byrne. Calgary’s Tanner Cook, who also led the league in straight goals with 49, easily topped the NLL in ESG with 44.

Curtis Dickson, Vancouver Warriors (Photo: Jordan Leigh)

Power-Play %

Kaleb Benedict, Georgia (17) 58.8%
Larson Sundon, Ottawa (20) 45.0%
Cody Jamieson, Halifax (23) 43.5%
Dawson Theede, Oshawa (30) 40.0%
Eric Fannell, Philadelphia (16) 37.5%
Reilly O’Connor, Ottawa (22) 36.4%
Robert Church, Saskatchewan (37) 35.1%
Curtis Dickson, Vancouver (42) 33.3%
Ryan Lanchbury, Rochester (24) 33.3%

Power-Play Goals

Curtis Dickson, Vancouver 14
Robert Church, Saskatchewan 13
Dawson Theede, Oshawa 12
Kaleb Benedict, Georgia 10
Cody Jamieson, Halifax 10
Will Malcom, Colorado 10
Chris Cloutier, Las Vegas 10
Jeff Teat, Ottawa 10
Andrew Kew, Colorado 10

Matching his career high of 14 power-play goals in one year, Curtis Dickson led the league in PPG for the first time over his 15 storied seasons in the NLL. Exactly a third of Dickson’s 42 goals (his tenth 40+ goal season) were scored on the PP, while nearly 60% of Kaleb Benedict’s goals this year were scored when Georgia had more on the floor.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Alexis Goeller)

Short-Handed %

Dhane Smith, Buffalo (39) 12.8%
Dylan McIntosh, Colorado (26) 11.5%
Randy Staats, Halifax (18) 11.1%
Jason Knox, Halifax (19) 10.5%
Ethan Walker, Oshawa (19) 10.5%
Lyle Thompson, Georgia (29) 10.3%
Connor Robinson, San Diego (22) 9.1%

Short-Handed Goals

Dhane Smith, Buffalo 5
Dylan McIntosh, Colorado 3
Lyle Thompson, Georgia 3
Curtis Dickson, Vancouver 3
Keegan Bal, Vancouver 3

This is actually area that this year’s PPG leader, Curtis Dickson, usually leads the NLL in. In fact, Dickson led the league in SHG in 2013, 2016, 2018 and then again in 2023, when his nine SHGs with San Diego set a new single-season record. Also a record: leading the league in SHG four times.

From 2019 to 2025, Dhane Smith scored four short-handed goals combined. This year, he had five and easily topped the NLL in shorties.

Tanner Cook, Calgary Roughnecks (Photo: Jenn Pierce)

Game-Tying Goals

Tanner Cook, Calgary 8
Alex Simmons, Oshawa 8
Jeff Teat, Ottawa 7
Connor Fields, Rochester 7
Jason Knox, Halifax 7

While their teams failed to make the playoffs, both Tanner Cook and Alex Simmons kept their clubs competitive in spite of their below average standing’s success. Maybe the most interesting name on any of today’s statistical season-ending lists is how high Jason Knox ranks here. Knox scored 19 for Halifax this year, and seven of those tied the game for the Thunderbirds. Knox even had a short-handed game-tying goal in the fourth quarter this year. He was one of only two players to score in that rare late-game situation in 2026. The other? Calgary’s Riley Loewen.

Jeff Teat, Ottawa Black Bears (Photo: Candice Ward)

Go-Ahead Goals

Jeff Teat, Ottawa 9
Brennan O’Neill, Philadelphia 8
Owen Hiltz, Toronto 6
Will Malcom, Colorado 6
Even players tied at 5

As previously mentioned, Teat leads this list with nine go-ahead goals in 2026, easily the most he’s had over his first five years in the league. He previously maxed out at six in a single season.

Shayne Jackson, Georgia Swarm (Photo: Victoria Adkins)

Game-Winning Goals

Shayne Jackson, Georgia 6
Josh Byrne, Buffalo 5
Zach Manns, Saskatchewan 4
Andrew Kew, Colorado 4
Eleven players tied at 3

Shayne Jackson’s six game winners matches a single season record also held by Jeff Shattler (2012 Calgary) and Tehoka Nanticoke (2022 Buffalo). Josh Byrne, who we crowned as 2024’s Clutch King, was just behind Jackson with five. During a gruelling three game stretch between Weeks 14 & 16, Byrne scored the game winner in Buffalo wins over Saskatchewan, Toronto and Colorado, which was also the start of their season-saving seven-game win streak. Plus, get this… Byrne also assisted on five other Bandits game-winning goals this year, which means he produced a point on ten of eleven Buffalo GWG in 2026.

Clutch Kings: Final

CKs Rank. Player (NLL Gs Rank) Team, CKs Points (GTG/GAG/GWG)

1. Jeff Teat (4) Ottawa, 32.75 (7/9/2)
2. Tanner Cook (1) Calgary, 29.00 (8/5/3)
T3. Zach Manns (T14) Saskatchewan, 27.75 (6/5/4)
T3. Owen Hiltz (T23) Toronto, 27.75 (5/6/2)
5. Dhane Smith (T11) Buffalo, 27.50 (5/3/3)
6. Shayne Jackson (T23) Georgia, 24.50 (1/5/6)
7. Andrew Kew (T2) Colorado, 23.50 (4/5/4)
8. Jesse King (T20) Vancouver, 22.75 (6/5/2)
9. Clarke Petterson (T9) Halifax, 22.50 (3/5/3)
10. Josh Byrne (T14) Buffalo, 21.50 (1/1/5)
11. Connor Fields (T7) Rochester, 21.00 (7/3/2)
12. Robert Church (13) Saskatchewan, 20.50 (6/2/2)
13. Zach Currier (T49) San Diego, 19.50 (3/4/2)
14. Chris Boushy (T34) Toronto, 19.00 (5/2/3)
15. Alex Simmons (T7) Oshawa, 18.50 (8/3/0)
16. Tye Kurtz (T11) Oshawa, 17.25 (1/5/2)
T17. Ethan Walker (T59) Oshawa, 16.50 (2/3/3)
T17. Keegan Bal (T2) Vancouver, 16.50 (4/3/3)
19. Curtis Dickson (T5) Vancouver, 16.25 (3/2/3)
20. Reilly O'Connor (T49) Ottawa, 16.00 (2/1/3)
21. Brock Haley (T59) Saskatchewan, 15.50 (0/4/2)
22. Will Malcom (T14) Colorado, 15.25 (4/6/2)

Scoring System

First 3 Quarters (GTG/GAG/GWG)

Even-Strength Goal: 1.00/1.50/2.00
Power-Play Goal: 0.50/0.75/1.00
Short-Handed Goal: 2.00/3.00/4.00

Fourth Quarter (GTG/GAG/GWG)

Even-Strength Goal: 2.00/3.00/4.00
Power-Play Goal: 1.00/1.50/2.00
Short-Handed Goal: 4.00/6.00/8.00

Overtime (GWG)

Even-Strength Goal: 6.00
Power-Play Goal: 3.00
Short-Handed Goal: 12.00