My goodness, the second half of the off-season was crazy busy. We had the new CBA finally agreed upon and signed, and then an absolute frenzy of free agent signings. Many free agents returned to their previous team but an awful lot of them signed somewhere else. If only half of those signings result in a compensatory first round draft pick in 2026, the first round of that draft could have 25 picks in it.

Anyway, he’s a summary of what’s happened since I last rapped at ya back in September.

Trades

• Ottawa sends Cam Dunkerley, Dustyn Birkhof, Andrew Dalton, and a conditional second round pick for Rob Hellyer. Ottawa had said they wanted to improve the right side of their offense, and adding Hellyer will certainly do that.
• Vancouver sends Dylan McIntosh to Colorado for a 2026 2nd and a 2028 3rd. Two draft picks for a forward with 16 points in 10 career games seems high, but maybe Pat Coyle knows something about this kid that I don’t. In fact I’d guarantee it.
• Colorado sends Connor Kelly and a “protected first round pick” in 2026 to Georgia for Andrew Kew, a 2026 second and a conditional 2028 2nd. Kelly’s points per game was almost identical over each of the last three seasons (around 4.27), while Kew’s dropped from 6.62 in 2023 to 4.35 in 2025. But his lowest average in those three seasons was still higher than any of Kelly’s. But a change of scenery can do wonders for some players and having Lyle Thompson next to you will not hurt your numbers any.
• Colorado sends Connor Robinson to San Diego for a conditional first round pick in 2026. I thought the Mammoth were very high on CRob, so I didn’t see this one coming.

Rob Hellyer

Free agents

The free agents who have changed teams could almost make up an NLL team by themselves, even down to the two goalies. I have 19 listed here, and I may have missed some. I’ve skipped players who re-signed with the same team, since that would have more than doubled the list. These are roughly in the order the signings were announced.

• Curtis Dickson to Vancouver
• Eric Fannell to Philly
• Chase Fraser to Las Vegas
• Jesse King to Vancouver
• Kyle Rubisch to Oshawa
• Brendan Bomberry to Halifax
• Chris Cloutier to Las Vegas
• Tony Malcom to Las Vegas
• Shane Simpson to Vancouver
• Reese Callies to Vancouver
• Mitch Jones to Las Vegas
• Nick Rose to Toronto
• Laine Hruska to Ottawa
• Ryan Benesch to Buffalo
• Corey Small to San Diego
• Ethan O’Connor to Halifax
• Connor Sellars to Las Vegas
• Tyson Gibson to Las Vegas
• Jordan Stouros to Las Vegas

To summarize by team:

Buffalo: Benesch
Halifax: Bomberry, O’Connor
Las Vegas: Cloutier, Fraser, Gibson, Jones, Malcom, Sellars, Stouros
Oshawa: Rubisch
Ottawa: Hruska
Philadelphia: Fannell
San Diego: Small
Toronto: Rose
Vancouver: Callies, Dickson, King, Simpson

Vancouver added four more ex-Roughnecks (and really good ex-Roughnecks) to their squad that already includes a few, including goalie Christian Del Bianco and head coach Curt Malawsky. Las Vegas now has a top-notch offense, and they improved their defense as well. Both of their goalies had GAA over 13 last season, so I’m curious if they will make a splash there as well or stay the course, hoping their improved offense and defense will help them win more games.

Retirements

• Mike Poulin retired a couple of years ago, then un-retired to play for the Seals. He played very well in 2025, a total of about 85 minutes with a GAA of 7.02 and a save percentage of 82.8%. But he’ll turn 40 shortly after the season begins, and we all know that goalies aren’t as effective in their 40’s. We all know that, right? Seriously though, Poulin was well-respected throughout the NLL and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him as a goalie coach somewhere in the league before long.
• Cam Holding is the quintessential San Diego Seal, having played for the team since their first season in 2019, and working for the team off the floor as well. Any time there were special events in San Diego involving the Seals, Holding was there. You almost forget that he played six seasons with the Mammoth before the Seals existed.
• Damon Edwards played a year with the Boston Blazers, eight with the Rock, three with the Riptide, and one with the Mammoth. He was a solid defender and quick transition player, and in the last few years of his career was a strong leader as well. He was captain of the Riptide for at least one season and like Mike Poulin, was highly respected throughout the league.

Damon Edwards

CBA

The new CBA was agreed upon by the owners and NLLPA leaders, sent to the players on Friday October 17, voted on over the weekend, and announced on Monday October 20. This is the second or possibly third CBA negotiation where Rock owner/GM Jamie Dawick (one of the very few NLL execs or players that I’ve met IRL) publicly raised serious flags about whether a fair deal could be done, and stated that the league was in real jeopardy and that the vast majority of teams were losing millions of dollars every year. He stated several weeks before the deal was signed that he was a couple of days away from cancelling the Rock’s home dates at the TD Coliseum and going to Florida for the winter. Presumably, he never did.

It’s definitely possible that (a) he was right, (b) some excellent negotiations saved the day, and (c) those things happened in each of the previous two CBA negotiations as well. But it also makes one wonder if he overreacted and sounded the alarm prematurely. Or maybe he was sent (officially or not) by the owners to intentionally raise those flags to make everyone else panic and try to convince the players to take less money because otherwise the league would vanish entirely. I’m not one for conspiracy theories and I doubt it’s actually true but that second possibility is interesting to think about.