2025 NLL Player Rankings Week 8: Our Annual Explanation

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Jon Tenca)

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 averages) across the league (more on both breakdowns below). Only players who have played two-thirds of their team’s games or more will qualify.

Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia Wings (Photo: Heather Berry)

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).

Matt Vinc, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Jon Tenca)

The following per-game stats will be used for players: goals, assists (so ultimately points), loose balls, turnovers (and other ball retention data), caused turnovers, blocked shots, shots blocked, face-off wins, special-teams scoring, shooting accuracy, and those previously mentioned Clutch Kings points. Plus, for goalies: minutes played, goals against (GAA), goals saved above average (GSAA), saves (save %), saves per minute (a stat we track to better analyze goalies who see above-average shooting pressure), 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 2024’s end-of-season award winners:

MVP: Josh Byrne
Goalie of the Year: Nick Rose
Defensive Player of the Year: Mitch de Snoo
Transition Player of the Year: Jake Withers
Rookie of the Year: Alex Simmons

Mitch Jones, Philadelphia Wings

While we focused on explaining our rating & ranking system today, in future weeks, we’ll provide in-depth details and analysis on what players did the previous weekend and why their per-game stats are so special and significant. We’ll also likely look at some GOAT-inspired data and how this year’s top performers compare to the past, especially when it comes to awarding year-end accolades.

This week though, we’ll at least defend why our data positions Dhane Smith at #1 in our opening edition of the Top 30 - in case you needed convincing…

While Smith sits sixth in league points presently, he’s easily first when it comes to points/game (9.50, which is a staggering 3.50 more points/game than current league points leader Ryan Lanchbury), averaging 1.25 more than the next closest player, his Buffalo teammate Josh Byrne (8.25). The potent pair finished first (Byrne 135 points) and second (Smith 134 points) in league point production last year. Also, Smith is averaging almost a full assist more per game than anyone else in the league right now (7.25), which is not overly obvious on the NLL’s charts since the Bandits have played as many as three fewer games than others leading into Week 8 action. Smith has set a new single-season assists record in each of the last three seasons (confirmed ridiculous), and is amazingly setting himself up to do it for a fourth straight year in 2025. While it will be difficult to maintain, his present assists-per-game pace would see Smith obliterate his other recent A’s records (see below). His projected assists alone would come close to breaking the single-season points record (Smith owns that record too when he registered 137 in 2016). He’s on pace to finish 2025 with 171 PTS.

2022: 94 assists
2023: 96 assists (+2%)
2024: 101 assists (+5%)
2025: 131 assists (+30%)*

*Based on current 7.25 assists/game over full 18-game season.

Josh Byrne, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Caroline Sherman)

NLL Top 30: Week 8

TW. (Top 100) Player, Team (Pos.)

1. (1) Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
2. (46) Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia (F)
3. (9) Matt Vinc, Buffalo (G)
4. (3) Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
5. (6) Mitch Jones, Philadelphia (F)
6. (25) Kyle Rubisch, San Diego (D)
7. (43) Robert Hope, Colorado (D)
8. (8) Jesse King, Calgary (F)
9. (18) Zach Currier, San Diego (T)
10. (34) Curtis Dickson, Calgary (F)
11. (24) Clarke Petterson, Halifax (F)
12. (73) Connor Kelly, Colorado (F)
13. (54) Zach Higgins, Ottawa (G)
14. (31) Randy Staats, Halifax (F)
15. (41) Dane Dobbie, Calgary (F)
16. (66) Holden Cattoni, Philadelphia (F)
17. (NR) Aden Walsh, Vancouver (G)
18. (56) Zach Manns, Saskatchewan (F)
19. (4) Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
20. (7) Lyle Thompson, Georgia (F)
21. (81) Ryan Lanchbury, Rochester (F)
22. (30) Alex Simons, Albany (F)
23. (2) Jeff Teat, Ottawa (F)
24. (11) Will Malcom, Colorado (F)
25. (53) Jake Boudreau, Saskatchewan (T)
26. (76) Owen Grant, Vancouver (D)
27. (13) Jake Withers, Halifax (T)
28. (17) Mitch de Snoo, Toronto (D)
29. (82) Connor Kirst, Las Vegas (T)
30. (26) Ian MacKay, Buffalo (D)