Brett Dobson, Georgia Swarm (Photo: Victoria Adkins)

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. Only players who have played two-thirds of their team’s games or more will qualify.

Click here for an even more in-depth breakdown of our scoring system.

Keegan Bal, Vancouver Warriors (Photo: Jaclyn McKee)

As promised, in this week’s NLL Player Rankings we’ll hand out our midseason awards for Rookie of the Year, Transition Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Goalie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and a new one for us, Breakout Player of the Year.

Below are each of those categories, our Top 5 for every award, why they’re our midseason pick, plus where that player presently ranks in our Player Rankings ahead of Week 12 (in brackets).

Offensive Player of the Year

Nope, we didn’t miss it above. Even after the league somewhat oddly added this category a few years back, we’ve always left it off our mid- and year-end list.

Why?

Because box lacrosse and hockey, who share a similar culture, rarely if ever give out an Offensive Player of the Year Award (this isn’t the NFL), instead having a long history of stat-leading hardware acknowledging the season’s best forwards (or offensive players).

So, who is projecting to lead the league in points this year?

While Andrew Kew tops the points-per-game column, he’s also only played in four games (and missed four too). Based on current point-producing paces, Kew is projected to finish with 116 points this year, while several others who are averaging slightly less PTS will, however, get in more games than Kew. Originally, we had Connor Fields trending for the year-end top spot with 135 projected points, but it looks like the league has erased a few of his previously granted assists from last week (bringing him slightly down to a projected 131). Averaging the most points per game leading into Week 12 (he was actually awarded an additional assist coming out of last week’s games) and so far yet to miss a GP is Vancouver’s Keegan Bal, whose 7.5 per would put him at 135 after 18 games played. That would actually tie for the third highest single-season point total ever, if Bal and keep it up.

Brennan O’Neill, Philadelphia Wings (Photo: Alexis Goeller)

Breakout Player of the Year

1. Brennan O’Neill, Philadelphia Wings (30)
2. Phil Mazzuca, Toronto Rock (41)
3. Owen Down, Colorado Mammoth (55)
4. Haiden Dickson, Calgary Roughnecks (57)
5. Brayden Mayea, Calgary Roughnecks (63)

It may not be popping off the page, but Brennan O’Neill is presently on pace to pulverize his rookie point totals from a season ago. We’ve mentioned it many times before, but last year’s offensive rookies produced at a well below average pace in comparison to virtually every rookie class before them. While the league had the high-profile O’Neill as a final three ROTY Finalist last year, O’Neill barely made our year-end Top 5 behind Mike Robinson, Dyson Williams, Adam Poitras, and our overwhelmingly obvious pick for top rookie, Will Johansen. Well, that was last year. Check out O’Neill’s averages in goals, assists and points from 2025 to 2026 (so far).

2025

Goals: 1.4
Assists: 1.8
Points: 3.2

2026

Goals: 2.3 (+0.9)
Assists: 2.4 (+1.8)
Points: 4.6 (+3.2)

While that might not look like much based on average alone, spread those number across a full 18-game season, and O’Neill is projecting to go from a very average 57-point producer to easily over 80, and maybe more based depending on how the rest of the Philadelphia Wings season goes. O’Neill, who was in our Top 30 ahead of weeks seven, eight and nine, is back again this week thanks to a stats-spiking four-goal effort in an unexpected win over Buffalo in Banditland last weekend.

Coming in just behind O’Neill is Toronto’s Phil Mazzuca, who as we outlined in recent weeks, is seeing a similar significant statistical increase over his full defensive stat line, right now one of our highest ranked defensive players too.

CJ Kirst, Toronto Rock (Photo: Christian Bender)

Rookie of the Year

1. CJ Kirst, Toronto Rock (20)
2. Michal Grace, Georgia Swarm (34)
3. Owen Hiltz, Toronto Rock (48)
4. Sam English, Toronto Rock (56)
5. Nolan Byrne, Geogia Swarm (61)

A month back we took a very early look at this year’s top rookies. At the time, Toronto’s CJ Kirst was on pace to surpass Paul Gait’s long-standing rookie record of 47 goals, and while that is no longer the case (on pace for 43 now, which would be the third highest G total ever recorded by a rook), Kirst still leads our ROTY breakdown, by a bit. Georgia’s Michael Grace, who led our internal rookie rankings very early this season when he was registering ridiculous TPOTY-worthy numbers, has seen his stat pace slow down over the last month. With that said, Grace currently leads the league, rookies or otherwise, with 16 caused turnovers total, a number that puts him in our midseason conversation for DPOTY too, but more on that in a bit.

Transition Player of the Year

1. Mike Messenger, Saskatchewan Rush (7)
2. Zach Currier, San Diego Seals (9)
3. Jake Boudreau, Saskatchewan Rush (18)
4. Nick Weiss, Buffalo Bandits (21)
5. Jordan MacIntosh, Georgia Swarm (27)

Not only has Mike Messenger been in TLM’s Top 10 since our weekly Top 30’s opening edition, he’s not at all surprisingly led all transition players over that time too. While is offensive point production has declined in the second half of Saskatchewan’s season, Messenger is most definitely still doing enough across the board to remain #1 here. Plus, as the above Undertaker-vibing visual would suggest, Messenger is still one scary ass mother fucker to play against.

With that said, San Diego’s Zach Currier, who went from playing a traditional defense-first transitional role to start the season to now eating up way more front-door minutes, as always has to be in the TPOTY conversation. Still seeing some important time on D, especially in short-handed situations and back-peddling when the opposition is pressing, Currier’s full stat line may be the most balanced of anyone in the league right now.

Zach Currier, San Diego Seals (Photo: Kalea Vizmanos)

As we often do during our weekly analysis, we pull the Top 100 per-game averages in the following stats: goals, assists, loose ball, caused turnover and blocks. As he has for most of the season, Currier is the only player to rank in each of those 100s heading into Week 12.

Right now, ten players rank in four of those five categories: CJ Kirst, Connor Kirst, Jake Boudreau, Jeff Teat, Jordan MacIntosh, Latrell Harris, Nick Weiss, Pat Kavangh (our sixth ranked rookie btw), Tre Leclaire, and Will Malcom. Messenger had been in the 4/5 mix all season (even 5/5 early on), but his dip in O digits recently took him out.

So to close, Messenger has been our season-long #1, but Currier, our pick for TPOTY last year and a former 2x NLL TPOTY, is hot on his heels, depending of course, on how you define a transition player in this league, which actually has never had an official definition in league history.

Callum Jones, Ottawa Black Bears (Photo: Ryan McCullough)

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Callum Jones, Ottawa Black Bears (10)
2. Robert Hope, Colorado Mammoth (31)
3. Brad Kri, Toronto Rock (32)
4. Nick Chaykowsky, Oshawa FireWolves (33)
5. Michael Grace, Georgia Swarm (34)

Like Messenger above for TPOTY, Callum Jones has been of highest ranked defensive player since the start of the season. Jones 2.5 caused turnovers per game is the highest average in the league, while his 9.00 loosies per is only bettered by Zach Currier (as far as non-face-off takers, but still fourth if you include dot dominators). The reset of our DPOTY contenders have all been featured prominently in our Top 30 over the first eleven weeks of the season, and presently sit just outside of our weekly list. Matt Hossack, Graeme Hossack, and Phil Mazzuca aren’t far off either.

Goalie of the Year

1. Brett Dobson, Georgia Swarm (1)
2. Christian Del Bianco, Vancouver Warriors (6)
3. Dillon Ward, Colorado Mammoth (11)
4. Warren Hill, Halifax Thunderbirds (24)
5. Nick Damude, Philadelphia Wings (37)

In recent weeks, we published our annual in-season goalie review. Since then, not much has changed, well, except that Brett Dobson has somehow maybe gotten even better. Dobson continues to lead the league in GAA, save percentage (.859) and GSAA (31.67), by a decent margin in all three categories. Plus, the league-leading data he’s dropping so far this season, is kinda GOAT level.

GAA

Record: Aaron Bold (’14 Edmonton) 8.73
’26 Dobson: 7.15 (-1.58)

SV%

Record: Doug Jamieson (’20 New England) .829
’26 Dobson: .859 (+.030)

GSAA

Record: Matt Vinc (’13 Rochester) 34.46
’26 Dobson: 31.67 (+2.79)

He’s only trailing Vinc’s GSAA record by a bit, and if you round up, allowing almost two fewer goals per game than the greatest GAA ever.

When we left off our GOTY conversation a few weeks ago, we kinda doubted Dobson would be able to continue producing at the ridiculous rates he was on. Not only has in continued, he’s further elevated his game in various statistical categories beyond what anyone’s ever done, and that’s going all the way back to Year 1 in 1987.

Brett Dobson, Georgia Swarm (Photo: Nick Iwanyshyn)

Most Valuable Player

1. (1) Brett Dobson, Georgia
2. (2) Connor Fields, Rochester
3. (3) Jeff Teat, Ottawa
4. (6) Dhane Smith, Buffalo
5. (7) Keegan Bal, Vancouver

When Steve Dietrich was voted the NLL’s first goalie MVP in 2006 and Christian Del Bianco more recently in 2023, both were putting up silly stats for a goalie (and in most cases leading the league), but neither was producing at the rate Dobson is over his first nine games this year. If you listened to most NLL media (including us), the Georgia Swarm were supposed to suck in 2026. Well, they haven’t. While their mobile and menacing young defensive unit has played beyond what any of us expected, no one has been relied on for their squad’s success anywhere around the league like Dobson has in GA.

So whether you cast your MVP vote for the simply the best pound-for-pound player or the one that is most valuable to his team’s success, you’re voting Brett Dobson, end of story.

NLL TOP 30: Week 12

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

1. (1) Brett Dobson, Georgia (G)
2. (2) Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
3. (3) Jeff Teat, Ottawa (F)
4. (6) Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
5. (7) Keegan Bal, Vancouver (F)
6. (4) Christian Del Bianco, Vancouver (G)
7. (5) Mike Messenger, Saskatchewan (D)
8. (8) Will Malcom, Colorado (F)
9. (12) Zach Currier, San Diego (D/F)
10. (9) Callum Jones, Ottawa (D)
11. (11) Dillon Ward, Colorado (G)
12. (10) Mitch Jones, Las Vegas (F)
13. (15) Ryan Lanchbury, Rochester (F)
14. (13) Rob Hellyer, Ottawa (F)
15. (14) Ryan Keenan, Saskatchewan (F)
16. (16) Alex Simmons, Oshawa (F)
17. (17) Tyler Pace, Calgary (F)
18. (19) Jake Boudreau, Saskatchewan (D)
19. (18) Tanner Cook, Calgary (F)
20. (20) *CJ Kirst, Toronto (F)
21. (23) Nick Weiss, Buffalo (D)
22. (21) Zach Manns, Saskatchewan (F)
23. (24) Jonathan Donville, Las Vegas (F)
24. (22) Warren Hill, Halifax (G)
25. (28) Austin Shanks, Saskatchewan (F)
26. (NR) Jesse King, Vancouver (F)
27. (30) Jordan MacIntosh, Georgia (D)
28. (25) Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
29. (NR) Curtis Dickson, Vancouver (F)
30. (NR) Brennan O'Neill, Philadelphia (F)