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Owen Hiltz

Film Study: How Owen Hiltz will bring balance to Chaos

By Hayden Lewis | May 13, 2025

During Roy Colsey’s first press conference as the Carolina Chaos head coach, he said his offense would focus on hands – specifically, a player's strong hand. 

"I want guys to put their best hand forward, not their best foot forward,” Colsey said. 

From there, Colsey directly explained how his offense is focused on balance, cooperation and decision-making. The chief catalyst is balance, because the offense is calibrated to operate off it before anything else. 

“We want to have the field completely balanced,” Colsey explained. “So if you drew a line from goal to goal, an invisible line from the middle of one goal to the middle of the other, all my lefties will be on one side, all my righties will be on the other.”

In four seasons with the Syracuse Orange, Owen Hiltz has set up a lawn chair and BBQ grill on the lefty wing within the Cuse offense and mastered a recipe that serves out buckets and dimes hot and fresh. His 233 points (133G, 100A) in 62 games (3.76 points per game) showcase the balanced scoring ability that Colsey and Chaos general manager Spencer Ford expect the crafty Canadian to bring to Carolina’s offense. 

Drafting Hiltz was a key step toward reviving the league’s lowest-scoring unit (10 scores per game in 2024).

Hiltz’s vision from the wing makes him a tantalizing weapon in any offense, as does his ability to thread skips with his eyes pointed in a different direction.

Here, it looks like Hiltz is eyeing the official stationed around the “10-yard” digit along goal line extended when he’s releasing the pass from his left shoulder. But in reality, his eyes are a decoy to make the defender uncomfortable with his positioning. 

Once Hiltz realizes he has the Johns Hopkins defender in no man's land, he finds Paul Carcaterra’s No. 1 prospect in the 2026 draft class, Joey Spallina, for a free doorstep tuck. 

When he’s not dotting up the opposing defense, he’s pinning corners with a wide range of releases and an intense snap of the wrists. 

Elite shooters and passers exhibit strong, flexible and snappy wrists. Hiltz checks all three of those boxes, which makes him lethal.

The one knock on Hiltz is that he’s not the best dodger. One-on-one against a pole, he won’t size up his defender and use a combination of speed and twitchiness to win the matchup. It’s not a big part of his game. But he can still win one-on-one with his IQ. 

Hiltz is at his best when he can assume an off-ball role with time to beat a defense with his intelligence over athleticism. Carolina’s current lefty-dominant players aren’t as strong as its righties, but Hiltz can thrive by placing himself in the right spots. He likely won’t be the perfect solution for the evolving offense, but he’s a step in the right direction. 

He’s also an excellent cutter off-ball and finishes with ease inside, even if there are defenders draped all over him.

Even when he’s dodging, he uses his IQ to win one-on-one instead of just pure athleticism. 

The Colsey offense has an “inside scorer,” “flex” and “stretch shooter” on each side. Hiltz can fill either of the first two roles on the lefty side of the field.

Matched against a shorty in the flex position, Hiltz can utilize his IQ dodging to draw slides and create easy passes for his teammates. If he’s the beneficiary of the slide, he’ll move it one more with flair and still rip your defense apart.

Hiltz's lacrosse IQ is captivating, and it caught the attention of Ford and Colsey, who traded down from No. 5 to No. 8 in the first round and still got their guy. Their trade partner, the back-to-back champion Utah Archers, used the fifth pick on defenseman Brendan Lavelle, their top target. 

The trade resulted in the Chaos missing out on Matt Traynor, who was selected No. 6 overall by the New York Atlas, and Aidan Carroll at No. 7 to the Maryland Whipsnakes. Traynor and Carroll are right-hand-dominant players, and the Chaos needed a secure ball-handling lefty the most in the draft. It was a draft-day win-win trade.

Will Hiltz be an immediate fix to the Chaos’ league-worst offense from 2024?

No, but he plugs Carolina’s gaping hole on the lefty wing and can be a long-term professional because of his IQ. 

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