Wes Berg crowned 2025’s National Lacrosse League Clutch King
Wes Berg (#14), San Diego Seals (Photo: Alexis Goeller)
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.
Berg, Seals (Photo: Kalea Vizmanos)
Although Zach Manns has led our Clutch Kings countdown since Week 8, one last critically clutch performance by Wes Berg was enough to give him our season-ending lead.
Manns’ clutch touch slowed considerably during the second half of the Saskatchewan Rush’s season. In fact, since we reported that he was on pace to smash our clutch data during a single regular season back in early March, Manns went on to score just a single go-ahead over the team’s final six games – no game-tying or game-winning goals over that same stretch. In fact, after averaging almost a hat-trick per outing over the Rush’s first twelve, Manns saw his game-day scoring average drop to 0.8 goals per game (during those final six starts), held scoreless in losses to Halifax and Calgary.
Similar happened to Berg after we highlighted how ridiculously clutch he’d been during San Diego’s successful stretch through early February into late March. Berg had been on a clutch-scoring spree, the Seals standings success mirroring Berg’s money-scoring pretty perfectly. When his goal-getting quieted, so did San Diego’s ability to win games. Coincidence? Clearly not.
With their playoff-qualifying future on the line this past weekend, Berg did this…
We’ve been saying it all year… when Wes Berg scores a hat-trick or more, the San Diego Seals almost always win.
This year, in game’s Berg has failed to score at least three goals, the Seals are 2-8. In games he has three or more, San Diego is an almost perfect 7-1. Averaging just 1.7 goals per game in the Seals previous three outings – all losses – Berg finished the regular season off with one of 2025’s most clutch performances, pushing him to #1 on our season-closing CK leaderboard.
Berg joins our previous winners Eli McLaughlin (2022), Connor Robinson (2023) and Josh Byrne (2024), all of whom continued their clutch streak into the playoffs, actually, right into the Finals and often finishing with a Cup win too.
Can Berg do the same? We’ll find out soon enough.
Before looking at our final leaderboard of the year, here’s our quick breakdown of the various situational scoring that impacts our Clutch Kings calculations, including both straight (normal NLL) scoring and our CK-specific stuff: GTG, GAG and of course, GWG. Note: Minimum 18 goals for ESG and PPG breakdown.
Jeff Teat, Ottawa Black Bears (Photo: Greg Mason)
Even-Strength %
Eli McLaughlin, Colorado (23) 95.65%
Zach Currier, San Diego (18) 94.44%
Kyle Buchanan, Buffalo (34) 91.18%
Mike Robinson, Halifax (22) 90.91%
Marcus Klarich, Vancouver (21) 90.48%
Jeff Teat, Ottawa (56) 89.29%
Thomas McConvey, Rochester (31) 87.10%
Adam Poitras, Las Vegas (23) 86.96%
Even-Strength Goals
Jeff Teat, Ottawa 50
Connor Fields, Rochester 39
Josh Byrne, Buffalo 38
Curtis Dickson, Calgary 38
Wes Berg, San Diego 37
Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia 34
Lyle Thompson, Georgia 32
No one came close this year to being as dominant in even-strength situations as Jeff Teat in Ottawa. In fact, Teat’s 50 ESG this year are the most he’s scored in a single season over his four years in the NLL. His sixth-place finish on this year’s CK leaderboard is also by far the highest Teat has ranked in our clutch calculations over those same four season. As we pointed out on Instagram earlier this week, Teat is scoring about one of every three Black Bears goals, a 30.6% goal ownership that easily leads the NLL too. As individually impressive as all that is, Ottawa, who missed the playoffs again, need to get their captain consistent offensive help ASAP if they hope to one day compete for a Cup come May.
Ryan Smith, Rochester Knighthawks (Photo: Jonathan Tenca)
Power-Play %
Connor Kearnan, Ottawa (10) 52.63%
Ryan Smith, Rochester (28) 40.82%
Jesse King, Calgary (12) 40.00%
Casey Jackson, Las Vegas (11) 39.29%
Larson Sundown, Ottawa (9) 37.50%
Ethan Walker, Albany (10) 37.04%
Haiden Dickson, Calgary (7) 35.00%
Austin Shanks, Saskatchewan (12) 34.29%
Power-Play Goals
Ryan Smith, Rochester 20
Keegan Bal, Vancouver 14
Jesse King, Calgary 12
Austin Shanks, Saskatchewan 12
Dane Dobbie, Calgary 12
Casey Jackson, Las Vegas 11
Wesley Berg, San Diego 11
Ryan Smith, who finished tied for second this year in goals with Berg and behind only Teat, put up similar goal-scoring numbers to his breakout season last year, but saw a significant change in how he was producing them. Rochester’s power forward went from seeing 24% of his overall scoring done on the PP in 2024, to over 40% a year later. No player this year had a bigger ESG to PPG percentage change in their overall scoring than the 17% spike Smith saw. He also experienced a 15-point decline versus last year (Ryan Lanchbury likely eating up many of the helpers Smith was snagging a season earlier) and slipped on our CK leaderboard too, last year finishing sixth overall with a 7/6/3 slash (even ranking ahead of teammate Connor Fields), dropping to 5/4/3 this year and 24th overall. Smith’s 20 PPGs are the second highest single-season total ever, trailing only Robert Church (2017) and John Tavares (2012), both previously netting 21 with an extra-player(s) advantage.
Lyle Thompson, Georgia Swarm (Photo: Christian Bender)
Short-Handed Goals
Lyle Thompson, Georgia (11.90%) 5
Ryan Terefenko, Halifax (23.53%) 4
Owen Grant, Vancouver (20.00%) 3
Ian MacKay, Buffalo (8.11%) 3
Brennan O’Neill, Philadelphia (12.00%) 3
Tye Kurtz, Albany (8.57%) 3
Lyle Thompson’s five shorties this season is the fifth highest single-season total ever. Outside of rookie Brennan O’Neill, who impressively scored all three of his shorties between Week 3 and Week 8 performances, the rest of the names above have reps for putting in quality minutes on either side of centre.
Game-Tying Goals
Jeff Teat, Ottawa 11
Dane Dobbie, Calgary 11
Alex Simmons, Albany
Lyle Thompson, Georgia 9
Wes Berg, San Diego 8
Zach Manns, Saskatchewan 8
Josh Dawick, Toronto 8
Teat co-led the league and easily topped Ottawa’s roster with eleven game-tying goals this year. How many did the rest of the Black Bears’ roster bury? 13 (by 26 other players!). Jacob Dunbar led the team with six go-ahead goals in only twelve games, the team’s offseason signing a healthy scratch down the stretch however. Even though he only played two-thirds of Ottawa’s full season, Dunbar firmly finished second in CK points for the Black Bears this year.
Chris Boushy, Toronto Rock (Photo: Christian Bender)
Go-Ahead Goals
Chris Boushy, Toronto 9
Zach Manns, Saskatchewan 8
Dhane Smith, Buffalo 8
Ryan Benesch, San Diego 7
Ten players tied at 6
Toronto’s Chris Boushy has been a regular on our CK leaderboard since we brought the series back in recent years, both in a Rock sweater and also suiting up for the Halifax Thunderbirds before that. Although he led Halifax with four game winners during the 2022 season, most of Boushy’s CK points come courtesy of scoring in back-and-forth affairs to keep his team competitive or, as the above number would suggest, putting them in the lead. Boushy is the only player on our year-end leaderboard to take a spot without scoring a single game winner this year.
Rob Hellyer and Berg, Seals (Photo: Kalea Vizmanos)
Game-Winning Goals
Wes Berg, San Diego 5
Keegan Bal, Vancouver 4
Randy Staats, Halifax 4
Andrew Kew, Georgia 4
Nine players tied at 3
A shocker, we know, but Berg led the league in game-winning goals this year. While that obviously helped him here, the reason why Berg was crowned this year’s CK king is due to when those goals were scored, plus what else he did. Of his five GWGs, three were scored in the fourth quarter and another in OT. Here’s where he ranked in all three main goal types we grade too:
GTG (8) 5th overall
GAG (6) 5th overall (tied)
GWG (5) 1st overall
Although it took him all 21 weeks of the 2025 NLL regular season to get there, Wes Berg was hands down this year’s most clutch goal scorer.
Clutch Kings: Final
CKs Rank. Player (NLL Gs Rank) Team, CKs Points (GTG/GAG/GWG)
1. Wes Berg (T2) San Diego, 37.50 (8/6/5)
2. Zach Manns (T17) Saskatchewan, 33.00 (8/8/2)
3. Kyle Buchanan (21) Buffalo, 27.75 (6/6/3)
4. Curtis Dickson (4) Calgary, 27.50 (7/6/2)
5. Andrew Kew (T38) Georgia, 26.75 (5/2/4)
T6. Jeff Teat (1) Ottawa, 26.00 (11/5/2)
T6. Dane Dobbie (T14) Calgary, 26.00 (11/2/2)
T6. Jack Hannah (T14) Las Vegas, 26.00 (4/4/2)
9. Tye Kurtz (T17) Albany, 24.50 (7/6/1)
10. Clarke Petterson (T31) Halifax, 23.50 (2/6/3)
11. Dhane Smith (T24) Buffalo, 22.75 (3/8/2)
12. Lyle Thompson (T8) Georgia, 22.50 (9/6/1)
13. Keegan Bal (7) Vancouver, 22.25 (5/5/4)
T14. Alex Simmons (T12) Albany, 22.00 (11/3/1)
T14. Randy Staats (T24) Halifax, 22.00 (6/3/4)
16. Mitch Jones (T28) Philadelphia, 21.75 (5/5/2)
T17. Connor Fields (5) Rochester, 21.00 (7/5/2)
T17. Adam Charalambides (T31) Vancouver, 21.00 (6/5/2)
19. Josh Byrne (6) Buffalo, 20.50 (6/6/1)
20. Chris Boushy (11) Toronto, 20.00 (5/9/0)
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