National Lacrosse League roster analysis: 2011 to today

The 2021/22 National Lacrosse League season sports the greatest number of franchises it’s ever had: 14.

They currently have clubs in Albany, Buffalo, Calgary, Denver, Duluth, Fort Worth, Halifax, Hamilton, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Diego, Saskatoon, Uniondale and Vancouver.

And when the new Las Vegas franchise starts their season in the fall of 2022, that total team tally record will be broken, again.

Better yet, while the league has relocated a handful of franchises in recent years, not a single one has completely ceased operation since the Boston Blazers in 2011. It used to be an issue. A big one. It isn’t anymore.

With more clubs, more roster spots become available for players. And while there is still some debate over the quality of an expanded talent pool as the league continues to add more fresh franchises, the opportunity for players in the NLL is obviously at an all-time high right now.

The Lax Mag examined NLL rosters going back to 2011, the year the league lost its last club.

Where do most NLL players come from?

We determined what country and/or nationality active rostered NLL players (did not include practice rosters, holdouts, etc.) came from. For Canada, who eats up a majority of that roster real estate, we went one step further and listed what province these athletes developed their lacrosse skillset in, not necessarily where they were born. So, for example, although Brodie Merrill was born in Lachine, Quebec, we’ve labelled him as “Ontario” for these purposes. He of course famously grew up playing lacrosse in Orangeville, Ontario. With that said, the number of these types of players that were born in once province and later moved to a different one (usually Ontario), is so small the move barely budges any figures below.

Opening Rosters 2021/22 (%)

This year, not surprisingly, Ontario provided the NLL with more opening-day players (as announced on Nov. 29), by a lot. While the above chart indicates the percentages of active rostered players’ backgrounds when league-opening lineups were first confirmed, of the 294 active roster spots (14 teams with room for 21 active-rostered players) 171 came from the province of Ontario (58.16%). Many of the Indigenous players also grew up playing lacrosse in the province too.

Active Players 2011-2020 (%)

Oddly enough, while Ontario still owned a significant amount of active roster spots back in 2011, the percentage they populated were the lowest they’ve been over the past eleven seasons. They’ve since obviously spiked higher, and are seemingly trending back towards their record-high totals of 2016.

Also worth noting are the Americans and Albertans.

In 2011, the league saw an amazingly high number (for the times at least) of Americans playing in the league, almost as many as British Columbia even. Although Casey Powell was the most prominent, high-profile players like Paul Rabil, Brendan Mundorf, Drew Westervelt, Max Seibald and Ryan Boyle also competed. Many of the Americans that played during that season left the NLL prior to retiring from professional lacrosse altogether. Their numbers sank steadily after that. With more NLL GMs willing to give Americans a chance indoors, and the effort of groups like USBOXLA at the grass-roots level, US-born ball players are coming back to pro box in a big way.

Alberta is a bit different. In 2011, 13 players from Alberta played across the league’s ten teams. That digit dipped slightly and only just recently rebounded, but significantly. A commitment at the community & junior level of the sport, in addition to groups like Geoff Snider’s ELEV8 Lacrosse, has seen their pro placement pop over the past couple years. While they don’t quite yet own as high a percentage as they did in 2011 (4.81%), there are more players from Alberta playing in the NLL over the past two seasons than ever before. Snider played in the league during that 2011 season, and now has players he’s coached competing in it too.

Also, we only included 2011-2020 in this chart and the two below to ensure only completed seasons were analyzed.

Games Played 2011-2020

While landing an active roster spot is important, playing in games regularly is arguably a more telling total of how impactful each background or region is to the NLL. While the two above charts are very much similar in their shape, Ontario does see a slight increase in their percentages when you compare active roster vs. actual games played. The Americans saw by far the biggest difference in the two percentages, due mainly to players not committing to a full season. They did improve in that category last year however, so fingers crossed.

Point Production 2011-2020 (%)

Ontario still easily owns here too, but check out the boys from BC. While British Columbia-bred ball players have owned an average of 22.8% of roster spots in the league over the past four seasons, their point production over that same time is nearing 30%. GM Dan Richardson, who’s been shopping local since taking over the Vancouver Warriors franchise, has more BC players on his team (16) this year than any other club (next closet is Calgary with ten). What team announced the most Ontarians on their roster for the 2021/22 season? The Rochester Knightahwks, who have 19 of them.

Indigenous players also saw a bit of a bump here, often sitting top-end talent high on the league leaderboard. Last year, Randy Staats, Lyle Thompson and Cody Jamieson all finished within the NLL’s Top 10 for point production.