No Hannah, No Problem?
The early numbers backing up why Vegas could afford to trade their superstar
Photo Credit: Trevor MacMillan/Halifax Thunderbirds
It’s not everyday you see a budding superstar hold out on his current team, requesting a trade with a specific destination in mind, then seeing that trade happen after some back and forth between clubs. But Jack Hannah isn’t just any budding superstar, Shawn Williams isn’t just any GM (and Head Coach), and considering what the Las Vegas Desert Dogs got for trading him to the Colorado Mammoth, they hit the jackpot, delayed as it may be.
Let’s get the history out of the way. After three season, 54 games played, and 222 PTS (98G, 124A) recorded, restricted free agent Hannah held out, reportedly seeking a trade to Denver where he lives and works. An offseason of kicking the tires on a trade resulted in a more aggressive push, with the Mammoth extending a three-year vet max offer sheet with performance bonuses to the 26-year-old. Vegas matched the offer sheet, meaning they would retain the rights to the player. Over last weekend, the Mammoth and Desert Dogs agreed to the terms of a trade. Colorado got one of the best young righty forwards in the game; Las Vegas received first round selections in the 2026 and 2027 NLL Entry Drafts and a second round selection in the 2028 Entry Draft.
There’s a lot to consider when analyzing this trade. Vet max for Hannah’s prime years is a reasonable salary, but it’s a huge chunk of a team’s total roster obligations and does handcuff a team a bit. Considering the free agents Vegas brought in over the offseason, it was surprising they had room to match an offer sheet. That’s now a commitment they don’t have to worry about and Colorado does, which is a good problem for Mammoth GM Brad Self to have.
The draft capital is a tougher pill to swallow. The next two drafts are pegged to be historically great. Williams went fishing and landed some of the biggest free agents this offseason, but teams build sustainable success through the Entry Draft. It’ll be interesting to see how Self navigates that reality, again, a good problem to have considering his roster’s current construction.
Still, this shouldn’t be thought of as an easy trade for Williams. Putting this as politely as I possibly can, he traded Jack Fucking Hannah. Having your most talented player hold out and navigating an offseason of either trying to convince him to wear these sweet redesigned unis or figure out a fair trade to another team sounds like hell. The fact Williams swung this deal with Hannah’s preferred landing spot instead of shipping him to different climes speaks volumes about his character (could’ve told Hannah to learn what bunnyhugs are, you’re going to Saskatoon).
This deal was reportedly submitted to the league before the Desert Dogs’ 17-11 win against the Toronto Rock or the Mammoth’s 12-3 loss to the Georgia Swarm on Saturday, meaning those didn’t factor into the trade equation at all. And we’re too early in a season to think of any data we have as reliable, something we can forecast off of. But I do think what Vegas has done in three games is worth looking at, as I think it made trading one of the most talented players in the game an easier pill to swallow.
Vegas’s offense has been putrid for three seasons. They’ve only one season under their belts where they averaged double digits in GF/GAME, and that season (2024-25), they were tied for the second-worst offense in the NLL. I could give you the exact ranking of their efficiencies for True stats, but trust me when I say they’ve been bad in all of them every year.
But through three games of the 2025-26 regular season, the Desert Dogs have taken noticeable steps in the right direction.
Desert Dogs TrueE%
Desert Dogs TrueGF/GAME
A few things off the hop: Don’t read too much into the shorthanded numbers. The only shifts rarer than those are unsettled, extra attacker, and penalty shifts. I also don’t have True numbers for 2022-23, didn’t start combining those shifts until the 2023-24 season. That TruePPE% is gaudy and truly benefitting from only three games being played (and a 3-for-3 night against the Toronto Rock).
The Desert Dogs are averaging 12.0 GF/GAME, tied with the Buffalo Bandits for third-highest in the NLL. All of their per game numbers are trending upward, most importantly their TrueES goals. Scoring settled is incredibly difficult in the NLL, and defenses are brick behemoths this season; league average for TrueESE% is 10.5% (last season was 12.4%). While Vegas’s TrueESE% isn’t significantly better than in years past, it’s a focus for the team, which finally got out of their godawful habit of trying to force their run game to overshadow their settled issues.
Spending less time in transition means more time settled, and both areas are better for it. The Desert Dogs are more efficient ES and FB and are producing better averages because of it.
The win against the Rock certainly boosts Vegas’s numbers, but similar to the above graphs, everything’s trending in the right direction.
Desert Dogs TrueE% in 2025-26
Desert Dogs TrueGF/GAME in 2025-26
Everything’s going the right direction or staying relatively flat, and all of this is without Hannah in the lineup. It’s promising for the youngest NLL franchise, signs that their offseason moves out the front door are working, that the team’s systems and philosophical changes are bearing fruit, that this isn’t the Desert Dogs of yesteryear. It’s sugar to help make the bitterness of trading Hannah more palatable.
But it’s also a small sample size; the Desert Dogs are probably somewhere between the Ottawa and Toronto performances. Chase Fraser missed the first game, and Vancouver is the best team Vegas played so far this season. Ottawa’s inconsistent but trending in the right direction (if only they quit giving up 6-goal runs). Toronto’s probably bad.
The Desert Dogs have the Buffalo Bandits on the horizon, and I wouldn’t expect another 17-goal performance from Vegas. But giving the three-time defending champs a headache? I can see that.
Fun team. This has been what I’ve wanted to see from them for ages.
Photo Credit: Toronto Rock
Astute readers will notice I haven’t talked about what this means for the Mammoth statistically, and that’s because there’s even less you can take away from their first three games of the season. Anyone telling you they know what this Mammoth offense is has some crypto and NFTs you’ll be interested in buying.
They’re obviously not having a good time right now, as they have the second lowest GF/GAME in the NLL at 6.7. Colorado hasn’t had a “full” lineup except for one game. Andrew Kew missed the last two games due to injury. Ryan Lee is carrying a right side thin on established NLL production. The Mammoth healthy scratched first-round pick Braedon Saris for the most recent game, as he clearly hasn’t adjusted to the pro game. This offense figures to get Eli McLaughlin back in the lineup, but that’ll be later in the season than sooner.
This offense wasn’t going to be a world-beater with how it was configured entering the season, but it hasn’t been healthy and clearly isn’t performing at close to average in the December to remember for goaltenders.
Hannah becomes a 1-2 combo with Lee on the right side. When Kew’s healthy and back on the floor, then the O will be balanced. After a few games of that, we’ll see what the Mammoth offense can be.
This trade is a clear echo of the Christian Del Bianco Roughnecks to Warriors saga. A superstar wanted out, a GM made a deal with the preferred destination, and both clubs’ fortunes look the better for it (look at the Roughnecks’ future, not their immediate results (especially not their most recent loss)).
Vegas is a better team than they were last season with or without Hannah and have a cupboard full of high draft picks. Colorado desperately needed an offensive upgrade and got one that’s young, dynamic, and under control for years. It’s a win-win-win for both teams and fans; now we get 15 games of Hannah in black and burgundy.