This is Part III of my III-part season in review wrap-up. Part I included awesomes and not awesomes for each team from Buffalo through Oshawa, and Part II included each team from Ottawa through Vancouver. This one is about the league in general. There are more Not Awesome entries here than Awesome but don’t take that to mean that 2026 was anything other than a fantastic season for the NLL.
Category Archives: Oshawa FireWolves
2026 NLL Season in review: Part I
I am trying something new here. Every week during the season, I list all the awesome and not-so-awesome things that happened that week, whether it’s a game, a team, a player, a specific play, a trade, or anything else relating to the NLL. This year, as a season-end wrap-up, I’m going to find at least one thing that was awesome and at least one thing that was not awesome about each team. That will get long, so I’ll break it into two alphabetically. Part I will include Buffalo through Oshawa, and Part II will include Ottawa through Vancouver.
But wait, there’s more! There were a bunch of awesome things and not awesome things about the league in general, so that will be in Part III. So we invite you, wherever you are, whether you’re at home or whatever, to kick your shoes off and put your feet up, and lean back and get yourself a cup of coffee or something, and just relax and join us in this 2026 NLL season in review.*
NLL Experience of GMs & Coaches
During the semi-finals, I noticed that all of the people listed on San Diego’s “Coaching staff” web page were very high NLL draft picks. I posted that to X and someone suggested that I do that for all the teams. I decided to add some additional information – when they played in the NLL if at all, whether they are in the Hall of Fame, and what awards they had won.
Continue reading2026 NLL Week 21
The 2026 NLL regular season has come to an end. The standings are final and the playoff bracket is set. You’ve probably seen the matchups in other places but just in case, next weekend we’ll have Vancouver hosting Halifax at 10:00 (all times Eastern) on Friday night, and three games on Saturday: Georgia hosting Buffalo at 7:30 and Colorado hosting San Diego and Saskatchewan hosting Toronto, both at 9:00.
2026 saw a couple of records set in terms of “best season of all time”, both by Brett Dobson. His save percentage of 84.7% beat Doug Jamieson’s 82.9% in 2020. His GAA of 7.86 is almost a full point better than second place Aaron Bold’s 8.73 in 2014. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just witnessed the best season by a goaltender, statistically, in NLL history.
2026 NLL Week 19
The playoff picture is almost set, as we now know six of the eight teams that will play in the post-season. Once Halifax beat Rochester, Georgia clinched the fourth spot and the door was open for Toronto and Buffalo to clinch with wins. They both did, and so now we have Ottawa, Las Vegas, Halifax, Rochester, and San Diego playing musical chairs for the last two spots.
2026 NLL Week 18
A couple more playoff decisions have been made, as Calgary and Oshawa are now out. Nobody else clinched so right now, we’re at three in and three out. We have a 10–5 team (Georgia) and a 6–9 team (Halifax) and with only three weeks left in the season, it’s still possible for Halifax to finish ahead of Georgia*.
After I scheduled this article but before it got published, we got the worst kind of news about the future of the Philadelphia Wings. Unfortunately, long-time NLL fans are used to it. I’ve added a second entry under Not Awesome.
2026 NLL Week 16
The 2026 trade deadline was this past Monday and once the trades started being announced, it seemed like they just wouldn’t stop. No real blockbusters, but there were a couple of significant deals and a number of smaller trades as well. Las Vegas made a number of moves to improve their team while Philadelphia were clearly sellers.
Then there were the seven games on the weekend. We began with an OT thriller on Friday night and ended with two games decided by seven goals.
2026 NLL Week 15
Week 15 wasn’t nearly as busy as week 14, but there were some important results this past weekend. The Rock and Thunderbirds had their offenses working while Colorado and Rochester didn’t, and the FireWolves held off a late surge by the Wings. Next week features a few matchups between teams near each other in the standings: Toronto at Halifax, Philly at Oshawa, Vancouver at Georgia, and Rochester at Las Vegas. Colorado and Buffalo aren’t really near each other in the standings but the way Buffalo has been playing lately, they might be before long. Only San Diego at Saskatchewan and Ottawa at Calgary feature two teams not really near each other in the standings, but would it really shock anyone if the underdogs take those games?
2026 NLL Week 14
There were ten games this past weekend, which ties for second place among the busiest weekends in NLL history – the last weekend of the 2007 season featured eleven games. Every team played, a bunch of teams played twice, and yet the standings didn’t change an awful lot. The Black Bears, Bandits, and Wings jumped, while the Rock, Seals, Desert Dogs, and Knighthawks dropped but even so, the jumps or drops weren’t huge.
2026 NLL Week 12
We are officially at the halfway point of the season, as every team has now played at least nine games. The Rush are now tied for the fourth-longest single-season winning streak at eight games, the Mammoth are right behind them with a seven-game streak, and the Swarm have won five in a row. At the other end of the spectrum are the Knighthawks and Thunderbirds, who have each lost four straight, and the FireWolves with a five-game losing streak.
Lots of Awesomes and only a couple of Not Awesomes this week, so let’s get to it.
NLL Chatter 