Every top seed went home early. A 6-seed won the championship. The scoring leader played for a team that didn’t make the Final. And a goalie won MVP. The 2025-26 NLL season was not supposed to go like this — and that’s exactly what made it the most entertaining indoor lacrosse season in years.
Vancouver Built Something — Then Watched It Fall Apart in One Night
The Vancouver Warriors finished 13-5, best record in the league, and looked like the team everyone else was trying to solve. Keegan Bal was the reason. The man put up 45 goals and 79 assists — 124 points, scoring title, not particularly close. For a full regular season, Bal was the most dangerous offensive player in professional box lacrosse. Vancouver earned that top seed and everything that came with it.
Then Halifax walked into Rogers Arena in the quarterfinals and ended the whole thing.
The Thunderbirds, an 8-10 team, beat the best record in the NLL. That’s the quarterfinals. That’s what this league does. You can build a dominant regular season and still have it unravel in three games. Vancouver is a cautionary tale now — the 2025-26 version of “regular season hardware means nothing when the bracket opens.”
The Most Chaotic Quarterfinals in Recent Memory
Here is the complete quarterfinal summary: every single top-four seed lost. Every one. Halifax over Vancouver. San Diego over Colorado in overtime. Toronto over Saskatchewan. Georgia over Buffalo. All four upsets, all in the same round. There is no precedent for that kind of chaos in a single NLL playoff bracket, and the league should be marketing it for the next decade.
The San Diego-Colorado series deserves its own article. San Diego won in overtime — but the moment everyone remembers is the crease violation call on Tre Leclaire that swung the game. The NLL reviewed it, acknowledged the officials got it wrong, and suspended them. That’s the right call administratively. It does not un-ring the bell for Colorado, and the Mammoth fanbase knows it. When the league says “we made a mistake” after your season is already over, that’s cold comfort at best. Colorado’s GM Brad Self won the GM of the Year award — a 12-6 team got bounced in the quarterfinals on a botched call. That’s the whole story.
Brett Dobson Won MVP as a Goalie. Let That Sink In.
Georgia Swarm goalie Brett Dobson won both the league MVP and the Goalie of the Year award. Goalies almost never win MVP in any sport. The reasoning is always the same — offense scores, offense gets credit, defenders and goalies are supporting cast. Dobson broke that pattern completely. The Swarm went 12-6 and upset fourth-seeded Buffalo in the quarterfinals, and Dobson was the reason they were in position to do any of it. Giving a goalie MVP takes actual conviction from the voters. Credit them for it.
Georgia then lost to Halifax in the semifinals, two games to one. Good team, spectacular goalie, not quite enough to get to the Final. That’s a legitimate NLL story right there.
Toronto Was a 6-Seed. Nobody Cared.
Toronto went 11-7 in the regular season, finished sixth, and then proceeded to win every postseason series they entered. They beat Saskatchewan in the quarterfinals, beat San Diego two games to one in the semifinals, and then swept Halifax two games to none in the NLL Final. Championship. Done. CJ Kirst won Rookie of the Year. Sam English won Finals MVP. The Rock did what the Rock always seem to eventually do — they found a gear in the postseason that the regular season didn’t fully preview.
This is not a fluke. Toronto is one of the most successful franchises in NLL history, and their championship culture is real. But as a 6-seed? In a field where the 1 through 4 seeds all went home early? The bracket basically handed someone an opportunity to become a legend, and Toronto took it.
The Rest of the Award Sheet
Keegan Bal led the league in scoring at 124 points and won Offensive Player of the Year. Connor Fields of Rochester finished second at 119 points, Dhane Smith of Buffalo third at 118. Three players over 110 points in a single season — that’s a hell of a top of the scoring chart. Bal’s team got upset in the first round; none of that diminishes what he did over 18 games. Callum Jones of Ottawa took Defensive Player of the Year. Zach Currier of San Diego won Transition Player of the Year. Ryan Keenan of Saskatchewan won the Sportsmanship Award.
On the history side: Maki Jenner became the first woman to call play-by-play for an NLL game on February 14, 2026. That’s a milestone worth noting — not buried in a footnote, not an afterthought. First woman ever. In a league that’s been around for nearly four decades. It happened this season.
The Albany FireWolves Are Now the Oshawa FireWolves — and That’s Fine
The Albany relocation to Oshawa, announced in August 2025, is the kind of franchise move that looks uncomfortable on paper and ends up being the right call in practice. Albany wasn’t drawing. The NLL needed a viable Canadian market. Oshawa is lacrosse country in a way that upstate New York simply isn’t. The FireWolves finished 6-12 in their inaugural Oshawa season — not a winning record, but a fresh start in a market that actually wants professional box lacrosse. Give it two or three years before passing judgment on the relocation.
What This Season Means for the NLL
The narrative the NLL needed was exactly what it got: a postseason where any team in the bracket could realistically win. That’s not a parity problem — that’s a product. Every one of those quarterfinal upsets generated attention, controversy, and conversation. The Leclaire crease call is still being argued in lax circles. Halifax’s run to the Final while going 8-10 in the regular season is genuinely interesting. Toronto winning it all as a 6-seed gives the league a champion with a real story attached.
No commissioner could have scripted a better postseason. Now the question is whether the NLL can build on it — better broadcast reach, more consistent officiating (Colorado’s fanbase deserves that much at minimum), and a world where Keegan Bal putting up 124 points generates mainstream sports conversation instead of staying inside the box lacrosse bubble. The chaos was there. The league just has to make sure people outside the community hear about it next time.