The one-of-a-kind goaltending of Logan McNaney

A lacrosse goalie is similar to a football quarterback. It’s one player manning a key role who can disproportionately hold the keys to his team’s success in his hands. Also, like a quarterback, it’s a position where you expect a certain build to dominate.

The average starting goalie in the PLL is 6-foot-2, 210 pounds. Many of the young stars in goal use every inch of their massive frames, like Maryland Whipsnakes goalie Emmett Carroll or the New York Atlas’ Liam Entenmann, who command the crease and cover the entire six-by-six goal frame.

But in a league dominated by physically imposing netminders, an undersized rookie has turned the league on its head.

Logan McNaney came into the league with an illustrious college resume. He led Maryland to the NCAA championship game four times, winning a title in 2022. He’s the Terrapins’ all-time save leader and posted a 59% save percentage in his final season, allowing fewer than eight goals per game.

But what was the biggest thing holding him back on the PLL scouting report? His size.

The thing pre-draft pundits — including the author of this article — failed to consider is that McNaney’s 5-foot-10, 185-pound frame isn’t a weakness. It might be his superpower.

An upstate kid from Corning, N.Y., McNaney grew up going to his mom Kim’s practices. He developed a love for the game from there.

“My mom was a lacrosse coach, my dad played in college,” McNaney said. “As soon as I was born, I was kind of destined to play lacrosse no matter what the position was.”

He played every position before eventually settling in between the pipes in middle school. In short order, McNaney developed into one of the top goalies in the country, becoming a high school All-American and landing with one of the sport’s premier programs.

Despite his unique build for the position, McNaney is anything but an underdog story. He’s an alpha. But he does it his own way.

If you ask anyone to describe Logan McNaney as a player or listen to the broadcast for any Denver Outlaws game, you’ll hear the same three words: cool, calm and collected.

More than any other goalie in the game today, McNaney is the calmest in the heat of fire. In big moments, he’s met the bell, and even a bad performance doesn’t slow him down. Against the Atlas, he struggled in the first half but stayed true to his process.

Denver allowed just three goals after halftime, and McNaney made three clutch saves in overtime to allow the Outlaws to complete the comeback.

But McNaney’s calm isn’t just his mentality; it’s his physical play style. He gets to a ready position early and is able to keep his body quiet as shooters attempt a shot.

Bigger goalies tend to move more with the ball, cutting off angles while having the reach to make a save out of position. McNaney makes those precise movements earlier, which allows him to make repeatable and clean saves.

He understands the importance of these little details, and it allows him to increase his shot-stopping.

“As a small goalie, minuscule movements can make the biggest difference,” McNaney said in an interview with ESPN’s Paul Carcaterra. “I might not be in the best positions, but I can be set because I can control that.”

Throughout his development, McNaney leaned into the skills he does have. While another goalie may have the ability to react to and recover, McNaney honed in on his poise and reaction time.

For his entire lacrosse career, he’s been hyper focused on these elements of his game. In turn, he’s developed into one of the more unique and impactful goalies in the sport.

There’s a huge difference between a save and a clean save, especially in the PLL where the shorter field and faster possessions lead to more transition offense. Nobody in the world is better at making clean saves than McNaney.

McNaney finished the regular season with a 60.6% clean save percentage — meaning nearly two-thirds of his saves were clean. When you consider that he’s saving 58.3% of shots he faces, that’s a lot of opportunities to blow the game open.

What allows McNaney to separate in this department is his quiet body movement and violent hands. He puts himself in good positions where he doesn’t have to move his body much to make a play. From those positions, his hands do the rest with a quick, decisive move to the ball.

It takes a lot of tenacity to play the goalie position. While McNaney may be calm, cool and collected when he’s seeing shots, there’s also another part of his game.

Growing up in Corning, there was one goalie McNaney always admired and emulated: Brett Queener.

Queener, a five-time MLL All-Star and two-time league champion, was one of the best goalies of his era. For all of his exploits between the pipes, his play outside the crease is what he’ll always be remembered for.

McNaney admired watching Queener make audacious plays outside the cage and attributes a lot of his dynamism outside the pipes to the Penn Yan legend.

“A lot of that has to do with me watching Brett Queener growing up, because he did that all the time,” McNaney said. “He’d go coast to coast, and then he’d shoot, get saved. He’d have to run all the way back, make a save.”

McNaney has channeled that chaotic energy outside of the cage into his game. He’s aggressive in transition, especially with early outlet passes to streaking poles and midfielders. He’ll contest a passing lane or dive for a run out on the end line.

Would he ever do something as audacious as running the length of the field both ways a la Queener?

“I don’t know if I can do that,” McNaney joked. “I’m meant for sprinting not long distance.”

McNaney does things differently from the other seven starting goalies in the PLL. He’s loud with his voice but quiet with his body. He’s explosive with his hands and dynamic with his passing. But maybe what he does better than anybody at his position is win.

At Maryland, he went to four championship games and won 58 games. In the pros, he took over an 0-2 Denver team and sparked a six-game winning streak that catapulted the Outlaws into the top seed in the West.

“He’s turned our season around since he’s been in,” veteran defenseman Mike Manley said.

No other goalies look like McNaney. No other goalies play like McNaney. That’s what makes him great. And he’s what’s making Denver into one of the premier challengers for a PLL Championship.