Another busy weekend in the NLL with seven games. Blowouts were the name of the game this weekend, as four of the seven games featured a team that led by at least nine goals and three of them led by eleven. To balance things out, we had a one-goal game and a two-goal game, but most of the games were decided well before the fourth quarter even started.
I have more Not Awesomes than Awesomes this week, which is unusual, but even the Not Awesomes aren’t really that bad.
Trade deadline day in the NLL was pretty uneventful and boring… until it wasn’t. And then it really really wasn’t. First, former MVP and Goaltender of the Year Christian Del Bianco was sent to the Vancouver Warriors for defender Brayden Laity and some pretty high draft picks. Del Bianco had been holding out this entire season, asking for a trade closer to his home in Vancouver, and since Calgary is the closest team to Vancouver that isn’t Vancouver, there was really nowhere else for him to go.
There were a few other deals made that day as well which I’ll touch on too.
We saw a few significant trades this past week, notably two huge ones involving the Toronto Rock as well as another significant one involving the Wings and Desert Dogs. Then on Saturday, the Seals and FireWolves made a deal. The Toronto trades look like they’ve given up on the season and have begun the rebuild, but it may not be as bad as that. The Wings have massively improved their defense, the Seals and Rock get picks for the future, and the Desert Dogs and FireWolves both get some more firepower up front.
It was Week of the Rookies in the NLL. One of the most anticipated rookies this year made his debut on the weekend, another highly anticipated rookie (and a teammate of the first one) scored one of the best goals of the year, and yet another rookie had his second strong offensive outing in a row. I guess some non-rookies did good things too.
What a wild weekend! We had lacrosse being discussed on the most popular podcast in the world, every team played a game and a couple played two, a sellout in the desert, close games, comebacks, a blowout that turned into less of a blowout, the last winless team winning, and the second NLL broadcast in a language other than English.
An incredible week of games starting with one of the best rivalries in the game, despite the results in recent years (Buffalo has won 11 of the past 12 matchups with the Rock since 2022). As I mention below, every game was a comeback to some extent but some were significant comebacks. Halifax/Rochester was as close as a game can be, to the point where we still don’t really know who won it.
A light but impactful week in the NLL. There were only three games but one of them got rid of one of the two remaining winless teams (Las Vegas, only Toronto remans), another got rid of one of the two remaining undefeated teams (Georgia, only Buffalo remains), and the third set or tied a handful of NLL records.
We’re back! The NLL is back, NLLStats.com is back, NLL podcasts are back (though some like Lax Class never left), and of course NLL Chatter is back. Every week I cover things that were awesome from the previous week and things that were… less awesome. Let’s jump right in.
Here’s part II of my pre-season preview; part I was here. For each team (alphabetically from Ottawa through Vancouver), I’ll share where I think they will end up, and who might have a breakout year.
For where teams will end up, I’m not going to make specific predictions here. I’ll break things up into groups: Top 4, Middle 4 (i.e. #5-8), and Miss Playoffs (#9-14).
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 2025 season and was not on the active roster during the team’s last game of the season in 2024. “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 since (or during) 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 the Rush did.
NLL Chatter 