Federico Staksrud Traded to New Jersey Fives in the Biggest MLP Move of the 2026 Season
If you follow Major League Pickleball at all, you already know that trades can shift the entire power balance of the league in a matter of hours. But what happened on July 20, 2026, isn’t just another roster move. This is the kind of deal that changes the conversation about who wins a championship — and it happened right at the deadline.
The final trade of the 2026 MLP season sent shockwaves through the pickleball community, and for good reason. According to The Dink, the deal breaks down like this:
- The New Jersey Fives receive Federico Staksrud and Milan Rane
- The Orlando Squeeze receive Martin Emmrich, Lina Padegimaite, and cash
That’s a blockbuster by any measure. Federico Staksrud is one of the most complete male players in professional pickleball right now — elite across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Getting him onto your roster without gutting the rest of your lineup is the kind of thing front offices dream about. The New Jersey Fives just made that dream real.
What Makes This Trade So Significant
To really understand why this trade matters so much, you need to look at what New Jersey already had before this deal went through. The Fives were already carrying Noe Khlif and Will Howells on the men’s side — two players who are absolutely capable of competing at the highest level in MLP. Most analysts and fans assumed that to acquire a player of Staksrud’s caliber, New Jersey would have to part ways with one of those two. That’s just how roster economics usually work in a league with salary constraints and roster limits.
They didn’t have to do that. They kept Khlif. They kept Howells. And now they added Federico Staksrud.
That’s not just a good trade — that’s a front office win. New Jersey GM Ryan Harwood reportedly wanted to add an elite-level male before the deadline, and he did exactly that without sacrificing the depth that already made this team dangerous. The Fives now have three legitimate starting-caliber men, which creates both incredible flexibility and some genuinely interesting lineup questions heading into the rest of the season.
Staksrud has consistently been one of the most versatile and effective players in the game. He’s the kind of athlete who can anchor a mixed doubles pairing, step in on the men’s side, and hold his own in singles situations. Having that kind of player on your team doesn’t just improve one discipline — it elevates the entire squad’s options. Coaches can build lineups with more confidence, make strategic adjustments mid-event, and put pressure on opponents who may not know exactly what’s coming.
Milan Rane coming along in the deal is also worth noting. While Staksrud grabs most of the headlines here, Rane adds additional roster depth that gives New Jersey more tools to work with. This isn’t a one-dimensional move — it’s a layered acquisition that strengthens the team across multiple scenarios.
What Did Orlando Give Up and Was It Worth It?
Let’s be honest about what the Orlando Squeeze are walking away with here, because it doesn’t look great on paper. Martin Emmrich is a solid professional player, Lina Padegimaite brings value on the women’s side, and the cash component — assumed by many to be around the maximum $400,000 — gives Orlando some financial flexibility going forward. But that’s a lot to give up for one of the sport’s premier talents.
Erik Tice, an MLP expert and the GM of the California Black Bears, didn’t mince words when assessing the deal. Writing on social media and offering analysis via The Dink, Tice said he still doesn’t love the deal for Orlando. His core argument: the Squeeze should have pushed harder and gotten Noe Khlif back as part of the return package. Instead, New Jersey got to keep Khlif, keep Howells, and still land Staksrud. From Orlando’s perspective, that’s leaving a lot on the table.
The cash is useful. Emmrich and Padegimaite have talent. But when you’re trading away a generational-caliber player like Staksrud, you want to come out of the deal with something that at least partially fills that void. A combination of Emmrich, Padegimaite, and money doesn’t do that — at least not at the level that Khlif could have. Orlando now heads into the remainder of the 2026 season with a significant gap where their best men’s player used to be, and the competition isn’t going to slow down and wait for them to rebuild.
For an organization that has been trying to compete for an MLP title, this trade feels like a step backward. Whether the front office had reasons we don’t fully know about — contract situations, player preferences, future planning — only time will tell if they made the right call. But from the outside looking in, most observers agree with Tice: Orlando left too much on the table.
The “Super Team” Conversation: New Jersey vs. St. Louis
Before this trade, the St. Louis Shock were widely considered the team to beat in MLP. They had top-tier talent, strong chemistry, and the kind of roster depth that makes them dangerous in every format. They’re still looking for their first MLP title, which adds a layer of hunger and motivation to everything they do on court.
Now New Jersey has entered that same tier of conversation. When pro Zane Navratil says “the rest of the league is playing for third place,” that’s not hyperbole for the sake of drama — that’s a genuine assessment of the power gap that has opened up at the top of the standings. Two teams have separated themselves from the field, and the rest of the league has to figure out how to close that distance.
So who actually wins if New Jersey and St. Louis meet in a championship scenario? Tice broke it down carefully: the Fives’ women’s side is slightly favored in a best-of-three format, even accounting for a recent loss against St. Louis. On the men’s side, Hayden and Gabe from the Shock are still seen as favorites over whatever men’s lineup New Jersey ultimately deploys — though that calculus may shift now that Staksrud is in the mix. In mixed doubles, Tice calls it a genuine toss-up. And if it goes to a Dreambreaker — the tiebreak format MLP uses — New Jersey holds a slight edge, but it’s razor thin.
This is what makes professional pickleball so compelling right now. You have two teams at the top, each with legitimate arguments for why they’re the best, and the margin between them is small enough that any given day could go either way. The addition of Staksrud to the Fives doesn’t guarantee them a title — but it absolutely raises their ceiling and gives them matchup advantages they didn’t have before.
For Fans Who Are New to MLP: Here’s What You Need to Know
If you’re newer to pickleball or just getting familiar with Major League Pickleball, this trade might sound like a lot of names and numbers without much context. Let’s break it down in plain terms.
Major League Pickleball is a professional team-based pickleball league where franchises compete against each other across a season of events. Each team has a roster of men and women, and they compete in men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles matches. There’s also a singles tiebreak format called the Dreambreaker if a team match is tied. It’s fast, it’s intense, and the team dynamics matter a lot — which is why trades like this one are such a big deal.
Federico Staksrud is one of the best male players in the sport right now. Think of him like a franchise cornerstone — the kind of player who elevates everyone around him and gives his team a competitive edge in multiple categories. Trading for a player like that is rare, and doing it without giving up your other top players is even rarer.
The New Jersey Fives pulled it off. They now have three elite men on their roster — Noe Khlif, Will Howells, and now Staksrud — which creates lineup options that other teams simply can’t match. The challenge will be figuring out who starts and in which discipline, but that’s a good problem to have.
Orlando, the team that traded Staksrud away, received two players and a large cash sum in return. While the cash helps with their budget and future roster building, most experts agree they didn’t get enough in terms of on-court talent. They gave up one of the sport’s best players and got back a package that doesn’t replace him at the same level.
The St. Louis Shock are the other top team in the league right now, and they still haven’t won an MLP championship despite being consistently excellent. With New Jersey now looking this strong, the two teams are set up to be the defining rivalry of the 2026 season and potentially beyond.
Roster Questions New Jersey Must Answer
Having an abundance of talent is a luxury — but it does come with real decisions that need to be made. As Tice pointed out, the Fives now have to answer two big questions before they compete: who starts in the men’s draw, and on which side do they play? And equally important, how do they configure their mixed doubles lineups?
These aren’t trivial questions. In MLP, mixed doubles carries just as much weight as men’s or women’s doubles in terms of the overall team result. The chemistry between a mixed pair — how they communicate, how they cover the court, how they handle pressure — can be the difference between a win and a loss. Staksrud is elite in mixed as well as men’s, which means New Jersey’s coaching staff has a lot of combinations to experiment with and optimize before the pressure moments arrive.
Getting these lineups right will be a test of the organization’s strategic thinking. But again, having to solve this particular puzzle is the kind of challenge most teams in MLP would trade their current roster construction to have.
Final Thoughts: What This Means for the 2026 MLP Season
This trade will be talked about for the rest of the 2026 season and probably well into 2027. Whether it ends up being the move that wins New Jersey their first MLP championship, or whether St. Louis finds a way to hold them off, the stakes have never felt higher in professional pickleball.
The league is growing. The talent level is rising. And trades like this one prove that MLP is operating with real competitive intensity — front offices are making aggressive moves, teams are managing rosters like professional sports franchises, and players are being positioned and repositioned in pursuit of a title.
For fans of the sport, this is exactly the kind of drama that makes following a league worthwhile. Two super teams at the top, a trade that reshuffled the deck at the last possible moment, and an entire field of other teams now scrambling to figure out how to compete. The 2026 MLP season just got a lot more interesting.
Keep an eye on how New Jersey deploys their new roster and whether St. Louis makes any moves in response. The rest of the season is shaping up to be one of the most compelling stretches in MLP history — and it all started with one last-minute trade that nobody saw coming quite like this.
