The most competitive division in the Association is home to the top two teams in the league
April 23, 2026 by Alex Rubin in Preview
Long considered the most competitive division, with four of the last six league championships, the East Division this season offers not just top level play but also plenty of intrigue. Defending champions Boston will be fending off a furious challenge from New York, who once again “won” the offseason with several splashy signings.
With DC in something of a transition year, the door is open for either Toronto or Montreal to sneak into the playoffs should they be able to integrate their new stars well. Philadelphia too is in a bit of transition, and while they likely will not threaten for a playoff spot, they are certainly talented enough to play competitive games each week and absolutely could derail one of the favorites seasons with an untimely upset.
Boston Glory
After years of promise, the Boston Glory put all of the pieces together last season on their way to their first title. Bringing back the majority of that team, the Glory not only have everything they need to compete for another title, but they know it too…and so does the rest of the league.
Boston will have two main challenges this year. The first is the big target on their back that comes with a title. Last year after Minnesota won, their division rival Chicago went on a free agent spending spree. Similarly, Boston’s biggest rival, New York, brought in their own collection of superstars this season in an effort to deny the champs a repeat opportunity.1
The second big challenge will be replacing Tannor Johnson-Go, last year’s Defensive Player Of The Year. Between Lander Decraene, who is an incredible defender, Rowan McDonnell, who played last season on Boston DiG’s D-line, and Thomas Edmonds, one of the league’s best counterattack quarterbacks, the Glory have a few ways that they can replace Johnson-Go’s production, but the process to get there will be more than just plugging in one new person.
The Glory have an impressive crop of young players all coming into their own as professionals. Team captains Peter Boerth and Oscar Graff are coming off of their first true offseason (in which they were not also competing in the college division) and surely appreciated the time to focus on their game. Turner Allen, Zach Singer, Albert Yuan, and Orion Cable are all on similar trajectories and should all find ways to level up this season. And of course, Boston has the most recent two MVPs in Tobe Decraene and Jeff Babbitt. Enough said.
It is incredibly difficult to win back-to-back titles, but this Boston team is setting themselves up to be able to do it.
Key Additions: Thomas Edmonds, Rowan McDonnell, Lander Decraene, Christian Foster, Franky Fernandez
Key Losses: Tannor Johnson-Go, Calvin Stoughton, Sebastian Rossi
X-Factor: Target on their backs
Biggest Game: June 12 at New York. A potential playoff preview, this matchup could determine who has home field on the way to Championship Weekend
Expected Ceiling: Back-to-back champions
Expected Floor: losing the East Division final
New York Empire
Never a team to settle for anything less than a title, the New York Empire made some of the splashiest moves of the offseason in an effort to unseat the champs and return to Championship Weekend after two seasons away. Daan De Marrée is the consensus best player in the world right now, and it is no surprise that he was asked to join the team. Alex Atkins moved to the East Coast last summer and was enticed to play with New York rather than his hometown Philadelphia Phoenix. Alex Davis is joining the parade of former UNC players in the Big Apple2 and his speed may be exactly what this Empire team needs to open up its attack that otherwise has a lot of size and throwing skill. Nicholas Whitlock may not be a name too known in North America,3 but his throwing arsenal might be tailor-made for the bigger UFA field.
And those are just the additions! The Empire return the stars from their last title run like Jack Williams, Ben Jagt, John Randolph, Marques Brownlee, and Antoine Davis, who are still the heartbeat of the team. If it were not for Boston, New York might be the obvious title favorite. But, despite the incredible talent and clear improvements that the Empire made, they can not be considered the favorite until they show they can beat the Glory. Whichever of these two teams makes it out of the East Division4 will be considered the favorite to win another title, and their battle for positioning all season long will be entertaining to watch for everyone.
Key Additions: Daan De Marrée, Alex Atkins, Alex Davis, Nicholas Whitlock, Elliott Moore, Braden Eberhard5
Key Losses: Calvin Brown (injury), Shashank Alladi
X-Factor: Ability to make mid-season adjustments
Biggest Game: June 5 at Boston. In their first shot at the defending champions, a win on the road would go a long way towards success this season.
Expected Ceiling: UFA Champions
Expected Floor: losing the East Division final
DC Breeze
More than maybe any other team in the league, the DC Breeze are leaning into a new wave of younger players to carry them this season. The key figures who helped build the Breeze into an elite team are now all gone following Jonny Malks’ departure after 2024 and this offseason’s loss of Thomas Edmonds and Rowan McDonnell.
This is now fully the team of Christian Boxley, AJ Merriman, Jacques Nissen, Aidan Downey, and Andrew Roy, and the contributions of players like Marcus Lee, Couper Kerns, Isaac Lee, Coby Loveranes, and Micah Wagner. Any one (or more!) of those players could blossom into stars this season given the right opportunity. With a new coaching staff taking over, there should be plenty of opportunity to impress and earn playing time as the Breeze figure out the best way to build the most competitive roster this season.
Joining solid contributors like Cole Jurek and Miles Grovic, veteran additions in Sean Mott, Raymond Lu, and Billy O’Bryan should also be instant-impact additions. While it might take some time for them to integrate into the Breeze system, they are all the kinds of players who will push the team forward once they find their place. It would be easy to see the Breeze lose three of their biggest contributors over the last few years and write off their potential, and it is difficult to not see their playoff loss last season as a nadir (they scored just nine goals in the East Division championship game), but DC has a ton of talent that has not yet reached its potential and the Breeze could be right back in that divisional title game this season if everything goes as planned.
Key Additions: Sean Mott, Wiebe van den Brink, Raymond Lu, Billy O’Bryan
Key Losses: Thomas Edmonds, Rowan McDonnell, Tyler Monroe, Moussa Dia
X-Factor: Getting the offense right without Rowan
Biggest Game: May 29-20 at Toronto and Montreal. Both teams will be coming for the Breeze’s playoff spot, so beating both on the road in back-to-back days would be huge for a team looking to keep its place among the elite
Expected Ceiling: winning a playoff game
Expected Floor: missing out on the playoffs
Toronto Rush
If last year’s Rush Reboot did not produce the intended results, it is difficult to make sense of this season’s Reboot 2.0 (Rush Reset? Rush Refresh? Rush Redo?). Gone is the group of European stars meant to bring the Rush back to title contention; in their place is a younger group of Canadians eager to reinvigorate this proud Canadian franchise.
Coming from the West Coast, Gagan Chatha, Justin Podnar, and Max Pettenuzzo are all potential superstars. Chatha has three years of UFA experience (albeit in a very different period of the then-AUDL) with Vancouver already under his belt and a decade of elite club and Team Canada experience, too. Podnar and Pettenuzzo are younger and will join here as teammates despite being college rivals. Each spends a lot of time behind the disc while in college but both have the skillset to win matchups downfield. Given the significant travel involved, it will be a challenge to integrate these players into a new system, and finding the right role for them will be the key to success for the Rush.
With franchise stalwarts like Phil Turner, Luc Comire, Marty Gallant, and Keith McRae sticking around, and the return of former stars Akifumi Muraoka and Isaiah Masek-Kelly, the Rush have a very solid base on which to build. They could not build as much success as they wanted to last season, so they’ll need to change that approach to find more wins this year.
Key Additions: Gagan Chatha, Justin Podnar, Max Pettenuzzo, Logan Keillor, Akifumi Muraoka (returning), Isaiah Masek-Kelly (returning)
Key Losses: Tom Blasman, Arvids Karklins, Toms Abeltins, Connor McHale, James Lewis, Ty Barbieri, Oscar Stonehouse, Wilkie Lewis, Mark Lloyd
X-Factor: integrating another set of stars
Biggest Game: June 20 at Seattle. A fun cross-divisional matchup, maybe the Vancouver-based players will be helpful in this Cascadia showdown. Great teams are able to win back-to-backs on the road and this will be a late-season test for a Rush team that is hoping to be that good.
Expected Ceiling: sneaking into the East Division playoffs
Expected Floor: last in the division
Montreal Royal
The Montreal Royal have a lot of reasons to be encouraged heading into the 2026 season. Bringing back Malik Auger-Semmar after two years away is a major get. The downfield dynamo makes playing offense so much easier for everyone else on the field; he was very good in 2023, and surely is even better now after starring for Team Canada at last summer’s World Games. He isn’t the only World Games caliber athlete joining the team — France’s Simon Ruelle was one of the marquee signings of the offseason, and he is bringing compatriot Enzo Forget, too. Though not as well known in North America, both Ruelle and Forget could end up with UFA All-Rookie spots by the end of the season.
Despite the team’s continuity and positive additions, the question in Montreal will be whether that is enough to improve in the standings. Both Philadelphia and Toronto have similar levels of talent and Montreal has struggled in the past to really stamp out their opposition. If the Royal are going to make a playoff push, beating the non-New York and Boston teams is a must, not a nice-to-have. Early tests against Toronto will give players and fans alike a good sense of how the division race will shape up by season’s end.
Key Additions: Simon Ruelle, Enzo Forget, Malik Auger-Semmar (returning)
Key Losses: Kuochuan Ponzio
X-Factor: sweeping season series – they’ll need to against Toronto and Philadelphia to have a playoff shot
Biggest Game: May 9 at Toronto, a classic rivalry that also presents a good litmus test for this year’s team
Expected Ceiling: sneaking into the East Division playoffs
Expected Floor: last in the division
Philadelphia Phoenix
It will be a year of turnover for the Philadelphia Phoenix as longtime franchise legends Sean Mott (playing for DC) and Eric Nardelli (retiring from the UFA) move on. In addition, the Grossberg brothers are not playing this season and Nate Little is playing in Indianapolis. For a team that showed a lot of promise last season, this is a significant reset.
Luckily, the Philadelphia area is delivering another good crop of promising young prospects. Ezra Beidler-Shenk (Pacmen/Pitt) and Nolan McCloskey (AMP/Brown) both are coming off of impressive club debuts with local teams are currently among the drivers of their respective college teams’ offenses. Both may wait until late May (after the College Championships) to join the Phoenix, but they could be instant impact additions once they take the field.
Along with the continued development of young players like Max Tran, Ethan Sarles, and Chase Rawlins, Philadelphia is also bringing back a crop of veterans who raise the floor for this team (Dustin Damiano, Matt Esser, Brandon Pastor, and Greg Martin) and has one genuine star in Scott Heyman. Heyman is a game-changing athlete with the speed to find openings that simply are not there for other cutters and the ability to generate impressive chasedown blocks. If he is able to reach another level, perhaps Philadelphia will have an entry into the All-UFA teams, and perhaps they’ll have enough firepower to really surprise a higher ranked team.
Key Additions: Ezra Beidler-Shenk, Nolan McCloskey
Key Losses: Sean Mott, Nate Little, Sam Grossberg, Michael Maroon, Adam Grossberg, Eric Nardelli
X-Factor: another crop of promising rookies turning into key contributors
Biggest Game: May 30 against Pittsburgh in the Commonwealth Cup. The Phoenix could otherwise go winless, but keeping the Cup would be a success.
Expected Ceiling: winning four games would be a success
Expected Floor: last in the division
Incredibly, both Chicago last year and New York this year brought in Daan De Marrée ↩
Ben Dameron and Anders Juengst live there too but are not playing this UFA season ↩
You might remember him from his play of the year submission in 2020 ↩
And yes, it does appear to be a two-team race ↩
Side note, if you haven’t seen Eberhard’s work with Shown Space it is worth your attention ↩
