2024 NLL Player Rankings: Week 8

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.

Nick Rose, Toronto Rock (Photo: Ryan McCullough)

Every Game: Star-Rating System

At the conclusion of every weekend, TLM will rank the top six players for each team from that weekend’s game or games (double headers). Players will be selected and ranked in order of the impact they had in that specific game(s). A player ranked first will receive six points, a player selected in the second spot will be awarded five, three gets four, four three, five two, and sixth gets a single.

This half of our ranking calculation will put an emphasis on individual game performances from Game 1 to Game 18 during the regular season - every performance is equally important no matter when it occurs.

Full Season: Statistical System

For players that have played in two-thirds of their team’s games, we will take into consideration where they rank in a variety of per-game stats, including The Lax Mag’s Clutch Kings (a weighted goal-scoring system that grades game-tying, go-ahead and game-winning goals, including when in a game they’re scored and whether they’re even-strength, power-play or short-handed goals).

Jesse King & Christian Del Bianco, Calgary Roughnecks (Photo: Jake Whiting)

The following per-game stats will be used for players: goals, assists - ultimately points) - loose balls, turnovers, caused turnovers, blocked shots, shots blocked, face-off wins, special-teams scoring, shooting accuracy (attempts & on goal), and those previously mentioned Clutch Kings points. Plus, for goalies: minutes played, goals against (GAA), saves (save %), saves per minute (a stat we’ve tracked over the past two previous seasons), assists and even goals. Wins are more of a team stat (some would argue GAA is a defensive unit + goalie stat, but we’re still including for this season’s stoppers), so we won’t be using that.

The star-rating will act as a Most Valuable Player approach (since a player’s impact within each game will be graded against his own teammates’ performance in that same game), while the season-long stats comparison will be more of a Most Outstanding Player approach (since he’ll be compared against both his teammates and rest of the league). Our dual-approach analysis picked the following players as 2023’s end-of-season award winners:

MVP: Dhane Smith
Goalie of the Year: Christian Del Bianco
Defensive Player of the Year: Graeme Hossack
Transition Player of the Year: Zach Currier
Rookie of the Year: Jonathan Donville

Connor Fields, Rochester Knighthawks (Photo: Micheline V)

While we focused on explaining our rating & ranking system today, in future weeks, we’ll provide in-depth details & analysis on what players did the previous weekend and why their per-game stats are so special & significant.

Buffalo’s Dhane Smith has finished the last two regulars seasons as our #1 ranked player, in addition to our pick for MVP in both 2022 and, as mentioned above, 2023 too. Who will it be this year? While Smith ranks reasonably high below, Rochester’s Connor Fields leads our list leading into Week 8. Last year, Fields twice topped our weekly Top 30, never appearing lower than fourth overall, the spot he finished in behind Smith, Christian Del Bianco and Jeff Teat.

NLL Top 30: Week 8

1. Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
2. Nick Rose, Toronto (G)
3. Jesse King, Calgary (F)
4. Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
5. Ryan Smith, Rochester (F)
6. Mitch Jones, Philadelphia (F)
7. Wes Berg, San Diego (F)
8. Alex Simmons, Albany (F)
9. Mitch de Snoo, Toronto (D)
10. Jake Withers, Halifax (D)
11. Shayne Jackson, Georgia (F)
12. Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
13. Jeff Teat, New York (F)
14. Callum Crawford, Panther City (F)
15. Zach Manns, Saskatchewan (F)
16. Brett Dobson, Georgia (G)
17. Austin Staats, San Diego (F)
18. Matt Gilray, Rochester (T)
19. Ethan Walker, Albany (F)
20. Christian Del Bianco, Calgary (G)
21. Randy Staats, Halifax (F)
22. Doug Jamieson, Albany (G)
23. Matt Vinc, Buffalo (G)
24. Challen Rogers, Toronto (T)
25. Connor Kearnan, New York (F)
26. Robert Hope, Colorado (D)
27. Zach Higgins, Philadelphia (G)
28. Steve Priolo, Buffalo (D)
29. Reid Bowering, Vancouver (T)
30. Ryan Keenan, Saskatchewan (F)