It’s been a busy off-season so far, and there’s lots more to come. Because we don’t have a CBA for next season, teams aren’t allowed to sign free agents yet though they’re allowed to talk to them. I’m sure many handshake agreements have been made and once we have a new CBA and free agency opens up, all of these deals will be announced. Then we’ll see how much the NLL landscape has really changed.

Until then though, let’s take a look at some of the significant moves made so far.

Trades

• Calgary sends Ethan Ticehurst to Vancouver for Aden Walsh, completing the “future considerations” part of the Christian Del Bianco trade. This means that either (a) the Roughnecks will have an excellent one-two punch in net with Rose and Walsh or (b) Rose is returning to the Rock as a free agent and Walsh will be Calgary’s starter. I’d bet on (b) myself.

• Colorado sends Zed Williams and their second round draft pick (#24) in 2025 to Rochester for the 10th overall pick and their second round pick (#28) in 2025. Williams is a monster in the outdoor game but has only reached 70 points in the NLL once. But he’s big and solid and strong so just having him open up space for guys like Fields and Lanchbury will undoubtedly help the Knighthawks.

• Toronto sends Brian Cameron and a 2027 fourth round pick to Colorado for a 2027 second. Cameron had a solid rookie year for the Rock and will help to fill the void left by trading Zed Williams.

• Ottawa sends Taggart Clark and a conditional third in 2026 to Albany Oshawa for Tanner Thomson, Nicholas Volkov, and Sam Firth. Clark gets to play for his dad (Oshawa GM Glenn Clark) and while he’s a solid player, giving up three players seems a bit steep. And if Tanner Thomson is able to play and return to form (51 points for Albany in 2023, but hasn’t played in the NLL since), the Black Bears clearly win this one.

• Ottawa sends John LaFontaine to Las Vegas for a 2028 4th. LaFontaine is a veteran defender with a couple of rings, which is never a bad thing to add to your team, and getting him for just a 4th round pick is good for Vegas.

Front-office

Ottawa has announced former captain Dan MacRae as the new GM and head coach. Someone said on twitter a couple of months ago that Rich Lisk had been let go as GM but there was no announcement, and I had seen no mention of Dan Ladouceur being fired.

Retirements

Callum Crawford

Callum Crawford played for twelve different NLL teams in his 19-year career, tying Mat Giles for the NLL record. He started his career as a very good offensive player, hitting 70 points in five straight seasons and reaching 90 points twice. But then he took things to another level, hitting 115 points in 2016 with the Mammoth, 98 in 2018, and 109 in 2019 with the Black Wolves. He was an incredibly dynamic player, frequently finding crazy new ways to score. The horizontal crease dive is ubiquitous throughout the NLL, but Crawford’s version, which we’re starting to see other players (notably Josh Byrne) adopt as well, was to jump up into the crease and shoot down from there. Considering Crawford is 6’3", that meant the ball was coming almost straight down from about eight feet in the air, which goalies are definitely not used to.

Callum Crawford

Crawford played for Calgary, San Jose, Chicago, Edmonton, Minnesota, Colorado, Buffalo, New England, New York, Panther City, Philadelphia, and Albany. He only played one game with the Wings and one game with the FireWolves. He is also a member of the list of great players who never won an NLL Championship, which also includes Ryan Benesch, Brodie Merrill, Geoff Snider, and Casey Powell.

Dane Dobbie

In August, Calgary announced that Dobbie had been hired as a Lacrosse Operations Advisor, but there was no mention of whether this meant he was retiring from playing. It was later announced that yes, Dobbie was retiring but they kind of buried the lede there. The retirement of a former MVP and top-ten scorer in league history should have been much bigger news than it was.

Dane Dobbie

Dobbie was the master of the “bench transition” goal, where a defender would run to the bench just as the shot clock was winding down, the Roughnecks goalie would make a save, and then Dobbie would fly off the bench and receive the outlet pass, giving him a brief breakaway. But a brief breakaway was all Dobbie needed. Both Christian Del Bianco and Nick Rose are deadly accurate on these outlet passes so they were successful an awful lot. But of course, Dobbie could score in many more ways than that.

Fun fact: Both Crawford and Dobbie played for the Roughnecks, but not together. Crawford played his rookie season in Calgary in 2006, while Dobbie played there from 2008–2020 and again in 2025.

Team movement

Rochester

In June, it was announced that the Knighthawks ownership was, basically, giving up on the team. The ownership group (the Pegulas, who also own the Bandits) said that the team hadn’t been sold but “we won’t operate the team next season”. Here’s an actual quote from the statement: “We know the NLL will work tirelessly to pursue the best path forward for the franchise.” The missing bit: “…but we won’t.”

About a month and a half later, it was announced that the Seneca Nation had acquired the team. This gives the league more Indigenous ownership, which is great, and also keeps the Knighthawks in Rochester, which is also great. Before the second announcement, I have to admit I was assuming the worst – that the team would either (a) move or (b) fold, and we’d have another dispersal draft. When the announcement came, I was very pleased that more team movement wasn’t something we’d have to deal with. For a week or two, anyway.

Aside: While vacationing in Nova Scotia in July, we visited the Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre in Truro, which details the history of the Mi’kmaq people in the area. I noticed that there were no lacrosse sticks or pictures or even any mention of it in the centre so I asked the manager, who was Mi’kmaw* herself, about it. She initially said “lacrosse?” as if she was unfamiliar with the game. She said no, the Mi’kmaq people never really played lacrosse. I was surprised by that answer as I thought that indigenous nations throughout North America (other than the Inuit) played lacrosse to some extent.

* – “Mi’kmaq” is the collective term, “Mi’kmaw” is the term used for an individual. Both are pronounced “MICK-maw”.

Albany

In August, Stephen Stamp reported that the Albany FireWolves may be moving to Oshawa, and this was confirmed a day or two later. This means that the NLL now has two teams within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In fact, the arena where Oshawa will play is closer to downtown Toronto than the arena where the Toronto Rock play. This move has huge advantages for all of the players based in southern Ontario, particularly Dyson Williams, who grew up in Oshawa. Head Coach and GM Glenn Clark is from nearby Pickering (which is also where I grew up), but Clark moved to Albany a couple of years ago.

But Oshawa and Toronto are still not the closest pair of teams in the NLL. Their two arenas are 126 km (78.3 miles) apart, while the TD Coliseum in Hamilton is only 106 km (65.8 miles) from KeyBank Center in Buffalo, and KeyBank and Blue Cross Arena in Rochester are separated by only 121 km (75.6 miles).

On September 1, 2024, the FireWolves signed a six-year agreement with MVP Arena. In the press release, they said things like “Albany is our den” and “This six-year agreement solidifies the FireWolves’ commitment to Albany”. Just over a year later, they’re gone. That said, they did have the lowest attendance in the league in 2025, averaging only 5013 per game, and that kind of low attendance (and therefore low revenue) can’t continue indefinitely. There weren’t all that many fans but it’s still a gut-punch for those that did show up.