Here’s part II of my pre-season preview; part I was here. For each team (alphabetically from Ottawa through Vancouver), I’ll share where I think they will end up, and who might have a breakout year.
For where teams will end up, I’m not going to make specific predictions here. I’ll break things up into groups: Top 4, Middle 4 (i.e. #5-8), and Miss Playoffs (#9-14).
As I do most seasons (missed last year), here’s a quick look at each team, where I think each team will end up, and who might have a breakout year. I’ll go alphabetically and cover Albany through Las Vegas in this article, and then Ottawa through Vancouver in Part II.
For where teams will end up, I’m not going to make specific predictions here. I’ll break things up into groups: Top 4, Middle 4 (i.e. #5-8), and Miss Playoffs (#9-14).
I haven’t done this in a number of years, but I used to write an article every year announcing the roster of the “Boston Blazers”, starting the year after they folded. The idea was that this was a team made up entirely of players who were not injured and had not retired, but were not on any NLL team’s roster, practice squad, holdout list, etc. There were some years where this phantom team would have been pretty good.
This year, I named the team after Panther City for obvious reasons. I’m not sure this year’s version would beat the Bandits and they probably wouldn’t have beaten last year’s Panther City team either. They may not even make the postseason but I’m not sure they’re finishing last either. If the 39-year-old Bold falters, Carlson starts and we could pick up Laine Hruska or Joel Watson as a third goalie, but goaltending is generally solid. Defence is pretty good and transition isn’t bad, and there’s even a strong face-off guy there in Hamer-Jackson. Up front, there’s a ton of secondary scoring but unless Greer and Schuss play like they did back in the mid-teens, nobody to really grab the reins as a solid #1 forward.
Here it is: a complete summary of all the roster changes for each team, all in one place. I will update this article as things change, up until the beginning of the season.
Just to be clear, “In” means that the player is part of the announced roster for the 2025 season and was not on the active roster during the team’s last game of the season in 2024. “Out” means just the opposite: they were on the roster for the last game last year, but are not on the active roster as of now. So a player who was injured since (or during) the last game last year but is back now is “In”, while a player who is currently injured might be “Out”.
Not all teams have announced who’s on their IR, PUP, or holdout lists so take an empty list with a grain of salt. Also most teams don’t have (or didn’t announce) a Protected or Draft list, but the Rush did.
Today I’m not going to rank the rosters themselves, just the announcements of the rosters. Every team announced their rosters on Monday, but most of them just threw a list out there while others went a little further and made it fun. Other than Calgary’s video game thing, the announcements were pretty tame this year. Nobody eating hot wings or anything; in fact, only Calgary and Toronto had videos at all.
This week, the NLL announced their latest attempt at a streaming platform. It’s called NLL+ (similar to Paramount+ and Disney+) and it is a new free service that will provide lots of video content including game replays, highlights, and other video features like interviews and such. Live games will be also available in some areas though significantly, not in the US. Let’s have a look at this new service and what it might be used for. Is this really a big deal?
NLL Chatter 