NLL Player Rankings: Week 16
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.
Jeff Teat, New York Riptide (Photo: Evan Berstein)
Jeff Teat remains in our #1 spot after a 10-point night in the New York Riptide’s 13-10 win over the Albany FireWolves last week. It’s the first time the Riptide won back-to-back games this year, and the seventh time Teat has registered 9 or more points during the 2022-23 season.
Teat remains on track to again become a 30-60-90 Club member (30 goals, 60 assists and 90 loose ball), again. He was the first rookie to ever achieve those sky-high stats last year.
In fact, all the players that were on 30-60-90 pace over a month ago are still putting up the numbers needed to finish at those noteworthy year-end totals. We’ve even added two: Teat, Dhane Smith, Connor Fields, Mitch Jones, Will Malcom, Andrew Kew, Wes Berg, and now Tom Schreiber & Lyle Thompson too.
Mitch Jones, Philadelphia Wings
Only eleven players have ever hit a 30-60-90 season. Three are the most to do it during the same season. Nine names are on pace to do it this year.
Jones, who’ll end up playing 19 games this year after adding an extra GP courtesy of his mid-season move from Vancouver to Philadelphia, is putting up such high totals with the Wings, that his averages would hit 30-60-90 territory with or without that extra game. If you stretched Jones’ Philadelphia-specific points-per-game average (excluding his lower numbers while with the Warriors) over a full 18-game season, he’d be in Teat-point-total territory right now.
Speaking of Teat, he’s on pace (147) to break Smith’s sing-season points record (137). Although Smith is no longer on track to do the same, he is still on pace (98) to bust his own solo-season assists record (94). With Josh Byrne, Chase Fraser and Chris Cloutier all now back in Buffalo’s lineup, even though the team only managed 8 goals total last week versus Colorado, Smith’s assists average should see another spike during the Bandits’ final five games.
Tyler Pace, Calgary Roughnecks (Photo: Jaclyn McKee)
This week’s Top 30 sees Tyler Pace & Jonathan Donville back on the list, both of whom have either cracked the 30 or sat between 30-40 for a majority of the season.
Joe Resetarits and the previously mentioned Lyle Thompson are this week’s biggest chart climbers after rising four spots thanks to strong Week 16 performances.
Vancouver’s Reid Bowering, who has been on the Top 30 since our opening edition, slips into the Top 10 for the first time all season. He is just five loose balls behind Jake Withers (who is just outside of this week’s list at #31) for the league lead, and the only non-face-off taker (fine, he took one) to rank in the NLL’s Top 5. While Bowering’s offensive numbers will likely finish behind his outstanding rookie totals from 2022, he is on pace to better last year’s CTOs by a turnover or two. Over the past two seasons, Bowering has been on every Top 30 list we’ve published, partly due to his nasty defensive numbers, but also because of how often and high he ranks in our game-day star rating for the Warriors (more on that here).
Both Withers (259) and Bowering (252) are on pace to redo the single-season loose-balls record held by Jay Thorimbert (246) since 2015. So is Trevor Baptiste (249). Zach Currier (244) is in the mix too.
Reid Bowering, Vancouver Warriors (Photo: Jordan Leigh)
NLL Player Rankings: Week 16
TW. (LW) Player, Team, Position
1. (1) Jeff Teat, New York, F
2. (4) Christian Del Bianco, Calgary, G
3. (3) Connor Fields, Rochester, F
4. (2) Dhane Smith, Buffalo, F
5. (5) Tom Schreiber, Toronto, F
6. (6) Will Malcom, Panther City, F
7. (9) Zach Currier, Calgary, T
8. (10) Josh Byrne, Buffalo, F
9. (7) Nick Rose, Toronto, G
10. (13) Reid Bowering, Vancouver, D
11. (8) Dane Dobbie, San Diego, F
12. (15) Curtis Dickson, San Diego, F
13. (11) Robert Church, Saskatchewan, F
14. (17) Graeme Hossack, Halifax, D
15. (12) Kyle Rubisch, Saskatchewan, D
16. (14) Matt Vinc, Buffalo, G
17. (19) Mitch Jones, Philadelphia, F
18. (22) Joe Resetarits, Philadelphia, F
19. (23) Lyle Thompson, Georgia, F
20. (20) Rylan Hartley, Rochester, G
21. (24) Wes Berg, San Diego, F
22. (18) Brad Kri, Toronto, D
23. (25) Jesse King, Calgary, F
24. (16) Mark Matthews, Saskatchewan, F
25. (21) Randy Staats, Halifax, F
26. (28) Andrew Kew, Georgia, F
27. (30) Nick Damude, Panther City, G
28. (27) Steve Priolo, Buffalo, D
29. (NR) Tyler Pace, Calgary, F
30. (NR) Jonathan Donville, Panther City, F