After a busy week, all teams have played at least one game now. Halifax is 2–0, Rochester and Philly 1–0, Oshawa 1–2, Calgary 0–2, and Las Vegas 0–1. Everyone else – eight different teams – is 1–1, and four of those also have zero goal differentials. Things will almost certainly open up a bit more as the season progresses, but just as early season stats are fun, early season standings can be fun as well.
Category Archives: Colorado Mammoth
2026 NLL Week 1
The NLL is back! The 2026 season began last Friday with the first-ever game in Oshawa, followed by three games on Saturday in Buffalo, Ottawa, and Vancouver. Buffalo won their game, which surprised pretty much nobody, Colorado beat the heavily favoured Vancouver Warriors in an upset, and the other two games were kind of in the middle in terms of surprising results.
2026 NLL Preview: Part I
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 Buffalo through Oshawa in this article, and then Ottawa through Vancouver in Part II.
As I did last year, I’m not going to make specific standings predictions. I’ll break things up into groups: Top 4, Middle 4 (i.e. #5-8), and Miss Playoffs (#9-14).
NLL 2026: Who’s in, who’s out
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 2026 season and was not on the active roster during the team’s last game of the season in 2025. “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 at the time of 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 a few did.
2025 Offseason report, Part II
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.
2025 Offseason report, Part I
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.
Future Hall of Famers, Part I
The National Lacrosse League Hall of Fame is a very important place. It contains players, coaches, GMs, journalists, and officials that have had a significant effect on the league during their careers. However, it’s also not a place at all, in the sense that there is no specific location associated with it. You can’t go and visit the NLL Hall of Fame like you can the Ontario Lacrosse Hall of Fame (in St. Catharine’s, Ontario), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (in New Westminster, BC), or the National [American] Lacrosse Hall of Fame in Sparks, MD.
It also seems to have fallen off the radar of the league itself, since only one group of people has been inducted into the Hall in the last ten years.
2025 NLL Week 20
Another exciting weekend in the NLL, and we’re a little closer to knowing the final playoff positions. We now know that Buffalo has clinched first overall, Saskatchewan is second, third and fourth will go to two of Halifax, Rochester, Vancouver, and Calgary (though Calgary can’t finish third and hasn’t actually clinched a playoff spot), and only Toronto and Las Vegas have been eliminated.
Is 2025 the year of the backup goaltender?
Every year, we see some great performances by backup goaltenders, forced to come into a game early or to make a start because the regular starter is unavailable. I have no stats on this at all (I know, that’s not like me) but it seems to me that there have been a lot of such performances this season.
2025 NLL Week 18
We’re a little closer to knowing the playoff picture but incredibly, the only thing that was decided this past weekend was that the Rush have clinched a home playoff game. Buffalo and Saskatchewan are now tied for first, with Buffalo holding the tiebreaker, but there are still six other teams (COL, GEO, HFX, ROC, SD, VAN) that could still finish first overall. Four more (ALB, CAL, OTT, TOR) could finish as high as third, and the Wings could finish as high as sixth. Alternatively, any of those teams except Buffalo and Saskatchewan could finish tenth or lower. For example, with only three weeks left in the regular season, the Rock could finish 3rd or 14th.
Just like last year, the playoff race could come down to the very last weekend, or even the very last game, of the season. Once again, unified standings FTW.
NLL Chatter 