NLL Player Rankings: Week 10

After the first six weeks of the 2022-23 National Lacrosse League season are complete, The Lax Mag will publish our weekly NLL Player Rankings, examining the league’s Top 30 players from Week 1 right up until the end of the regular season.

The rankings are based on our star-rating system (individual game analysis) and overall statistical positioning (full season analysis). For a full breakdown of how both areas are ordered, click here.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Kyle Hess)

As part of this year’s player-ranking formula, we’ve added a statistical component that ranks players by the amount of a specific stat they garner each game day.

Why?

Well, although every team will eventually play 18 regular season games, an NLL schedule never goes super smoothly like say the NFL. Sure there are byes weeks (“…a scheduled off week for a given team” as per Merriam) in pro football too, but they are much more structured and balanced in comparison to pro box lacrosse. This is not a knock on the NLL, who are competing with the NHL, NBA, AHL, CHL, other winter-based leagues, big-tickets concerts and even the Ringling Brothers Circus when securing game dates. We’re just stating, not hating.

After Week 10, the Georgia Swarm have played just five games, while the East-leading Buffalo Bandits almost double that. When looking at the NLL’s statistical leaderboard, the true placement of players can be extremely uneven due to that unbalance.

Since we want to publish a weekly player ranking, versus just one at the absolute end of the season when everyone has played their full 18, we’ve gone the per-game route, which in some cases, provides very different options than the NLL’s full-season leaderboards.

Before we get to the Top 30, as always found at the very bottom of this post, here are the Top 10 insert-stat-here-per-game leaders for various statistical columns for runners. We’ll get into goalies later this year.

Note: Only players that have played at least two-thirds of their team’s season are included.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits

Points Per Game

1. Dhane Smith, Buffalo, 8.11
2. Jeff Teat, New York, 7.71
T3. Mark Matthews, Saskatchewan, 7.00
T3. Tom Schreiber, Toronto, 7.00
5. Robert Church, Saskatchewan, 6.83
T6. Connor Fields, Rochester, 6.57
T6. Curtis Dickson, San Diego, 6.57
8. Josh Byrne, Buffalo Bandits, 6.38
9. Will Malcom, Panther City, 6.25
T10. Dane Dobbie, San Diego, 6.14
T10. Wes Berg, San Diego, 6.14
T10. Randy Staats, Halifax, 6.14

Dhane Smith has a commanding 16-point lead in the NLL’s season-long charts, largely because he’s played more games than most (9). He still leads here, plus Smith is on pace (146) to pop his own most points in a season record (137). Like we pointed out last year, that type of statistical success and standard setting would make Smith a lock for MVP, if of course he can keep it up through the second half of Buffalo’s season.

Connor Fields, Rochester Knighthawks (Photo: Michael Hetzel)

Goals Per Game

1. Connor Fields, Rochester, 3.43
2. Robert Church, Saskatchewan, 3.17
T3. Curtis Dickson, San Diego, 3.14
T3. Dan Dobbie, San Diego, 3.14
5. Josh Byrne, Buffalo, 3.13
6. Tom Schreiber, Toronto, 3.00
7. Jeff Teat, New York, 2.86
8. Corey Small, Toronto, 2.63
T9. Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia, 2.43
T9. Blaze Riorden, Philadelphia, 2.43
T9. Connor Robinson, Colorado, 2.43

While he sits second to Josh Byrne on the regular goal-scoring charts, Connor Fields is first in goals per game, by a decent margin. In fact, four players have a better goals-per-game average than Byrne, who still impressively sits first overall in straight-up goals even though he’s essentially missed the last 1.5 game with the Bandits due to injury.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Michael Hetzel)

Assists Per Game

1. Dhane Smith, Buffalo, 6.00
2. Mark Matthews, Saskatchewan, 5.50
3. Jeff Teat, New York, 4.86
4. Randy Staats, Halifax, 4.43
T5. Wes Berg, San Diego, 4.29
T5. Rob Hellyer, Las Vegas, 4.29
7. Andrew Kew, Georgia, 4.20
T8. Jonathan Donville, Panther City, 4.00
T8. Tom Schreiber, Toronto, 4.00
9. Will Malcom, Panther City, 3.88
10. Tyler Pace, Calgary, 3.86

Again, Smith is #1 on the league’s full-season leaderboard and on the points-per-game list too. Get this; Smith is averaging more assists per game than 344 players (virtually the entire league!) this year are averaging points. Just twelve players have higher per-game-point averages than Smith’s 6 assists per game, which puts him at 108 helpers over a full year. Yep, it’d be another new record, one which Smith set just a season ago (94).

It’s impressive to see Panther City rookie Jonathan Donville so high here. If he can keep around this type of production going, he might even give Jeff Teat’s 71 assist rookie record a run too.

Plus speaking of rookies, although he just missed the goals-per-game Top 10 above, Las Vegas first-year forward Jack Hannah has the 15th highest goals-per-game average (2.29) of any player, rookie or vet, so far this season.

Jake Withers, Halifax Thunderbirds (Photo: Michael Hetzel)

Loose Balls Per Game

1. Jake Withers, Halifax, 15.13
2. Reid Bowering, Vancouver, 13.88
3. Zach Currier, Calgary, 13.71
4. TD Ierlan, Toronto, 12.00
5. Ryan Terefenko, Halifax, 11.63
6. Trevor Baptiste, Philadelphia, 11.00
7. Mitch de Snoo, Toronto, 10.25
8. Jeremy Thompson, Georgia, 9.00
T9. Brodie Merrill, San Diego, 8.57
T9. Jay Thorimbert, New York, 8.57

There’s always a debate on how loose-ball scoops should be logged for face-off guys versus regular runners, but we’ll save that fight for another day. Although he played just a single game before going down for the full year, Albany’s Joe Nardella had 17 LBs in his one outing. Sidelined due to injury after just two games, Buffalo’s Chris Cloutier was averaging 8.00 LBs, an incredibly high number for a forward, although that rate would have been difficult to keep up with. As far as full-time forwards who’ve played all year, Lyle Thompson leads there (7.60), followed closely by Jacob Ruest (7.57) and Fields (7.29), who moved up to the #2 spot in our Top 30 this week.

Lyle Thompson and Andrew Kew, Georgia Swarm

Turnovers Per Game

1. Lyle Thompson, Georgia, 6.80
2. Mark Matthews, Saskatchewan, 6.67
3. Kieran McArdle, Albany, 5.60
4. Jesse King, Calgary, 5.57
5. Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia, 5.14
6. Andrew Kew, Georgia, 5.00
7. Connor Fields, Rochester, 4.80
8. Jeff Teat, New York, 4.57
T9. Tyler Pace, Calgary, 4.43
T9. Shawn Evans, Vancouver, 4.43

While Thompson always excels mightily for a forward at loose-ball scoops, he uncharacteristically leads the league in turnovers per game this year. Full-time forwards that have played at least two-thirds of their team’s games and are averaging at least 2.00 goals with the lowest TOs per game are: Corey Small (1.88), Stephen Keogh (2.00), Connor Robinson (2.43), Blaze Riorden (2.71) and Robert Church (2.83).

Graeme Hossack, Halifax Thunderbirds (Photo: Trevor MacMillan)

Caused Turnovers Per Game

1. Graeme Hossack, Halifax, 2.38
2. TJ Comizio, Georgia, 2.20
3. Brad Kri, Toronto, 1.88
4. Kyle Rubisch, Saskatchewan, 1.83
5. Nick Weiss, Buffalo, 1.67
6. Jordan MacIntosh, Georgia, 1.60
T7. Matt Hossack, Panther City, 1.50
T7. Tyson Bell, Halifax, 1.50
T7. Mitch de Snoo, Toronto, 1.50
10. Zach Currier, Calgary, 1.43

Halifax’s Graeme Hossack leads both the straight-up & per-game boards when it comes to causing turnovers. In fact, at 19 CTO after just eight games, he’s already bettered last year’s total of 18 and is on pace for 43 which would be by far the most the 3x DPOTY has ever collected over a single season. Safe to say, Hossack is most definitely back in defensively-dominate form.

While we do track a bunch of other data as part of our scoring system, the above are the big ones most seem to quote when defining how good (or bad) a player is presently.

Our updated NLL Top 30 is below…

NLL Player Rankings: Week 10

1. (1) Dhane Smith, Buffalo, F
2. (4) Connor Fields, Rochester, F
3. (2) Curtis Dickson, San Diego, F
4. (5) Robert Church, Saskatchewan, F
5. (3) Nick Rose, Toronto, G
6. (6) Kyle Rubisch, Saskatchewan, D
7. (9) Jeff Teat, New York, F
8. (15) Tom Schreiber, Toronto, F
9. (8) Dane Dobbie, San Diego, F
10. (7) Josh Byrne, Buffalo, F
11. (17) Christian Del Bianco, Calgary, G
12. (10) Mark Matthews, Saskatchewan, F
13. (12) Wes Berg, San Diego, F
14. (11) Mitch de Snoo, Toronto, D
15. (13) Dillon Ward, Colorado, G
16. (18) Zach Currier, Calgary, T
17. (22) Will Malcom, Panther City, F
18. (16) Randy Staats, Halifax, F
19. (19) Graeme Hossack, Halifax, D
20. (14) Rylan Hartley, Rochester, G
21. (21) Jake Withers, Halifax, D
22. (28) Matt Vinc, Buffalo, G
23. (20) Reid Bowering, Vancouver, D
24. (24) Brad Kri, Toronto, D
25. (25) Jesse King, Calgary, F
26. (29) Rob Hellyer, Las Vegas, F
27. (NR) Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia, D
28. (NR) Steve Priolo, Buffalo, F
29. (23) Lyle Thompson, Georgia,
30. (30) Ian MacKay, Buffalo, T