Photo by Garrett James
This summer, we will examine the top 50 players from the 2015 NLL season. Now, that doesn’t mean the best players, period, it just means who played the best this past season. The top 50 were voted on and decided by members of our NLL staff. Any questions, tweet to @LacrosseWeTrust.
Joel McCready
2015 Team: Vancouver Stealth
Position: Transition
Status: Signed through 2018
Draft Year: 2009
2015 Stats: 51 points, 50 LB, 7 PPG
Quotes: “Joel is a team-first workhorse that makes everyone around him better. His play is motivating to his teammates and off the floor he is a tremendous leader.
“Many people saw Joel as a minor part of the trade with Rochester. For us, he was a major part of that deal and we had been in contact with Rochester for many months prior to the trade about getting him to Vancouver. We felt we needed Joel to complete our right side and he has done just that for us.” – Stealth GM Doug Locker to IL Indoor on March 5th, 2015.
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McCready has always been a decent player for the Rochester Knighthawks, but in 2015 with the Vancouver Stealth he broke out. He was a throw in for the Johnny Powless deal, that sent the second overall pick to Rochester, but with both of those pieces gone from their respective teams, McCready remains.
McCready put up a career high 51 points and had a chance to shine in Vancouver. His 30 goals blew away his previous high of 14. His 50 loose balls were the most since 2011. He also had a career high 96 shots on goal.
His best game of the 2015 season was on February 28th against the Minnesota Swarm where he scored seven points, four goals and three assists. He also had a six point game on April 18th against his old team, the Rochester Knighthawks.
