Eight teams made the NLL playoffs this year. Six didn’t. This isn’t a sympathy tour — it’s an honest look at where each franchise stands, what went wrong, and whether there’s a real path forward or just another offseason of convincing fans it’s a rebuild instead of a decline. Let’s get into it.
Calgary Roughnecks (6-12)
Six and twelve. The Roughnecks have been a franchise cornerstone for most of this league’s history, with banners to prove it. This season was not that. Calgary didn’t just miss the playoffs — they finished tied for the second-worst record in the entire NLL, one game ahead of last-place Philadelphia. The offense wasn’t generating, the defense wasn’t stopping, and the lineup doesn’t have enough young talent coming through the pipeline to explain away the losses as growing pains. This is a franchise that needs to look itself in the mirror and decide whether it’s tinkering around the edges or committing to a real teardown and rebuild. Half-measures won’t move the needle.
The harder question for Calgary is identity. For years they leaned on core veterans who are now on the back nine of their careers. The Roughnecks need a front office decision — not a coaching adjustment, not a single offseason signing — about what this team is supposed to look like in 2028. Until that decision gets made and gets made clearly, expect more six-win seasons. Calgary fans have earned better than that, and the organization knows it.
Rochester Knighthawks (6-12)
Connor Fields put up 119 points this season. One hundred and nineteen. He finished second in the entire NLL in scoring, behind only Keegan Bal, who plays on a 13-win team in Vancouver. Fields plays on a 6-win team in Rochester, which means every conversation about the Knighthawks has to start here: they have an elite offensive weapon and they have absolutely nothing around him. That’s not an exaggeration — that’s the season. When your second-leading scorer is a comfortable distance behind Fields and you’re still going 6-12, you have a depth problem that one or two additions won’t fix.
Rochester’s rebuild has been going on long enough that calling it a rebuild starts to feel generous. At some point the organization needs to ask whether it’s actually building around Fields or just running him out there year after year and hoping something clicks. Fields isn’t getting younger, and burning his prime seasons on a team that can’t make the eight-team NLL playoff field is a waste of a genuinely special player. The Knighthawks owe him better than this.
Ottawa Black Bears (8-10)
Ottawa’s situation is genuinely frustrating because there’s real talent here. Callum Jones won Defensive Player of the Year — the best defensive player in the entire league plays for a team that went 8-10 and missed the postseason. That tells you everything you need to know about Ottawa’s offensive woes. The Black Bears were competitive on defense, Jones was outstanding, and they still couldn’t squeeze past the eight-team cutline in a league that lets more than half its teams into the playoffs. That’s how bad the offense was.
Ottawa isn’t a lost cause. Defense-first franchises can win in this league when you pair them with a credible offensive threat. Jones gives you a foundation that most rebuilding teams would kill for. The Black Bears need to commit real resources to fixing the offense in the offseason — not depth additions, not developmental projects, but proven scorers. You don’t build around a Defensive POY by letting him carry the whole identity. Give him some help or watch more talented teams leapfrog Ottawa again next fall.
Las Vegas Desert Dogs (8-10)
Las Vegas went 8-10 and missed out on tiebreaker math that could have flipped their season entirely. The Desert Dogs weren’t far off — eight wins would have gotten them in if the cards fell differently — and that close-but-not-quite result is both encouraging and concerning. Encouraging because the talent floor isn’t as low as the record suggests. Concerning because Las Vegas is still a developing lacrosse market, and the worst thing you can do in a developing market is give fans a reason to walk away. Perennial 8-10 finishes that hover just outside the playoff line don’t sell tickets.
The Desert Dogs need to be more than a middling squad if they want to build something real in Vegas. This is a city that rewards winners and forgets losers fast — there are too many entertainment options competing for the same dollar. Las Vegas has the infrastructure to be a legitimate NLL market, but the on-floor product has to give casual fans a reason to care. An 8-10 record with no playoff appearance is not that reason. The window to establish the brand in this city is not infinite.
Philadelphia Wings (5-13)
Last place. Again. Five wins, thirteen losses, and another offseason where Wings fans are being asked to find optimism in a roster that finished 14th out of 14 teams. To be fair to Philadelphia — and this is something the franchise deserves credit for — Brennan O’Neill made the All-Rookie Team in 2024-25 and represents genuine promise at the offensive end. That’s not nothing. The Wings have had stretches where they’ve looked like they might turn a corner, and there are individual pieces worth believing in.
But five wins. In a league where eight teams make the playoffs. The Wings need to be honest with their fanbase about the timeline, because Philly sports fans have a finely tuned radar for organizational spin and they are not interested in hearing about culture building while the wins don’t come. O’Neill is a reason for hope, not a reason to declare the corner turned. Build the roster around him with actual urgency, or another 5-13 season is exactly what’s coming. Philadelphia has waited long enough for this franchise to be competitive.
Six teams, six different sets of problems. Some have legitimate talent to build on. Some need to decide whether they’re actually rebuilding or just pretending to. The NLL is an eight-team playoff league and more than half the field still finds a way to miss it — that’s on those organizations to fix. No more excuses. The 2026-27 season will tell us which of these franchises has the front office to match their ambition.