July 22, 2025
By Evan Lepler
Tuesday Toss: Week 13 | Part 1
1. Toss trivia
Who are the three players who led their team in both goals and assists during the 2025 regular season?
Answer will be revealed after “The Hammer.”
2. 2025 UFA Ironmen
After 13 weeks of competition, there were 80 players in the UFA that competed in all 12 of their teams’ regular season games.
The Colorado Summit led all franchises with seven players—Noah Coolman, Seth Faris, Quinn Finer, Matt Jackson, Jeremy Knopf, Kai Marshall, and Connor Olson—who saw the field in every contest. Madison, Montreal, and Oregon each had six players apiece who played in all 12.
Furthermore, there are currently 10 players in the UFA that have played in every game since the start of 2023.
Austin’s Eric Brodbeck, Oregon’s Quinn Buermeyer, Salt Lake’s Jace Duennebeil, Madison’s Anthony Gutowsky, Oakland’s Evan Magsig, and Atlanta’s Dean Ramsey haven’t missed any games in the past three seasons.
Austin’s Kyle Henke, Colorado’s Matt Jackson, and Atlanta’s Austin Taylor all haven’t missed any games in the past four seasons, dating back to the start of the 2022 campaign.
But the league’s leading ironman is presently Philly’s Sean Mott, who’s been on the field for the Phoenix in every single game since the beginning of 2017! This past Saturday marked Mott’s 101st consecutive game played, an astonishing streak.
If you’re curious, Mott still is a couple seasons away from passing Matt LeMar, who owns the league’s all-time consecutive games played streak with 121 straight, spanning from 2013 to 2021.
3. Interdivisional results
After three more interdivisional contests this weekend, we’ve got nothing but divisional drama until Championship Weekend. But with 21 games pitting one division versus another during the regular season, it’s interesting to take stock at the results.
Here are the division standings for the interdivisional play during the 2025 season:
South 9-7 (.563)
Central 4-4 (.500)
East 3-3 (.500)
West 5-7 (.417)
As I pointed out late in Friday’s broadcast in Salt Lake City, one interesting dynamic was the triangle of victories between the Shred, Wind Chill, and Hustle. Atlanta beat Salt Lake in April, Minnesota beat Atlanta in May, and Salt Lake beat Minnesota in July. Of course, it’s also worth noting that, in each of those games, the home team prevailed.
By the way, here’s the composite interdivisional standings dating back to the start of the 2023 season:
East 18-9 (.667)
South 19-16 (.543)
Central 11-16 (.407)
West 10-17 (.370)
4. The wonky stat of a good reset thrower
By virtually any measure, Carolina handler John McDonnell had a splendid first season in the UFA. He led the league with 613 completions and ranked sixth in throwing yards with 4,177.
He also ranked 809th in the UFA in receiving yards. That’s dead last.
He finished the season with negative 223 receiving yards, 146 yards “worse” than Houston’s Matt Bennett.
Overall, 20 players of the 809 participants in the 2025 season finished the season with negative receiving yards, but McDonnell was the only one in negative triple digits.
It’s eerily reminiscent of another former Flyers handler—and fellow UNC alum—Matt Gouchoe-Hanas, who “led” the league in fewest receiving yards with negative 389 in 2022. That remains the most negative yards for a player in a single season since yardage tracking began in 2021.
By the way, while McDonnell only finished with 15 assists, which ranked outside the top 100 in that category, he was also credited with 41 hockey assists, second to only Salt Lake’s McKay Yorgason.
5. Callahan count cooling
Another statistical observation that I found interesting: when the UFA changed its pulling rules in 2023, the Callahan count exploded. There had only been 27 Callahans across the 2021 and 2022 seasons combined, but when the pull moved 20 yards up in 2023, the number of defensive scores increased drastically, with 42 Callahans during the ’23 campaign.
But last year, the Callahan count dipped down to 24. This year, heading into the playoffs, there have only been 23. (To be clear, each of the previous totals includes the postseason.)
What’s the takeaway? Over the past two seasons, Callahans are still nearly twice as common as they were during the 2021 and 2022 campaigns. However, teams have also made adjustments and gotten better at protecting possession near the goal-line after a few years of experiencing the new pulling predicament.
6. The undefeated Union
By dominating Detroit on Saturday and overpowering Madison on Sunday, the Chicago Union became the seventh team to finish a regular season undefeated. They joined the 2013 Toronto Rush, the 2016 Dallas Roughnecks, the 2016 Madison Radicals, and the 2019, 2022, and 2023 New York Empire.
“Going undefeated is super cool, especially with the difficulty of our doubleheaders—four total and three [weekends] in a row,” said Chicago’s Jake Rubin-Miller. “I feel like defensively, we have had a bunch of great team wins and no one is really operating outside of our system. Getting to fight back against Madison [on Sunday] was really good for us since we have not had to play down a lot this season.”
Among the previous six that went unblemished in the regular season, all made it to Championship Weekend, with only the ’16 Radicals, who were stunned by Seattle in the semifinals, failing to win the title. Of course, even if that Madison squad had beaten the ‘Scades on that wild 2016 Saturday night at Breese Stevens Field, an unbeaten team would have been guaranteed to lose in the next day’s title game, where the perfect inaugural Dallas squad was waiting.
7. Did a rookie already wrap up the MVP
In the UFA, the postseason has always been factored into MVP considerations. That will be the case once again in 2025, though it feels like someone is going to have to put together something pretty special to surpass what Chicago’s rookie superstar Daan De Marrée has done over the past month.
No, a month is not a full season, but the 24-year-old Belgian’s current heater is pretty remarkable. In his last four games, De Marree has caught 27 goals, thrown 14 assists, produced 11 blocks, and endured only three throwaways. He’s recorded double-digit plus/minuses in each of his past four games, a streak that has little known precedent in UFA history.
“He is always in the right spot at the right time, which is so hard to do when you’re going top speed,” said Rubin-Miller, discussing his first-year teammate who he’s matched up against in practice. “And that’s on top of having every throw and the best IQ of anyone I’ve ever played with. It’s such a privilege to have him with us and to learn from him, and even this amount of gushing doesn’t do it justice.”
With his late-season surge, De Marree finished the regular season atop the statistical chart in plus-minus, narrowly surpassing Carolina’s Allan Laviolette on Sunday in Madison. Although he missed three games, he’s number one in the league on goals per game (4.8) and ninth in total yards per game (519.1).
“Daan is MVP,” said Charlie Furse, the admittedly biased Union Coach. “Not sure it’s even close.”
The Hammer
Alright, time for an always important and overlooked subplot as the season winds down. We need to look at the possible Championship Weekend seeding possibilities.
As a reminder, once the four division winners are crowned, Championship Weekend is seeded based upon teams’ regular-season record, with point-differential being a key tiebreaker.
So here’s how the 12 playoff teams stack up as we enter the climactic moments of our season:
- Chicago Union: 12-0, +126 point differential
- Salt Lake Shred: 11-1, +69
- Minnesota Wind Chill: 9-3, +81
- Oakland Spiders: 9-3, +69
- Atlanta Hustle: 9-3, +38
- Boston Glory: 9-3, +35
- Austin Sol: 9-3, +29
- Colorado Summit: 8-4, +56
- Madison Radicals: 7-5, +36
- San Diego Growlers: 7-5, +24
- New York Empire: 7-5, +19
- DC Breeze: 7-5, +10
A few quick observations:
From a potential Championship Weekend seeding standpoint, the biggest result from this past Saturday was Boston’s loss in New York. Since Atlanta edges the Glory in the point-diff department, we’re now in a spot where Boston would face undefeated Chicago in the semifinals if all four regular-season champs advance that far.
Feels like just yesterday that the Union and Glory were both 8-0, the only two remaining unbeaten teams in the league.
Furthermore, if either New York or DC can upset Boston, the Empire or Breeze would have a semifinal against the unbeaten Union, again assuming that Chicago can take care of business in the Central.
Obviously, there are so many possible scenarios that could unfold in the coming weeks, and we will see what happens.
In the meantime, enjoy the opening round of the 2025 UFA playoffs, everybody! Here’s hoping we get at least three overtime periods this weekend!
(I’m envisioning a single OT in DC and a universe point in Oakland, but we shall see.)
Trivia Answer:
Boston’s Tobe Decraene — 37 goals, 30 assists
Chicago’s Daan De Marree — 43 goals, 28 assists
Seattle’s Garrett Martin — 37 goals, 31 assists
