Crazy OJLL Trade Deadline Foreshadows Upcoming Playoff Matchups

Crazy OJLL Trade Deadline Foreshadows Upcoming Playoff Matchups

It has been a two-week stretch to remember for box lacrosse in Ontario with the news of the Toronto Beaches and their forfeited games, followed by a somewhat surprising trade deadline.

It certainly seems that a three-horse race is developing in the OJLL between the Beaches, the Orangeville Northmen, and the Mimico Mountaineers. Whitby Warriors fans will argue that their team should be included as well, and they certainly will be a tough-out.

LCD’s Jon Donville looked at winners from the OJLL deadline, which can be found below.

And fans of all junior lacrosse around the country should check out the LCD trade deadline tracker. As the deadline approaches in Alberta and BC, the tracker will be updated as trades get announced. The tracker can be found below!

As a reminder, the Box Lacrosse Roundup newsletter will be sent out every Monday and Friday at Noon EST. Interested readers can find subscription boxes on any of the landing pages linked below.

Ontario

With the deadline passed, the biggest story in Ontario is where the Toronto Beaches will end up in the standings. The OJLL has updated their standings, and as of Monday morning, they look like this.

While currently not in the playoffs, the Beaches will be out of the basement soon. The real issue is which team will have to face them in the first round. It seems that they could get as high as fourth, which would set up a likely second round matchup against Orangeville.

Another fun storyline is how high Willem Firth will get in the scoring race. It was unfortunate that they Beaches players lost their stats from the forfeited games, but Firth is on such a crazy pace that he will get back pretty high in the leaderboard. Without the eight games, he is already in the top 20 in scoring.

At his current pace, he will get to 80 points in the 12 games he will be eligible for.

In the MSL, the news of the week was the trade between Oakville and Cobourg that saw Nathan Grenon and a 2025 second round pick head to Cobourg in return for Tyler Hendrycks and Latrell Harris.

Check out the full recap of all the lacrosse action in Ontario this week with the Ontario recap!

British Columbia

While the focus of trade season has been on the action in Ontario, no deal has worked out better than the Burnaby Lakers trading for goaltender Brayden Wandler.

Wandler made 47 saves for the Lakers on Friday to beat the Coquitlam Adanacs for the second straight time. The Adanacs were 9-1 and looking unbeatable, but Wandler and the Lakers stopped them twice in their tracks.

Those wins further muddied the BCJAL standings, with Burnaby, New Westminster, and Victoria all within a game of each other. Expect more trades this week as the BCJALL deadline approaches, and buckle up for a good finish on the west coast.

Speaking of Burnaby, check out the most recent episode of Coaches Calls, with Burnaby Legend and current WLA commissioner Paul Dal Monte.

Alberta

The Miners swept the Mounties this weekend in the second to last regular season weekend of the RMLL schedule. They will head to Saskatchewan next weekend and look to again be the favourite in Alberta.

As always, check out the rest of the great work from across the Lacrosse Culture Daily landscape!