Gavin Adler signing with the Philadelphia Waterdogs through 2028 has left the reigning-champion New York Atlas with a massive hole to fill if they want to repeat in 2026.
The 2025 Defensive Player of the Year erased some of the best attackmen in the world for New York last summer. Now the Atlas are left wondering who will guard Michael Sowers, Pat Kavanagh, Chris Kavanagh and other fleet-footed matchup nightmares.
Fortunately for head coach and general manager Mike Pressler, the club has time to backfill its close defense. But where and when will those answers come?
An in-house solution
The good news for the Atlas is that Michael Grace presents the positional versatility that could allow New York to find an in-house answer to replace Adler. Grace played close for stretches of the 2025 season and boasts the size (6-foot-5, 220 pounds) to handle physical dodgers.
Grace, Brett Makar (who has re-signed with the club) and Michael Rexrode (pending a new contract) could be the Atlas’ starting close defense in 2026 while New York looks to add a long-stick midfielder to play next to 2024 LSM of the Year Tyler Carpenter.
It’s both less difficult to find competent LSM play and easier to hide a below-average LSM. Close defenders play every defensive possession from start to finish. LSMs substitute on part of the way through possessions and rotate shifts.
Grace moving to close doesn’t necessarily solve the matchup problems that Adler’s absence creates. He won’t be guarding Sowers – that responsibility would likely fall to Makar in this scenario. Taking Grace out of the middle of the field also limits his offensive production – he scored 10 points in 2025.
New York has to add at least one pole to its roster for 2026. The club will, however, take solace in the fact that it has defensemen under contract who can help pick up the slack Adler left behind.
Signing a veteran
There are few high-level defenders left unsigned this offseason. Owen Grant re-signed with the Boston Cannons. Chris Fake is back with the California Redwoods. Jarrod Neumann and the Carolina Chaos agreed to a three-year deal.
New York could pursue any of Cam Wyers, Chris Conlin or Ryland Rees to help set the defense’s floor with experienced long poles.
Wyers has close/LSM versatility and won back-to-back titles with the Utah Archers in 2023 and 2024. Conlin has been a stabilizing defensive quarterback for the Woods the last two years. Rees was a consistently productive LSM for the Philadelphia Waterdogs from 2020 through 2024.
Any of those three could be the Atlas’ short-term solution as a plug-and-play option for 2026.
Targeting defenders in the 2026 College Draft
Pressler should take his biggest swing in the College Draft. He’s had success drafting defenders. Adler and Makar were the first two picks of his tenure in New York. The following two years, he hit home runs with Carpenter and Grace in the fourth and third rounds, respectively.
While New York sits at the bottom of the draft board thanks to its 2025 title, the 2026 draft class has a wealth of top-tier defensive prospects.
Will Donovan (Notre Dame), Will Schaller (Maryland), Bobby van Buren (Ohio State), Billy Dwan (Syracuse) and Alex Ross (Penn State) will all be in contention to be first-round picks.
Schaller is the player most similar to Adler in this class. The well-built left-hander is taller than Adler at 6 feet, 210 pounds and can guard a variety of opponents with the technique and speed to match feet and the strength to absorb shoulders to his chest.
Van Buren is a compact 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds with absurd core and upper body strength. His tactical footwork allows him to keep up with smaller, quicker matchups. He’s gone head-to-head with some of the best attackmen in the country in his college career, including New York’s Connor Shellenberger.
Ross is another lockdown lefty. The Penn State Nittany Lion held CJ Kirst to zero points and 0-for-7 shooting in the NCAA semifinals last May, the 2025 No. 1 pick’s lone game without a point in his college career. Ross is matchup-versatile like Schaller and Van Buren.
Donovan and Dwan are both bigger defenders who don’t exactly fit what the Atlas need. If New York is happy moving Grace to close, Donovan could be a top-tier LSM to play alongside Carpenter. If the Atlas think Makar is the guy to take on Sowers, Dwan could be a building-block defender with the requisite size and positional versatility to make New York better.
Schaller, Van Buren and Ross should be the Atlas’ top targets when the draft rolls around in the spring. All three would be Day 1 starters with the potential to fill Adler’s shoes as their careers progress.
