After the first several weeks of the 2023-24 National Lacrosse League season are complete, The Lax Mag will publish a weekly NLL Player Ranking, examining the league’s Top 30 players from Week 1 right up until the end of the regular season.

TLM’s Top 30 NLL Player Rankings have nothing to do with reputations, career resumes, success in past seasons, whether we know a player personally, recognizing deserving players who’ve previously been passed over, player popularity, the size of their social media following, whether you slide into their DMs, or who others around the league tell us should get hype.

Our rankings, which only take into consideration a player’s performance for the current regular season, will be calculated using both our star-rating system after each game, but also a player’s season-long statistical position (based on per-game average, not full-season totals) across the league. Only players who have played two-thirds of their team’s games will qualify.

Click here for an even more in-depth description of our scoring system.

Nick Rose, Toronto Rock (Photo: Ryan McCullough)

During the almost completed regular season, we delved into several significant MVP-related areas to determine which players should receive serious award consideration this year.

With the playoffs quickly approaching, this week we revisit the various most-valuable criteria to confirm who maintained their MVP-level production, plus which newbie names entered the chat.

The Dietrich, Del Bianco and Rose Edition

Read: 2024 NLL Player Rankings (Feb. 16)

We looked back at the only two MVP seasons tendies have had in this league to see if anyone between the pipes might be an MVP-maybe this year. Well, Nick Rose was the only one that came close, and actually even exceeded expectations in comparison to Steve Dietrich (2006 MVP) and Christian Del Bianco (2023 MVP) in some areas.

When Dietrich was named MVP, he led all goalies in the following stats for a stopper: save percentage, goals against average, goals saved above average and wins. He also led the Buffalo Bandits to the best (well, tied for the best) regular season record that year. Del Bianco finished first for save % and GSAA, and second in GAA and wins.

How’s Rose doing?

With two games to go for Rose’s Toronto Rock, he leads the NLL in all those previously mentioned stopper stats, with the Rock sitting first in the standings too.

If Dietrich and Del Bianco were MVP worthy, then without question, Rose should be in the running this year.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Michael Hetzel)

30-60-90 Club Edition

Read: 2024 NLL Player Rankings (Feb. 23)

Outside of achieving a 30/60/90 stat line (30G/60A/90LB) being incredibly impressive, many past 30/60/90 players have also been voted MVPs during those seasons.

What’s happened since we looked at 30/60/90 contenders back in late February?

Jeff Teat (has now had three 30/60/90 seasons in his first three years), Dhane Smith (has hit his record-setting fifth 30/60/90 season) and Mitch Jones (has now gone 30/60/90 in his second consecutive season) all got there last weekend, while Will Malcom, Connor Fields, Wes Berg and Clarke Petterson should all do the same in their next game. A few others would need a massive game or two to catch up and crack the club this year.

Will one of the above names be named MVP?

As we mentioned last week, Teat, Smith, Fields and Berg have ranked within our Top 6 for the last several weeks, and should all get serious MVP consideration in a few weeks.

Relying on too few for too much

Read: 2024 NLL Player Rankings (Mar. 1)

For those that feel an MVP is not necessarily the best player in the league but rather who is most valuable to their team, then reliance should be a huge determining factor for them, right?

While we did a deep dive into that data back in March, today let’s just take a quick recap of the scorers that are involved the most in their team’s offensive production.

First, here are the players that have scored the highest percentage of their team’s regular season goals going into Week 20:

1. Jeff Teat (New York) 27%
2. Austin Staats (San Diego) 25%
T3. Casey Jackson (Las Vegas) 24%
T3. Connor Fields (Rochester) 24%
T3. Eli McLaughlin (Colorado) 24%
T3. Keegan Bal (Vancouver) 24%
T7. Ryan Smith (Rochester) 23%
T7. Josh Byrne (Buffalo) 23%
9. Robert Church (Saskatchewan) 22%
10. Lyle Thompson (Georgia) 21%

Jeff Teat, New York Riptide (Photo: Jonathan Tenca)

Plus, and maybe more telling of a forward’s overall on-floor impact, these are the players have been involved (so, have registered either the actual goal or assisted on the goal) in the highest percentage of their team’s regular season goals after five full months:

1. Jeff Teat (New York) 63%
2. Josh Byrne (Buffalo) 57%
3. Mitch Jones (Philadelphia) 56%
T4. Connor Fields (Rochester) 55%
T4. Dhane Smith (Buffalo) 55%
T6. Jesse King (Calgary) 52%
T6. Wes Beg (San Diego) 52%
T8. Keegan Bal (Vancouver) 50%
T8. Will Malcom (Panther City) 50%
T10. Austin Staats (San Diego) 49%
T10. Eli McLaughlin (Colorado) 49%
T10. Robert Church (Saskatchewan) 49%

Whether they make the playoffs or not (we’ll get into that later), subtract Teat from New York’s roster, and where would that offense be? They’d be fantastically F'ed, that’s where.

Single-season records watch

Read: 2024 NLL Player Rankings (Mar. 8)

We looked at most major single-season statistical records a little over a month ago. As the NLL record books have shown, when offensive records are busted, that player is usually voted MVP (even if they don’t make the playoffs). Here’s where things stand…

Goals

A month ago, no one was on pace to match Dhane Smith’s 72 from 2016, and five weeks later, nothing’s changed. Teat is averaging the most goals per game right now (3.19), and on pace to score 57, which would tie Gary Gait’s 57 (1998) for fifth all time.

Assists

Smith is on pace to match his 96 helpers from just a season ago. No one else comes close.

Josh Byrne, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Christian Bender)

Points

When we checked in a month ago, Connor Fields was most likely to challenge for most points in a single season. Today, Josh Byrne has taken over and could come close. His league leading 7.44 points per game would get him within reach of Smith’s 137 in 2016, but a few shy (projected: 134 points). The Bandits close with Calgary this weekend and Las Vegas the next. In addition to scoring in quantity, Byrne is also scoring loads of quality points too, topping our Clutch Kings countdown last month.

Loose Balls

Jake Withers has already set a new single-season record here, recently out-scooping Jay Thorimbert’s 246 loosies from 2015. Sitting at 268 with a game to go, Withers is on pace to get to 284 grounders. Of note, only once in NLL history has the player that led the league in LB also won the MVP Award: Jim Veltman in 2004.

Face-off Wins

The record for FOWs comes courtesy of Trevor Baptiste who registered 362 during his rookie season in 2019. Withers finished with 360 wins last year. At 340 now, Withers would obviously need 23 FOWs in his last game of the regular season against the Colorado Mammoth to beat Baptiste. Doable? Maybe. This season alone, Withers has won more than 23 draws in a single game seven times. He’ll likely be up against Tim Edwards on April 20 in a rare match against the Mammoth. The last time these two teams played (Jan. 11, 2020), Withers went 17/25 against mostly Edwards (8/20). Withers also bettered Edwards in 2019 (17/22 vs. 5/17) and 2018 (25/32 vs. 9/31).

Jake Withers, Halifax Thunderbirds (Photo: Trevor MacMillan)

Saves

Philadelphia’s Zach Higgins is on pace to beat Anthony Cosmo’s saves record (752 in 2014) by just a single stop based on his 41.81 saves-per-game pace. Del Bianco is actually on pace to tie Cosmo too. Of note, Cosmo was nominated for Goalie of the Year that season, but failed to garner the GOTY Award, and was seemingly never in the MVP conversation.

No other records we reviewed look likely to be beat this year.

The unwritten rules regarding winning and MVPs

Read: 2024 NLL Players Rankings (Mar. 28)

This Player Rankings post was largely focussed on whether an MVP contender needs to play for a team that qualifies for the playoffs or not. While our social media polls regularly say it shouldn’t matter, many NLL media members feel the opposite.

If playing in the postseason (for a regular season award) is a requirement, that would subtract Philadelphia’s Mitch Jones from many voters’ completed ballots, with the Wings already eliminated from the second season. No one from the already-out Las Vegas Desert Dogs would get any MVP love either. With two weeks left, everyone else is still alive, although you can probably cross Colorado off the list already.

NLL history also told us…

If team wins & regular-season success are so important when it comes to selecting an MVP, doesn’t that also imply the league’s most valuable player plays for the league’s best (aka most winning) team? Kinda does, no?
Since the NLL started naming an MVP in 1994, there have been 29 honours awarded to a total of 19 different players. How many times did those MVPs also lead their team to a first-place finish? Only ten times, and almost half of them have happened in more recent seasons – since 2016, four of seven MVPs played for the first-place team.
With playoffs meaning so much to many regular season MVP voters, how often did an MVP go on to lead his team to that season’s NLL Cup? Not many. Only seven in fact.

Below, check out this week’s updated NLL Player Rankings…

NLL Player Rankings: Week 20

TW. (LW) Player, Team (Position)

1. (1) Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
2. (2) Jeff Teat, New York (F)
3. (3) Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
4. (4) Nick Rose, Toronto (G)
5. (5) Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
6. (6) Wes Berg, San Diego (F)
7. (7) Mitch Jones, Philadelphia (F)
8. (8) Austin Staats, San Diego (F)
9. (10) Mitch de Snoo, Toronto (D)
10. (11) Jesse King, Calgary (F)
11. (9) Ryan Smith, Rochester (F)
12. (12) Callum Crawford, Panther City (F)
13. (13) Will Malcom, Panther City (F)
14. (17) Robert Church, Saskatchewan (F)
15. (15) Doug Jamieson, Albany (G)
16. (16) Christian Del Bianco, Calgary (G)
17. (18) Clarke Petterson, Halifax (F)
18. (14) Alex Simmons, Albany (F)
19. (19) Jake Withers, Halifax (D)
20. (20) Chris Origlieri, San Diego (G)
21. (22) Lyle Thompson, Georgia (F)
22. (23) Mark Matthews, Toronto (F)
23. (26) Andrew Kew, Georgia (F)
24. (28) Keegan Bal, Vancouver (F)
25. (21) Matt Gilray, Rochester (T)
26. (24) Brad Kri, Toronto (D)
27. (25) Graeme Hossack, Halifax (D)
28. (27) Tom Schreiber, Toronto (F)
29. (30) Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia (F)
30. (NR) Mike Messenger, Saskatchewan (D)