Even if the playoffs are nearly mathematically out of reach, the Aviators have the opportunity to separate themselves from the bottom of the pack this weekend.

Los Angeles currently sits at 1-5 and while its upcoming Northwest opponents, the Oregon Steel and Seattle Cascades, have a combined five wins, their records do not necessarily reflect the teams at play.

Four of the five wins have come against the expansion Las Vegas Bighorns — a future Aviators’ opponent with an 0-7 record — and the fifth was a one-point Steel win over the Cascades. Even with LA’s inferior record, the Northwest squads are only the second and third teams with losing records on the schedule up to this point in the season.

Despite its 3-6 record, Oregon has the worst point differential in the UFA at -63, even one point below the winless Bighorns. While the Steel have won their games by a total of six points, including two one-point victories, they have fallen by an average of 11.5 points per loss.

Their largest losses came to top teams Salt Lake and Oakland, but they also had two double-digit losses to the Colorado Summit, a team who is on the rise after beating Oakland but lost to the 1-6 Houston Havoc earlier this season.

Part of Oregon’s issues this season is its turnover problem. The Steel have turned the disc over 244 times across nine games, leading to the second-worst mark in the UFA for turnovers per game at 27.1.

In all of but one of its wins, Oregon has come under that turnover average, showing when it values the disc, it has success. The lone win above that average was a one-score victory over Las Vegas where the Bighorns committed 29 turnovers.

Other than the anomaly of the tight win over Las Vegas, Oregon also relies on a high huck completion percentage when it wins games. The Steel average 6.9 huck turnovers per game, which is fourth-worst in the UFA, and only complete those long passes at a 52.7% clip.

In their toppling of Seattle and four-score win over Las Vegas, Oregon connected on hucks at a 65.5% rate between the two games. The Aviators will want to focus on limiting the Steel’s deep game and continue to make them force turnovers to come away with the win.

After taking on Nate Knutson, the team’s leading scorer with a career-high 27 goals, and the Steel, Los Angeles will quickly have to shift its focus to the Seattle Cascades.

Despite Seattle’s loss to Oregon and an overall worse record, the Cascades seem to pose more of a threat to LA’s chances at a sweep on the road trip. Even with four more losses than wins, the Cascades have a positive point differential, which seems nearly impossible.

But Seattle has that to its name, losing small and winning big across its two wins and six losses. The Cascades have three losses of five scores against the Oakland Spiders and Salt Lake Shred — the teams atop the West Division with six wins each — along with a loss to each team by only one point.

While the Cascades have shown they cannot close against the top teams in their division, they have two double-digit wins against the Bighorns, showing their caliber against an inferior opponent. Seattle does have the fluke loss to Oregon, but otherwise it has lost to the teams it was supposed to lose to and beat the teams it was supposed to beat.

After losing Khalif El-Salaam to the San Diego Growlers, the Cascades have taken a step back following a 2024 season where they tied their franchise’s single-season win record and made the playoffs, falling in the UFA semifinals to Carolina.

Still, Seattle brought back five of its top-seven scorers to the 2025 squad, along with big additions in rookies Langley Fitzpatrick and Conor Belfield.

Fitzpatrick has helped complement the blocking power of Lukas Ambrose, a former Aviator who has led the league in blocks in each of the last two seasons. Ambrose, however, only has 10 blocks through six games, putting him tied for eighth in the league, but well below his normal standards. Fitzpatrick similarly has 10 blocks but in only five games.

Belfield has tried to fill the very large shoes of El-Salaam and has done so well, notching 5.3 scores per game compared to 3.92 from El-Salaam in 2024. The last time the Cascades played Salt Lake was Belfield’s coming out show, as he had five goals and five assists in the five-point Seattle loss.

But a main reason why Seattle has six losses is a lack of roster consistency. Ambrose, Fitzpatrick and Belfield have combined to miss seven of Seattle’s games and yet still lead the squad in many major categories.

All three are slated to play against the Aviators this weekend, but Zeppelin Raunig, the team’s leading goal scorer with 28 on the season, is listed as out on the team website. Seattle will still have Garrett Martin, the team leader with his 21 assists, but other players will have to step up in Raunig’s absence. 

The Aviators will have to put a defensive focus on Martin and Belfield, while keeping the disc away from Ambrose and Fitzpatrick when they are on offense if they hope to steal a win away from Seattle.

LA plays the Steel tonight at 7 p.m. before coming right back and facing the Cascades at 5 p.m. the next day. Fans can watch both games at https://www.watchufa.tv/.