NLL One-Hit Wonders

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This might be a strange article. One of my favourite podcasts, which is about music and completely unrelated to sports, recently did a series that was really interesting, and I thought that I might be able to apply similar logic to NLL players. I did that and got quite unexpected results.

The podcast in question is called The Ongoing History of New Music. Alan Cross has been doing this as a radio show for decades and I’ve been listening to the podcast version for many years. A recent series of episodes dealt with the biggest “one-hit wonders” in the history of alternative rock (remember The Icicle Works? Harvey Danger? Gotye?), and I wondered (pun intended) if I could find NLL players that qualified in a similar way. Maybe a player had 50 points in one season and no more than 15 in any other, or was a career 30–40 point guy and suddenly exploded for 90 one year.

I tried a couple of different approaches to solve this problem, and some of them gave questionable results. I’ll describe each approach, what players matched the criteria, and what was wrong with it.

Sorry goaltenders and defenders, this one is all about the points – with one exception. But what an exception it is.

Preface

Let me start by saying that a musical artist being known as a “one-hit wonder” is frequently viewed as a negative thing. Many people look at such an artist and think “you could only come up with one great song?” But I don’t think of it that way – that one-hit wonder has written one more great song that the vast majority of us. Consider the millions of professional musicians out there who do it for a living – most of them won’t write a song that hits the top 40 either. Having a song become that popular should be something to be celebrated. If you’re able to do it more than once, even better, but doing it once shouldn’t be a negative.

It’s the same with this list. Don’t look at players on this list as guys who had one great season but otherwise sucked, because it’s just not true. First off, the fact that they made the NLL at all immediately tells you that they are among the best players in the world. And secondly, many players move from offense to transition to defense or the other way around. As an example, Chris Driscoll played mostly defense and scored more than 30 points only once in his six seasons with the Rock. But he was a forward on the Saints and Bandits and had 69 and 81 points in the two seasons before joining the Rock. It certainly doesn’t mean he wasn’t as good with the Rock as he was before.

The simple approach

First, I looked for players who had played at least one game in at least three different seasons in the NLL. I found their best season in terms of points, then calculated the average number of points in their other seasons. I took the difference between their best and average seasons, then ranked all the players by the difference. I expected to find players I was unfamiliar with who had one great season, or players that had a bunch of decent seasons but one significantly better than the rest. I found a few of those, but some others that I certainly was not expecting.

The top five were:

  1. Ryan Lee
  2. Mitch Jones
  3. Paul Gait
  4. Mike Benedict
  5. Athan Iannucci

Athan IannucciBenedict fits – he played nine seasons, was under 20 points five times, hit the thirties twice, then 57 in 2001 and had a max of 82 with the Ottawa Rebel in 2002. Outside of that one season, he averaged 22.6.

Iannucci (pictured at right) fits as well; in fact, he might be the quintessential one-hit wonder. The man they called Nooch had 100 points in 2008 and no more than 61 points in any of his seven other seasons. It was even more evident in his goal totals, where he set a league record with 71 goals in 2008 (a number that’s only been beaten once since), and didn’t get half of that in any other season. He was a decent scorer for most of his career but his 100 points and 71 goals in 2008 led the league and he was named MVP. One hit.

But Mitch Jones? Ryan Lee? Paul freakin’ Gait? How could any of them possibly be viewed as a one-hit wonder? Well, it’s just math.

  • Mitch Jones had 126 points in 2023 when thanks to a trade, he actually played 19 games. But his average outside of that was 55.2, brought significantly down by his 2022 season – 26 points in only 4 games – and his first three seasons, where he had 4, 5, and 11 points in 3, 4, and 3 games respectively. Those first three and 2022 are far from typical Mitch Jones seasons, but they do bring the average way down.
  • Ryan Lee is here because he scored 119 points in 2022, then 95 in 2025, and no more than 60 in any other season. Other than 2022, his season average is 52.8 points, or 66.2 less than his best season. Similar to Jones, though, mitigating circumstances. In Lee’s last five seasons, he’s had points-per-game averages of between 4.6 and 6.6. In five eighteen-game seasons, he’d have had between 83 and 119 points in each of those seasons. Of course, he didn’t have that many points in those seasons, but Lee’s problem isn’t consistency, it’s staying healthy. One of those five seasons ended early because of COVID, one (2023) started late due to injury, one (2026) ended early because of injury, and he missed an entire season in there as well.
  • Paul Gait had an incredible career in the NLL, setting a record (at the time) for goals in a season with 47 in 1991 (as a rookie), and averaging 53.5 points per season for eleven years before exploding for 114 in 2002. His comeback in 2005 gave him nine more points in four games, bringing the overall average down a bit. Gait had nine seasons over 5 points per game, but he also had one season that was head-and-shoulders better than the others, so he kinda does qualify.

Other names I didn’t expect to see in the top 25 or so of this list:

  • Joe Resetarits – max of 121 points, average of 67.3. He’s had five seasons with under 50 points, but he’s also had four over 100 and one with 95. But his best season was about 10% than his second best, so does he qualify? It’s a stretch.
  • Shawn Evans – max of 130 points, average of 76.8. His entire career in Rochester was 60–70 points per season, then he had five straight 100+ point seasons in Calgary and New England. His 130 points in 2015 was 10% better than his second-best of 118, so similar to Resetarits, it’s a stretch.
  • Josh Byrne – Byrne’s max was 135 points in 2024, but he had 134 in 2025 and three other seasons over 90. His first three seasons though, were between 42 and 63 points. Those three bring his overall average down enough that he seems to qualify but his second-best season is the fourth-highest total of all time. “One-hit wonder” really doesn’t apply here.
  • Gary Gait – he did have one season of 112 points and no more than 96 in any other, but Gait is widely regarded as one of the best lacrosse players – indoors, outdoors, and anywhere else – who ever played the game. Someone who was MVP in five straight seasons could not possibly be considered a one-hit wonder.

Given the number of players who “mathematically” qualify but really shouldn’t, there must be a flaw in my logic. The obvious problem is number of games played per season. Mitch Jones had three separate seasons with only 3 or 4 games, which drops his average significantly. Sure, Paul Gait scored no more than 66 points in his first eight seasons, but he only played 8–10 games in each. His 114 point season came in 16 games, but it wasn’t the highest points-per-game season of his career.

Using points per game

We can handle the difference in season length by looking at the average number of points per game in their best season and other seasons. That gives an entirely different list, which is much closer to what I was originally looking for:

  1. Lindsay Dixon – 9.3 in 1993, 2.2 otherwise. I’m honestly not sure if this is real or not. According to the stats I have, Lindsay Dixon scored 17 goals and added eleven assists (and 30 loose balls) in three games in 1993. That gives him 9.3 points per game – in his rookie season. The next year he averaged three points per game, and in his last two seasons he averaged 1.67 and 1.75. Maybe it’s just an error and he played 8 games rather than 3 that first year. The 9.3 points per game seems… suspect.*
  2. Marc Landriault – 6.0 in 2002, 0.9 otherwise. Landriault scored twice and had four assists in his only game of 2002, which of course gives him an average of six points per game. In his other two seasons, he had a total of 14 points in 15 games.
  3. Nick Trudeau – 5.2 in 2003, 1.9 otherwise. Possibly another victim of wonky stats. He had 6 points in 8 games with the Bandits in 1998, then took two years off, then had zero points in 14 games with the Landsharks in 2001. Then he played two full seasons with the Albany Attack where he had 67 and 78 points, missed another season, and then had 7 points in 4 games with the Rock. Could be he was pure D with the Landsharks and pure O with the Attack.
  4. Russ Heard – 6.1 in 1998, 2.8 otherwise. He had 55 points in 1998 and 51 in 1999, but 18 and 13 in his other two seasons.
  5. Joe Hiltz – 6.7 in 1999, 3.7 otherwise. Owen’s Uncle Joe had 8 points in 5 games with the Turbos in 1993, then took five seasons off, then returned with 80 for the Thunder. He played three more seasons but only hit 50 in one of them.

Other interesting names include:

  • Derek Keenan, 6.1 in 1992, 3.2 otherwise
  • Teddy Jenner, 3.3 in 2002, 0.8 otherwise
  • Mark Steenhuis, 6.3 in 2009, 3.6 otherwise
  • John Tavares, 8.2 in 2001, 5.6 otherwise. <sarcasm>Yes, just like Gary Gait, it’s widely known that JT had just one really good season.</sarcasm>

So it’s not perfect.

* If these numbers are indeed correct, they provide one of my favourite @NLLFactOfTheDay entries ever. In 1993, Dixon led the Pittsburgh Bulls in scoring in his three games. Since he had only ever played three games, he was still considered a rookie in 1994, where he led the Baltimore Thunder in scoring. He led his team in scoring as a rookie – twice. Nobody has two excellent seasons as a rookie.

One more try

We’re still seeing players who had multiple great seasons but one just a little more great than the others. Can we clean that up a bit? Let try making sure that each player’s best season was at least 20% better than all their other seasons. This still puts Lee, Paul Gait, Benedict, and Iannucci at the top of the list, but also includes guys like:

  • Ryan Martel – 73 points in 2024, no more than 36 in any other
  • Corey Small – 111 points in 2017 and nine seasons between 63 and 84 points
  • Josh Dawick – 75 points in 2025, a high of 57 otherwise
  • Tanner Cook – 101 points in 2026, blowing away his previous high of 70
  • Ryan Painter – 66 points (and 45 goals!) in 16 games in 2002, 24 points (11 goals) in 14 games after that

Martel, Dawick, and Cook are all 28 or younger, so they could have many more seasons to “correct” this one-hit wonder label.

Corey Small

Corey Small

The results

Using the names we’ve found using various methods above, I’ve combined them in an entirely subjective manner. Here’s my top ten list of NLL one-hit wonders:

  1. Athan Iannucci
  2. Lindsay Dixon
  3. Mike Benedict
  4. Tanner Cook
  5. Corey Small
  6. Nick Trudeau
  7. Joe Hiltz
  8. Marc Landriault
  9. Russ Heard
  10. Ryan Martel

With the caveat that Cook and Martel will likely get booted from this list after next season.

The Exception

Earlier I mentioned an exception to the “only points” criteria. The exception is Daniel Sams, who is just about the perfect example of what we’re talking about here, maybe even more so than Athan Iannucci. Sams was a Buffalo Bandits goaltender who is credited with seven games in his NLL career, but he was a backup for most of them. He only saw floor time in two games. The first was a Bandits loss to Rochester in April 2007. Buffalo was down 12–4 after three quarters and Sams came in for the fourth. He only allowed two goals on nine shots.

His only other game was February 2008, where he got the start against the Chicago Shamrox. Sams played all 60 minutes, faced 68 shots and stopped 60 of them. The 68 shots faced is tied for 18th all-time and the 60 saves is tied for 6th all-time. The 60 saves was a Bandits record at the time, which has since been tied and then passed by Matt Vinc.

Sams never appeared in another NLL game, even as a backup. His NLL career ended with a GAA of 8.00 and a save percentage of 87.0%.

Daniel Sams only played in two games in his NLL career but one of them was outstanding by any measure and cements his legacy as the greatest one-hit wonder in NLL history.

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