San Diego @ Toronto, Game 1

I wrote about this game here.

Halifax @ Georgia

It was like déjà vu all over again. Halifax was down by three in the second, when they suddenly seem to figure out Brett Dobson, which nobody has been able to do all season. They scored five straight as part of an 8–1 run and take a 9–5 lead, and Georgia was not able to recover. Sounds a bit like Halifax’s quarterfinal win over Vancouver, does it not? Unlike the Warriors, Georgia managed to score a few in the second half and keep it close, but the Thunderbirds still scored the last three goals of the game and kept Georgia from scoring for the last nine minutes. I’m starting to wonder if taking an early lead against Halifax is not in your best interest.

Brett Dobson was good but Warren Hill was excellent. Remember those guys at the beginning of the season who wondered if Hill was the right guy for the starting goalie job in Halifax? I remember those guys, because I’m pretty sure I was one of them. Damn, this crow tastes terrible, but I earned it. Hill was excellent in the second half of the season and has been incredible so far in the playoffs.

Clarke Petterson

One thing I noticed, and the stats bear this out, is that both teams seemed to miss the net with shots all night. The game sheet shows Halifax taking 65 shots on goal, which is a lot, but also 29 shots off goal. The Swarm took 42 on goal and 23 off. I don’t track shots off goal for NLLStats.com so I don’t know for sure but that seems like an awful lot. Maybe the goalies were playing well enough that the forwards felt that they had no choice but to pick corners with every shot, and that results in a higher chance of missing the net entirely.

Clarke Petterson picked up nine points (2+7) for the T-birds, Jason Knox continued his hot playoff run with four goals and a couple of helpers, and Brendan Bomberry scored a couple against his old team. For the Swarm, the points were widely spread out as Richie Connell was the only player with more than one goal and only three players had more than one assist. Then again, they only scored seven goals so there weren’t that many points available. Game two goes next Saturday night in Halifax, and if Game three is required, it’ll be next Sunday night in Halifax (see below).

Toronto @ San Diego, Game 2

As was said a number of times on the broadcast, it’s been a few years since a team lost the first game of a three-game series and came back to win the series. The Rock went into San Diego trying to prevent that from happening and to get to their first finals appearance since 2015, but the Seals dominated just about every facet of game two. The series will now continue next Saturday night in Hamilton, winner take all.

Nick Rose didn’t have the best game ever, nor did Toronto’s defense. Rose just wasn’t seeing the ball well and the defense wasn’t as strong at preventing shots as they have been. At the other end of the floor, the San Diego defense was very strong, not giving the Rock good looks at all, and Cam Dunkerley was simply outstanding. He has been a starter in the NLL in the past, for New York in 2024, and while that wasn’t a great season for him, he had some very good games. But allowing only six goals in 60 minutes is a new record for him, and an 85.7% save percentage is the second best game of his career in that category. He was seeing the ball well, stopping everything we expected him to stop, and a bunch we didn’t. He kept the Rock off the board entirely for more than 37 minutes from the first to the third quarters.

Dylan Watson seems to have inherited his father’s ability to step up his game in the playoffs. Watson scored four goals on Sunday, something he’s only done once before in his NLL career. He now has four points in three straight playoff games, something he’s never done in the regular season. San Diego has been talking about Wes Berg as Mr. Clutch for years, and it’s certainly not that I didn’t believe them before, but boy, is he showing that in this series. He’s only scored one goal in the series but he has twelve helpers, fights for loose balls, fights for his teammates, and is generally demonstrating the leadership you expect from your captain.

After the Seals lead got to six in the third quarter, the Rock tried to mount a comeback but San Diego refused to give up momentum. The Rock cut the lead to five on five different occasions over the last twenty minutes of the game, but the Seals scored the next goal after every one of them except the last, at which point it was basically over anyway.

Kudos to the Seals for an excellent game, and kudos to Cam Dunkerley for an incredible performance.

Not Awesome

Georgia loses out on a home playoff game

Since Georgia is the higher-seeded team in their series, they should host games one and three and Halifax should host game two. But there’s a problem: after last Saturday night, Gas South Arena is booked solid. After trying to find a different place to play and even considering neutral sites (Oshawa was apparently on the table), the league has decided that if there’s a game three, it will be played in Halifax. There’s really not much else they can do.

Yes, it sucks for Georgia fans. Nobody will argue that. But there’s precedent for it. In 2007, the Rochester Knighthawks finished the season 14–2 and won their last twelve straight games. They unquestionably earned the right to host the Championship, but they couldn’t. It sounds like a joke but there was a circus in Rochester, and they had the arena booked. The Knighthawks also tried to find another site but failed, and the Championship game was held in Arizona. The Knighthawks won anyway, but their fans had to watch it on whatever the equivalent of NLL+ was at the time.

So it’s happened before, and no, it’s not ideal. Then again:

• hosting one extra game in the arena that was third in attendance instead of the one that was thirteenth isn’t such a bad thing for the league as a whole
• the Swarm had home-floor advantage in game one and squandered it, so I don’t feel as bad about them losing that advantage in game three.

I’ve been around this league long enough to know that there will be people on social media screaming about how this is such a bad look for the league and it’s a bush league move and god the nll sucks and and and… Get over it. It’s par for the course when you’re the second, third, or even fourth tenant in your building.

If Georgia comes back and wins this series, we may run into the same problem in the finals because the arena is also booked the weekend that the finals are scheduled to start. The Swarm are the highest remaining seed in the playoffs so regardless of who they’d play, they should host games one and three but if the arena isn’t available, well, that could get interesting.

As I texted to a friend of mine during the game, the Seals just won’t go away.

The Rock took a three-goal lead in the first, but the Seals tied it by halftime. Then Toronto scored three straight in the third to take another three-goal lead, but the Seals tied it by the end of the quarter. In the fourth, we had another Rock lead, followed by another Seals tying goal. Then the Seals grabbed their only lead of the game, which lasted for a minute before the Rock tied it up. It wasn’t until Ben McIntosh’s dunk attempt with 17.2 seconds left in the fourth quarter was declared no goal that Rock fans were able to breathe a little. Personally, I didn’t breathe out again until the final buzzer sounded; a “two goals in the final 17 seconds” comeback might not even make the top three in the 2026 list of “craziest things we’ve seen in the playoffs”.

Rebounds were one of the big stories of this game. Rose is usually pretty good with rebound control, but both he and Dunkerley seemed to give up a ton of them, which led to a lot of extra offensive chances. Both teams also seemed… I don’t know if “overly excited” is the right phrase, but there were a number of times where shots were taken before the offense was fully set up, and there was a quick turnover. I kept thinking “the coach needs to convince them to slow things down a little” but it didn’t always happen. Even as the Rock were killing off a five-minute penalty, a Rock defender ran up the floor in transition and took a shot almost right away. If you have a great shooting opportunity then that’s fine, but that wasn’t always the case.

Challen Rogers

Both captains led the way for their teams – Wes Berg with 7 assists and Challen Rogers with a hat-trick and a pair of assists. Zach Currier was his normal self: a goal, three assists, and seventeen loose balls, more than both face-off guys combined. Tre Leclaire was all over the place as well, and Mark Matthews had, believe it or not, only his second hat-trick of the season.

The Rock transition was on fire. Sam English had three goals – two unassisted and one with an assist from Rose. Jubenville had four assists, Rose had three, Kelleher had two, and Latrell Harris had one. Dan Craig’s goal in the third was, as Teddy Jenner called it on the broadcast, “textbook transition”. Jubenville passed it up to Kelleher, who saw Craig on the other side, but Craig pointed back to Jubenville, so that’s where Kelleher sent it. The defenders looked back, and Jubenville passed it across to an open Craig who buried it. Such a beautiful setup.

The play now shifts to SoCal, where the Seals were only 3–6 this season, two of their three wins coming against non-playoff teams. The Rock won there in January 12–7, though Chris Origlieri didn’t play in that game. If O-rig is able to play in Game two, expect another hard-fought, close battle. But we saw Cam Dunkerley play a solid game on Friday so Origlieri is not able to play, expect another hard-fought, close battle.

Other game notes

• If you watch the replay on NLL+, go to time index 47:56, and check out the incredible pass from Josh Jubenville to Chris Boushy. It travels about half the length of the floor, right into Boushy’s stick a couple of inches off the ground. Boushy grabs it and puts it behind Dunkerley in a single movement. The goal was very nice but the pass was another thing of beauty.
• Josh Jackson was given a major penalty at the end of the second quarter. A guy sitting behind me was adamant that Jackson was trying to play the ball and the contact with Currier must have been unintentional. But you can see on the replay that the ball rolled right in front of Jackson, who never even looked at it. He was too busy looking straight at Currier right before his shoulder made contact with Currier’s head. In my mind, a major was the right call.
• Chris Origlieri is one of the top goalies in the league and when he’s on his game, he can hold his own with anyone. Early in the second quarter, he was pulled and I saw him walking through the Seals bench before heading down the tunnel. He was taking very deep breaths (“in through the nose, out through the mouth”) and not talking to anyone. I later found out through X that he was removed under concussion protocols after being hit in the head with a couple of shots. We’ve seen enough lacrosse players (and athletes in general) whose careers are affected and sometimes ended by concussions to know that they are no joke. I really hope he’s OK.
• Cam Dunkerley had a very good game in relief of Origlieri. There were probably a few goals that he’d want back but he also made some excellent saves. The life of a backup goalie: this was the second game he’s seen action in since January 9. Then he sits on the bench and barely moves (other than opening and closing the bench door) for 20 minutes before being forced to get on the floor in his team’s most important game of the season.
• It was the smallest crowd of the season in Toronto but that’s typical for playoff games in the NLL. The team had all of a week to sell tickets. But they were loud.
• I paid close attention to Baptiste and Rowlett at the face-off dot. If you’re unsure whether face-off guys are real athletes, try this: do a plank, then flex every muscle in your body as hard as you can, and hold it for 30–45 seconds. Do that a couple of dozen times over two hours. Sure, some of the face-offs only took a few seconds but many were quite prolonged. Oh, and you have to go play some defense in between the planks.
• CJ Kirst had his first NLL game with zero points, but he still played well off-ball, fighting for loose balls and rebounds, and basically forcing defenders to pay attention to him while opening up space for his teammates to score.
• Awesome: I saw three guys with jerseys that were split down the middle – Seals colours with #45 on the left, Rock colours with #29 on the right, and the name “Watson” across the top. I was behind them so I didn’t see the front. In case you are unaware, Dylan Watson (#45 on San Diego) is the son of Bob Watson, the Hall of Fame goaltender who wore #29 in thirteen seasons with the Rock.
• I saw someone wearing a Sabres jersey, which is a bit odd at a lacrosse game. But the Sabres are further into the playoffs than they’ve been in a very long time, so I totally get it. But the kid wearing the Bandits jersey? That’s weird.

The goal went to automatic review, as all overtime goals do, and after a review that lasted three minutes and 31 seconds, the refs concluded that the goal was good and the game was over. But the next morning, there were some rumblings from a few people, including Colorado defensive coach Andrew McBride, that the goal was illegal and shouldn’t have counted. Later that evening, the NLL posted a message to social media admitting that the officials had gotten the call wrong and the goal should have been disallowed.

Before going any further, let me say Bravo to the league for admitting the mistake. As others have said, it would have been easy to just keep quiet. It takes guts to publicly admit something like this.

The reasoning behind the announcement was that after Leclaire took his first shot, he stepped in the crease (actually just on the line, but that’s the same thing). This means that he cannot be the first offensive player to receive a pass after leaving the crease, but he was. Rule 67.3 (which is the rule explicitly mentioned by the league) says this:

An attacking player who is not in possession of the ball and is in contact in the opposing crease and then exits the crease, and is the first to receive a pass after exiting the crease is in violation and possession shall be awarded to the non-offending team.

By this rule, the goal should never have been allowed. This is not a rule that your average NLL fan is even likely to know about. It’s not called in every game, but it’s not obscure or rare. It just doesn’t usually have the impact that it did here.

Leclaire steps on the line right after the shot

However

The rule immediately before this one in the rule book, 67.2, says this (emphasis mine):

If an attacking player who, after taking a shot on goal, or making a pass, steps by way of his momentum into the crease and then immediately out, is not in violation of the goal – crease area provided the attacking player is not the first to touch the ball (not including after a touch by the goalie) and or directly interferes with an opposing player who is attempting to pick up the ball.

To me, this sounds exactly like what happened here. If you watch Leclaire’s first shot (here’s the video, go to time index 2:29:31), he shoots and then his momentum carries him forward onto the line. (You can kinda see this in the image above, though it’s not clear that he is actually stepping on the line, and you can’t tell that it was his momentum that pushed him there.) He immediately steps back, and then receives the pass a second or two later. He is not the first to touch the ball (Berg is), and there is no interference with an opposing player. By this rule, the fact that he had touched the line should not be considered and the goal should count.

But the league did an extra review and determined that the official’s review was wrong, which means that either they didn’t consider rule 67.2 at all (seems unlikely) or they decided that it didn’t apply. I don’t know which it is.

So what do we do about it?

The league said that the officials involved in this game would not be officiating any other games in these playoffs. That’s fine in terms of accountability of the officials, but Colorado’s season is still done, and it shouldn’t be. Even if the Seals are beaten by the Rock in the semis or by Halifax/Georgia in the finals, the Mammoth might have won those series. If San Diego goes on to win the Championship, will we put an asterisk next to it in the NLL record books? It’s a horrible situation.

Like it or not, the only realistic “solution” is that we just accept that a mistake was made but keep going. It obviously sucks for Colorado. It sucks for the NLL because they will forever have this hanging over them. In a way, it also sucks for San Diego (though to a far lesser degree) if they do win because many will consider it an “invalid” or “stolen” Championship.

Someone mentioned the possibility of bringing both the Mammoth and the Seals to Toronto (Hamilton) for game one of the semi-finals next weekend. They would finish their overtime game and the winner would play the Rock in game one. I don’t hate that idea (partially because I’ll be there), but there’s more to it than just flying the players in. They’d need their entire staff – everyone who the team would normally bring to an away game – and all their equipment. And they’d need shootaround time earlier in the day. And they’d need practice time before the game. And a third dressing room. And the league would likely want to televise it, or at least broadcast it on NLL+, and there are logistics there. And the players and staff need to get paid for an extra day, and there may be CBA implications.

If after all that, they continue their overtime period and San Diego scores a completely legal goal 20 seconds in, that’s an awful lot of effort and expense to bring the Mammoth in for 20 seconds. Plus if Colorado wins, then as the higher seed, game one of the semis should be in Colorado.

As I said, it’s a horrible situation and there aren’t any great solutions. Even Coach McBride seemed to reluctantly accept that there was nothing more that could be done. I feel terrible for the Mammoth fans and players for getting so close to their ultimate goal and having it unfairly taken away.

For the playoffs, I will skip the Awesome / Not Awesome format and just look at the games that happened. With one exception.

Halifax vs. Vancouver

This started off looking like it was going to be an exciting close game. And then it wasn’t. And then it was!

Christian Del Bianco looked like he was chasing that elusive first-ever NLL shutout, and it was 14 minutes before a Halifax got anything by him, but Warren Hill was just as good at the other end. In the second quarter, the Warriors looked to be pulling away, scoring five more and keeping the Thunderbirds off the board entirely. They took a comfortable 7–1 lead into the half.

In the second half, it was clear that Warren Hill and the Halifax defense had stepped up their game a bit, and Vancouver just couldn’t get shots off or missed the net. Cody Jamieson and Jason Knox both scored to get the Thunderbirds back within four, but it wasn’t until the next goal, completing Knox’s hat-trick, that I realized Vancouver still hadn’t scored in the second half, and started to think that Halifax had a real shot. They got a couple on the power play and then Mike Robinson tied it with 25 seconds left in the quarter, and I thought we were in for a whale of a fourth quarter. And we were but again, not how I thought it would go.

I expected a couple of goals each way and a one-goal final score, possibly even involving overtime. But Halifax’s new-found dominance continued. Long story short, Vancouver never scored again and Halifax did. Both goalies were excellent in one half and even better in the other. But Halifax’s defense was the X-factor here, not just preventing goals but preventing shots. Vancouver’s defense, one of the best in the league, allowed 71 shots. CDB had a higher save percentage than Warren Hill in this game, but the volume of shots he was seeing was just too much. I’m not enough of an X’s and O’s guy to tell you exactly what the Warriors defense was doing wrong, but “allowing too many shots” was the end result.

Jason Knox

The 71 shots faced and 61 saves made are both NLL playoff game records for Del Bianco, and as I said he beat Hill in save percentage in the game as well. But I’m quite sure doesn’t give even the smallest f**k about any of that. Congratulations to the Thunderbirds on their well-earned victory.

Buffalo vs. Georgia

This game was the only one where the higher-seeded team won, but it was also surprising because it ended what will likely be known as “the Buffalo Bandits dynasty of the early 20’s”. We all expected this to be a close game since they were fairly evenly matched teams, but considering we had the current best goalie in the league facing the all-time best goalie in the league, I think we all expected a low-scoring game as well. Brett Dobson allowed double-digit goals, which he’d only done three times out of eighteen games in the regular season, but still made some of the incredible saves that we’ve become accustomed to this season. Matt Vinc allowed 17, something he hadn’t done in over a year and tied for the highest total of his career. Obviously the loss of Steve Priolo affected the Bandits defense but the Swarm offense was clicking all night. Lyle Thompson was vintage Lyle Thompson, rookie Nolan Byrne looked like a wily vet rather then a 21-year-old playing in his first-ever NLL playoff game, and Benedict, Moon, Jackson, and Connell all put up big numbers as well.

Ian MacKay was the only Bandit to score more than once, and Dhane Smith had an incredibly rare two-point night including no goals. The Swarm took an early lead but we all knew the Bandits were fully capable of pouring it on and catching up… they just never did. The loss of Michael Grace in the first quarter didn’t help the Swarm defense at all, considering he’s been one of their best defenders all year, but guys like Van Schepen, Hickey, and Wiedemann were able to pick up the slack.

The Swarm move on to face the Thunderbirds while the Bandits go home far earlier than they have in a few years – this will be the first NLL Finals without the Bandits since 2018.

Toronto vs. Saskatchewan

Considering the OT game these teams played just a week ago, this was another case of “this should be a close one”, and it was, for the most part. Toronto took a 2–1 lead six minutes into the first quarter and built up a four-goal lead by the end of the quarter. They kept that lead until near the end of the second, when the Rush tied it at 7. The Rush even took a lead in the third and held it for almost two minutes before the Rock tied it, outscoring the Rush 8–4 the rest of the way. Neither goalie was particularly sharp but despite the 29 goals scored, I thought both defenses did pretty well at limiting looks and forcing bad shots.

The Rock welcomed Mark Matthews back from injury with open arms and while Chris Boushy didn’t have a great season, he looked strong with five of his typical shoot-from-the-doorstep-or-dive-through-the crease goals. On the Rush side, Shanks and Church each had hat-tricks, and their transition game was great. It’s hard to point to one single thing and say that is why Toronto won or that is why the Rush lost. It was an evenly matched game, but the Rock were just a bit stronger in the fourth quarter, which allowed them to pull away and punch their ticket to the semis.

San Diego vs. Colorado

Similar to Matthews on the Rock, Andrew Kew and Thomas Vela were happily welcomed back into the Mammoth dressing room on Saturday. They both had good games, with Kew scoring 4 goals and seven points. Vela picked up a couple of assists but as usual, he was involved in many of the Mammoth goals even if the stats didn’t reflect it. But a bit surprisingly, their return wasn’t enough to propel the Mammoth past the Seals. Historically, the Seals have always been tough for the Mammoth – Colorado has won seven games against San Diego, but never by more than 3 goals. The Seals have won 13 of their meetings, and seven of those were by four or more.

Colorado led by four twice in the third but only for a total of about three minutes. Otherwise, this was a close game all the way through. I thought both offenses had great games, with good ball movement and some pretty creative shooting and passing. Origlieri and Ward were both pretty solid in the cages, with Ward facing 68 shots (second all-time in shots faced in a playoff game – only Del Bianco’s game on Friday beats it).

And then came overtime. Only a minute in, Tre Leclaire took a shot on Ward which he stopped, sending the rebound off to his left. Wes Berg retrieved the ball and passed it back to Leclaire who shot it between Ward’s legs. That goal ended the game and Colorado’s season.

Not Awesome

It shouldn’t have. Or maybe it should have?

I’ve written another article with more details on this strange case. It’s strange enough that the league admitted that their officials got a call wrong. I’m sure that’s happened before in a number of leagues but as far as I know, a league admitting that the outcome of a playoff game was wrong might be unprecedented.

2026 saw a couple of records set in terms of “best season of all time”, both by Brett Dobson. His save percentage of 84.7% beat Doug Jamieson’s 82.9% in 2020. His GAA of 7.86 is almost a full point better than second place Aaron Bold’s 8.73 in 2014. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just witnessed the best season by a goaltender, statistically, in NLL history.

Awesome

Constant action

On Saturday night, I watched lacrosse non-stop from about 4:30pm until 12:30am. That’s eight solid hours of lacrosse – and I missed half an hour at the beginning because I was late. Seven games in one day (somewhat spread out so we didn’t have them all at the same time) was pretty awesome. But for the first round of the playoffs, the best we can hope for is two or maybe three games in one day. In the second round it’ll be no more than two on one day, and in the finals we might get two in one weekend. There are at least ten but at most thirteen games left in the 2026 NLL season.

Halifax

Considering both teams were playing for their playoff lives, it’s a bit surprising that this wasn’t a closer game. Warren Hill has had an up-and-down season, following the two-wins-then-two-losses pattern almost the entire season. But on Saturday night he was excellent, putting up his third-highest save percentage of the season at 87.2% and only allowing five goals. The defence in front of him was strong and their transition game was great. The offense was pretty strong but a bunch of goals came from some rather unlikely sources. Bowhunter and Hossack each had their first multi-goal game of the season, Colton Armstrong scored his fourth of the year, Curtis Romanchych his third, and Trevor Smyth his second.

Curtis Romanchych

As for Ottawa, Teat had five points, Hellyer four, and O’Connor three, and there were a few with one. Teat and Hellyer had 16 and 12 shots on goal respectively, but only one other player even had three. Teat is obviously a great player, made even better with Hellyer there, but other players need to shoot occasionally, or the defences will just focus on Teat and Hellyer and shut Ottawa down, which is exactly what Halifax did.

Oshawa

Any team in this league can beat any other team on any given night. Everyone says this, but we know that it’s not always true, right? We know the Bandits could take out the FireWolves without much of a problem, right? Well, I can’t say whether or not the Bandits were thinking that way before Saturday’s game but I can tell you that the FireWolves were not. Buffalo was sloppy and looked unprepared while Oshawa was firing on all cylinders and Doug Jamieson and his defense were excellent as the FireWolves did the unthinkable.

For the Bandits, Smith, Byrne, Resetarits, and Buchanan did all the scoring – only three other players even had assists. But the Bandits offense just couldn’t get much of anything going against the Oshawa defense. There were a ton of shot-clock violations and shots that missed the net. For Oshawa, Theede had three, Kurtz had two, and seven other players all had singles. Buffalo’s defense was strong as usual but the FireWolves seemed to be able to solve them more often than we’ve seen in the second half of this season.

The FireWolves weren’t great in all facets of the game though. They ran into some penalty trouble, though most of that was one guy. Emerson Clark took two completely unnecessary penalties at the same time in the third quarter, giving the Bandits a full seven-minute power play. But thanks to Oshawa’s defense and Doug Jamieson, the Bandits were only able to score a single goal in those seven minutes. Twenty minutes later, Clark took another minor plus two misconducts and was tossed from the game. He ended up with 29 penalty minutes in the game by himself, more than all other FireWolves combined, and more than the entire Bandits team.

Tucker out Lymphoma night in Oshawa

There are a few Tucker Out Lymphoma nights across the NLL now – one in Las Vegas, one in Buffalo, and Saturday night was Oshawa’s turn. I have no idea how much money these events have raised for the various children’s cancer charities in the twelve years they’ve been happening, but the number is probably pretty impressive. The fact that both the Bandits and FireWolves had special jerseys for this game was pretty awesome, and both teams getting together for a picture before the game was amazing.

Given the hostilities during the game, it’s probably good that they did the picture before the game and not after.

Colby Bowman

Colby Bowman made his NLL Chatter Awesome debut last week after an amazing performance in relief. And what does he do a week later? He has another one. Bowman came in only 1:37 into the game down 2–0 and allowed a goal a minute later. But then he allowed nothing for the next 31 minutes, and only five more goals the rest of the game. This was against the Colorado Mammoth by the way, who were 12–5 before this game and second overall in the league.

Bowman now has a career 4.51 GAA and 90.8% save percentage. Sure, those numbers are a bit worse than last week (2.06 / 96.0%) but they are still staggering.

Underdogs

On the last weekend of the season, both the 6–12 Calgary Roughnecks and the 6–12 Oshawa FireWolves were able to beat two of the hottest teams in the league, the 12–6 Mammoth and the 11–7 Bandits, who were on a seven game winning streak. And in the case of Oshawa, this was not a meaningless game – the Bandits could have clinched a first round home game with a victory. And since Georgia won on Sunday, the Bandits missed that opportunity entirely and now have to play round one on the road.

Rochester Native American Heritage jerseys

On Sunday, the Knighthawks wore their Native American Heritage night jerseys. Even if you ignore the awesome return to the teal and purple, these jerseys are amazing. I love all the Indigenous jerseys and these are no exception. Not only are they beautiful, but I love the fact that they explain the meaning behind the symbols on the jersey.

The Knighthawks Native American night jersey, designed by Randee Spruce

Not Awesome

Ottawa

They have arguably the best lacrosse player on the planet in Jeff Teat. They decided they needed a powerful offensive righty to balance Teat on the other side, so they went and got Rob Hellyer. He has been as good as they expected, if not better. They have other strong offensive players like O’Connor, Kearnan, and Sundown (not so much on Saturday, but generally). They have one of the best defensive players in the league in Callum Jones and other strong defenders in Noseworthy, Marinier, Brownell, and Magnan. They have some young guys (Stevens, Volkov, Kurtz) but lots of veteran leadership (Brownell, Noseworthy, Caputo, Magnan). In net, they have Zach Higgins, a solid goaltender who is fully capable of stealing a game here and there and Tyler Carlson, one of the most well-respected backup goalies in the league. And yet, they still have never been to the playoffs. So what are they missing?

On the surface, it looks like it’s offense. They lost ten games this season and in seven of them (including each of their last five games), they did not reach 10 goals. Even in their eight wins, they only got beyond 11 goals three times. But then again, if we add up the points for the top 4 scorers on each team, Ottawa has 333, which is 6th in the league. Oddly, the top teams are Las Vegas and Rochester with 350, and neither of those teams made the playoffs, so maybe that’s not a great metric to choose.

Only four teams gave up more goals than the Black Bears, so perhaps defense is their problem after all. Higgins had a pretty decent season with a 10.86 GAA, but one of the worst of his career in terms of save percentage at 77.6%. That’s not terrible but maybe we can add Ottawa to the list of teams (including Rochester and Las Vegas) who might be looking to make some changes between the pipes in the off-season.

NLL+ out of sync?

I saw a tweet by the Vancouver Warriors during their game showing a video of Marcus Klarich scoring to make the score 11–5. My NLL+ feed indicated it was live (and I refreshed the page to make sure) but the score was 9–5. Klarich’s goal wasn’t scored for another several minutes, including a media timeout. Later, I watched Keegan Bal score and at the same time, the game sheet on NLL.com showed Charalambides scoring more than two minutes later.

I’ve seen the stream behind by 4–5 seconds or so, but nowhere near this long. I enjoy making and reading comments on X while watching games, so knowing what will happen two minutes from now made me not want to watch that game.

Ottawa and Halifax meet next Saturday and the winner is in the playoffs, the loser is out.

Meanwhile Las Vegas and San Diego are fighting for the last spot, and they meet twice next weekend. If Las Vegas wins them both, they get the spot. They also get the spot if they win one of them and Rochester beats Georgia twice. In any other scenario, San Diego is in. This means that if Las Vegas and San Diego split their two games and Rochester beats Georgia on Saturday, the very last game of the regular season, Georgia at Rochester on Sunday, will decide the last playoff spot – and neither team involved in the game is affected.

Awesome

Goofy stats

At one point on Saturday night, we were two minutes away from having three different games end with the winning score exactly double the losing score. It would have been the first time in NLL history that this happened in the same week, let alone on the same day. But then Dalton Young scored for the Wings to break the pattern. This is the kind of meaningful and insightful NLL analysis you can get on this site, and no other.

Colby Bowman

After a rough start from Aden Walsh (6 goals in 18 minutes), Roughnecks backup goalie Colby Bowman came in and slammed the door shut. Bowman allowed a single goal on 38 shots in 41:35 for a save percentage of 97.4% and a GAA of 1.44. That’s an excellent GAA for an NHL goalie, but absolutely unheard of for an NLL goalie. That is the lowest GAA for any game where the goalie played at least 40 minutes. This was his longest outing in an NLL game, but his numbers have been very impressive: he’s appeared in seven games and has only allowed two goals in the same game once, a 25 minute appearance in January 2025. His career GAA is 2.06 and his career save percentage is 96.0%. Those are otherworldly numbers. Of course, it’s over only 58 minutes. Nobody expects him to keep those numbers once he’s playing full games more regularly, but it’s a damned impressive start to an NLL career.

And he’s the only player in NLL history named Colby.

Colby Bowman

Warren Hill

Despite the end result, Warren Hill was outstanding in the Halifax net. The Thunderbirds led for most of the game and were still in it right to the end mostly because of Hill. Christian Del Bianco also had a great game but Hill faced eleven more shots and only allowed one more goal, so he actually had a higher save percentage than Del Bianco.

Jesse King

As I said, Warren Hill played an excellent game in Vancouver. But early in the fourth quarter, while his team was down 6–4 and hadn’t scored in over eighteen minutes, Jesse King scored his first of the night. After Casey Wilson and Keegan Bal traded goals (Bal’s goal assisted by Jesse King), King tied the game and then put the Warriors ahead to stay a few minutes later. Keegan Bal has been the go-to guy on the Warriors all season and could certainly be a finalist for MVP, but King is still an elite scorer and this time it was him who powered the Warriors to the comeback victory.

Philly

We know now that the Wings are unlikely to be playing in Philadelphia next season, if they play anywhere at all. It’s still up in the air, but that’s how it’s looking. And we all know that their season on the floor didn’t go so well. So for the Wings to pull in a season-high 9,913 people to their final home game, beating second place by over 3,000, is pretty awesome. Even better was the team’s performance, beating Las Vegas 11–5 in a game they dominated throughout. Lukas Nielsen scored four, Kyle Jackson and Sam LeClair a couple each, and the Wings defense kept Mitch Jones, Jonathan Donville, Connor Kirst, and Kevin Crowley to zero goals. Nick Damude was incredible, making 60 saves – his highest total ever, the highest total this season, Philadelphia’s highest total ever*, and the sixth-highest total in NLL history.

I haven’t had Philly in the Awesome category much this year, or in the last few years actually, because they weren’t great on the floor. Earlier this week I thought about giving them an Awesome regardless of the game outcome, just as a sort of a tribute. But they earned the hell out of this one.

* – This applies to the “Wings 2.0”, not the original Wings. The original Wings played from 1987–2014, but the first nineteen seasons were before game stats became available.

Saskatchewan in the second half

Let’s be honest here – the Rush were pretty terrible in the first half of their game against Colorado. They did not score for the first 27 minutes of the game. They were down 7–0 by the time they scored and 8–1 going into halftime. But Jimmy Quinlan or Derek Keenan (or both) must have given impressive speeches over halftime because two minutes into the third quarter, the Rush scored four goals in 33 seconds, a new NLL record, getting them right back in the game. Jack Hannah is probably the least popular guy in Saskatchewan at the moment because his four goals prevented the Rush from tying the game, but they got within one and made the second half much more entertaining than the first half.

Not Awesome

Ottawa turnovers

Other than Zach Higgins, who played very well, the Black Bears didn’t exactly play like a team whose season was on the line. I thought they played a bit sloppy and they were slow to get on and off the floor. I joked during the game that one of the top lines used in the broadcast was “Costly turnover by Ottawa”. There seemed to be a lot of plays where an Ottawa defender would start jogging up the floor in transition and pass it to a teammate but a Rock player would run in and intercept it, giving the Rock another possession. Note that the Ottawa players were jogging and the Toronto players were running. Not all the time, obviously, but more often than you might expect from a team trying desperately to get into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

Swarm discipline

It’s late in the third quarter and the Swarm are down by three – and they’ve only been able to manage four so far. Seth Van Schepen took a 5-minute major for an illegal bodycheck (hitting Wes Berg in the head for no good reason). The team managed to kill off the penalty without allowing a goal, but as soon as that penalty ended, Bryan Cole took another illegal bodycheck penalty and tacked on an unsportsmanlike conduct. There are certainly occasions where a penalty is needed to prevent a goal (or an opportunity for a goal) but unsportsmanlike conduct is never one of them. As the broadcasters said, it’s hard to come back in the game if you’re a man down for almost ten minutes. The Swarm kind of got lucky in that only one goal was scored in both power plays and then Ari Steenhuis took a couple of minors himself to even things up, but dumb penalties are still dumb penalties.

Awesome

Toronto and San Diego defense

The Rock and Seals game on Saturday ended up 7–5, the third-fewest goals ever scored in an NLL game. As you would expect, the goaltending was excellent as both Nick Rose and Chris Origlieri made some great saves, but the defences were even better. There were lots of pass interceptions and blocked shots on both sides, lots of shot clock violations, and lots of frustrated forwards running back to their benches shaking their heads. The Rock set an NLL record by only taking 28 shots on goal (though they scored on 25% of them), while the Seals number of 43 was a bit more typical.

300 games

Both Ryan Benesch and Paul Dawson each played in their 300th NLL game on Saturday night. Dawson is a 6'5" righty defender while Benesch is a 5'9" lefty forward, but there are some similarities:

• Both made their NLL debuts on January 13, 2007. Benesch debuted for the Toronto Rock, while Dawson played for the San Jose Stealth.
• Benesch and Dawson are the only players still active from their debut games. The only other players in the league at the time who are still active today are Matt Vinc and Ian Llord.
• Both were drafted by the Stealth in the first round in 2007. Benesch was first overall, Dawson seventh (as a goalie). Benesch was traded to the Rock for Colin Doyle before ever playing for San Jose.
• Dawson’s 100th game was with the old Knighthawks against the Rock in 2013. Benesch’s 200th game was with the old Knighthawks against the Rock in 2019.
• They became teammates for the first time this season, playing eight games together with the Bandits.

Benesch on the left, Dawson on the right

300 NLL games is an amazing milestone; the only players with more games than these two are John Tavares (306), Matt Vinc (319), and Dan Dawson (322). Congratulations to Benesch and Dawson on this achievement.

Oshawa @ Calgary

Both of these teams are out of the playoffs, and neither team even owns their own first round draft pick in this year’s draft, so they really had nothing but pride to play for. But that seemed enough as both goalies played well and neither team looked like they were mailing it in. Doug Jamieson looked almost unbeatable for the first half, allowing two Calgary goals within nine seconds late in the first, then keeping Calgary off the board entirely in the second. Oshawa scored none in the first and four in the second, so Aden Walsh was definitely doing his part as well. Things flipped a bit in the second half as Calgary outscored Oshawa 5–3 in that quarter alone, and the goals alternated in the fourth as Oshawa took three leads but Calgary was only able to tie it twice.

The draft order was really the only thing affected by the outcome here, and since Toronto owns Calgary’s pick and Ottawa owns Oshawa’s, you could look at this game as a Rock win over the Black Bears, by proxy.

Buffalo

As has been said a number of times in the latter half of this season, the Bandits are back. After a relatively sluggish start to the season, where the possibility of them missing the playoffs was real, they flipped a switch or turned a corner or something, and have been playing like the defending champs ever since.

The boxscore of their win over Vancouver, other than Chase Fraser and Chris Cloutier replaced by Joe Resetarits, looks like a boxscore from 2025. Byrne and Smith with 10 and 9 points respectively, Ian MacKay and Kyle Buchanan with some helpers, great off-ball play by Buchanan and Tehoka Nanticoke, solid defense and lots of loose balls from Priolo, de Snoo, Dawson, Spanger, Weiss, and Wyers, a bunch of blocked shots, and of course single-digit goals allowed and a save percentage over 80% from Matt Vinc. Vinc allowed a single goal over the last 38 minutes that he played and then Evan Constantopoulos made four saves on four shots in four minutes at the end. I didn’t see any of the game live since I was at the Seals/Rock game at the time, but I watched the replay on Sunday and sure enough, the 2026 Bandits look a lot like the 2025 Bandits, which is not good news for whoever they face in the first round.

Not Awesome

Rochester

There are 16 games left in the regular season. The total number of possible outcomes of those games is 65,536. The Rochester Knighthawks make the playoffs in 4096 of those, or 6.25%. It’s been a tough year for the Knighthawks. They started off 4–1 with lots of offense and strong goaltending, but then they lost seven of their next eight. The offense struggled a bit during that time, scoring six against the Warriors, eight against the Black Bears, and seven against the Roughnecks, but they also scored 15 once and thirteen twice in those games. But the defense and goaltending struggled even more, giving up 14+ goals in five of those eight games.

The struggles were enough to get Mike Hasen and Pat O’Toole fired, and interim head coach Randy Mearns hasn’t had much luck either. They lost twice to the Desert Dogs, giving up 17 goals in each game, then beat the FireWolves quite decisively, but gave up 15 to the Thunderbirds this past weekend. I don’t know what’s going to happen in Rochester in the off-season, though I guess it depends on the status of Rylan Hartley. If he’s battling injuries, maybe they hope that the off-season gives him time to recover. If not, do they move on and try to trade some of that strong offense for a top ranked goaltender?

But remember, a couple of years ago the Knighthawks had a 3% chance of making the playoffs around this time of the season, and they did make it in. You know, it ain’t over until it’s over, and all that.

Vancouver

Vancouver, on the other hand, has had a great season. They have 11 wins, tied with last season, and their two remaining games are against 9th place Halifax and last place Philadelphia. They should win at least one of those games, giving the Warriors their first 12+ win season since 2002 when they were the Albany Attack. They’re tied for first (though tiebreakers put them third), they’ve clinched a playoff spot, and are close to clinching a home playoff game. They have one of the best defences in the league, one of the best goaltenders in the league, and they have a forward in Keegan Bal who’s a candidate and likely a finalist for MVP.

So why are they in the Not Awesome list? Because they got spanked by the Bandits on Saturday. See above for how good the Bandits were, but Del Bianco allowing 13 goals in 48 minutes with a save percentage of 71.1% is uncharacteristic for him. Curtis Dickson had no goals. Jesse King had no points. Keegan Bal had a goal and an assist. All of those numbers are uncharacteristically low. I imagine Mr. Malawsky will have some wisdom to share about this one.

After I scheduled this article but before it got published, we got the worst kind of news about the future of the Philadelphia Wings. Unfortunately, long-time NLL fans are used to it. I’ve added a second entry under Not Awesome.

* Update: No it’s not. It’s still possible for both to miss the playoffs, or for both to make the playoffs, but no matter what happens, Georgia can’t have more than eight losses while Halifax already has nine. Halifax cannot finish ahead of Georgia. My apologies for the confusion.

Awesome

Bandits comeback again

Buffalo scored one goal in the first 20:31 of Saturday’s game against the Rush while Saskatchewan put four behind Matt Vinc in the same timeframe. They only managed three more goals in the next 30 minutes, but they also managed to keep the Rush to only three in that time as well, so with about nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Bandits were only down 7–4. But the way Frank Scigliano and the Rush defense were playing, getting back into the game was going to be some serious work. But despite how the game had gone to that point, the Bandits had a lot more confidence from their last few games than earlier in the year. Matt Vinc played like he wasn’t considering retiring after last season and the defense tightened up.

The Bandits didn’t really dominate the fourth quarter but did prevent the Rush from scoring, which aided in the comeback attempt, and got a couple of goals in the middle of the quarter to get them back within one. It took another five minutes before Josh Byrne tied it, and Joe Resetarits scored the game winner with 46 seconds left after an amazing pass by Dhane Smith. I mentioned last week that the league needs to watch out for the Rock, and that’s still true (despite Sunday’s result), but I doubt anyone wants to face the Bandits in the first round either.

One interesting quirk was the Rush asking for a stick check on Paul Dawson with about 30 seconds left in the 4th quarter. After measuring the stick a couple of times, the officials found that it was indeed illegal. Dawson sat but the Rush were unable to tie the game on the resulting power play. A couple of Bandits fans on X were unhappy with the timing of the call (“they waited until NOW to call that?”), as if they were unaware of such gamesmanship which happens all the time. If the Bandits were unhappy with the call, maybe they could try using only legal equipment? Just a thought.

Joe Resetarits

Calgary comeback

This one sounds a bit like the Buffalo one I just described. Calgary had three goals in the first 47 minutes of the game, and was down 7–2 in the middle of the third. They didn’t look terrible, but Las Vegas was really looking good. Their defense was solid, Alexis Buque was playing really well, the offense was clicking, it was just an all-around great performance by the Desert Dogs. Aden Walsh had a pretty good start as well, but of course he can’t do much for the offense if they are struggling. But the offense came alive in the late stages of the fourth quarter. Like the Bandits, they didn’t dominate the fourth quarter, and in fact they waited until even later to start their comeback; they were down 9–5 with only 2½ minutes left, but they scored four goals in under a minute and a half to tie the game with less than a minute left.

Overtime took a lot longer than most overtime periods in the NLL (on average, the OT goal is scored at 3:01 of OT, and 25.4% of OT games are solved in under a minute), and both goaltenders were excellent. But after almost nine minutes, Jonathan Donville fired a shot underneath Aden Walsh and the Desert Dogs won the game they had been expecting to win for most of the night. Meanwhile the Roughnecks had the Thunderbird-like feeling of coming back to tie a game it looked like they were out of, only to lose it anyway. Kudos to the Roughnecks for making a game of it.

Rochester

Rochester has been the most inconsistent team in the NLL this season (though not always!). They have the highest team GAA and lowest team save percentage in the league, and have given up 16+ goals five times this season. But they’re also one of the top offensive teams and have managed to score their way out of trouble a couple of times. Saturday’s game in Oshawa was no exception. The game was tied nine times in the first three quarters before the Knighthawks pulled away, scoring four straight in the third, five straight in four minutes in the fourth, and then the last two of the game once it was out of hand. They turned a 9–7 deficit in the middle of the third into a decisive 18–11 victory. It might look like a dominant performance and it was, but only in the last 20 minutes or so.

Rochester started the season 4–1 and everyone had high expectations. But goaltending inconsistency frequently overpowered their potent offense. They don’t need Matt Vinc-like performances but if they can get some more consistent goaltending, like they had on Saturday, they still have a shot at the playoffs.

Philadelphia on Sunday

This was a recipe for a very disappointing game for the Philly fans. The team was out of the playoffs, on a 3-game losing streak, and was 3–12 on the season. They traded away three of their top offensive players and another was injured. Meanwhile, Toronto had won three straight, including beating the Warriors and Rush, and were ten spots higher in the standings than Philly. But we’ve seen this in the past too – the team with nothing to lose, playing only for their fans and each other, comes up with a great performance and beats the team who likely went into the game expecting to win.

Nick Damude was simply amazing, and the Philly defense in front of him was stifling. The Rock had their good looks here and there, but couldn’t get much momentum and even when they did get through the defense, Damude slammed the door in their faces.

Kudos to Kyle Jackson, who at the end of the game, managed to kill off almost an entire 30-second shot clock basically by himself, despite Latrell Harris and Elijah Gash both pinning him against the boards and trying and failing to get the ball from him. Jackson is listed as 5’9“ and 166 pounds, while former Defender of the Year Harris is 6’0”/215 and Gash is 6’4″/210. Either of them could eat Jackson for lunch and still be hungry. But once that scrum against the boards was over, Jackson still had the ball in his stick.

The Marvel partnership with the NLL continues, and I really liked the Black Panther jerseys that the Wings were wearing. They were a little more subtle than most but had the Black Panther “necklace” sort of design which was very cool.

Toronto PK

The Rock didn’t play badly on Sunday but as I said, Philadelphia played really well. But one highlight of their afternoon was managing to kill off an 5-on–3 that lasted almost two full minutes in the second quarter. The Wings had some very nice ball movement but couldn’t get good looks through the defense and then Holowchuk shut the door. Great penalty kill by the Rock.

Not Awesome

Philadelphia Wings overall in 2026

Note: This entry was written on Sunday, before the news about the Wings was made public. I haven’t changed any of it. The second Not Awesome entry was written after the news came out.

As great as the Wings played on Sunday, let’s face it, they’ve had a terrible season.

• They’re 4–12, out of the playoffs, and currently in dead last.
• They’ve played 16 games and scored 10+ goals in only six of them.
• They had 5,019 fans at the game on Friday night, the third-lowest in team history, and lower than all 190 home games the old Philadelphia Wings played. Their average is 5,982, the lowest in team history and just over half of what they got in 2019, their inaugural season.
• They were sellers at the deadline, losing Joe Resetarits, captain Blaze Riorden, and Phil Caputo, basically decimating their offense.
• Michael Sowers and Brennan O’Neill looked really good when playing together earlier this season, but Sowers got injured and missed half the season. O’Neill is a great player but can’t do it all himself.
• Goaltending was pretty good all season but the D gave up too many shots. They have given up 898 shots on goal, 101 more than any other team. Their 56.3 average shots on goal allowed per game is last in the league and the 10th worst EVER, though the 2025, 2024, and 2023 Wings were worse.

There are rumours that the team will fold or relocate after this season. They might blame it on low attendance, and they might be right, but honestly it’s hard to blame the fans for staying away when the team has played seven seasons, finished above .500 once (the shortened 2020 season), and played one playoff game (in 2022) and lost it.

On the upside,

• They’ve only won four games this season but who have they beaten? The Swarm (#3 overall), the Mammoth (#4), the Bandits (#5), and the Rock (#6). They got demolished by the Rush and don’t play the Warriors until week 21 but worst case, they beat four of the top six teams. That’s something they can build on.
• They got Travis Longboat and Lukas Nielsen back in the deadline trades, as well as two second-round picks and a third.
• As I said, Sowers and O’Neill looked great together, and Kyle Jackson also played well in his limited time with the Wings. A healthy Sowers will be critical for an improved Wings offense next season.

Philadelphia Wings are done

The league and the team both announced early Monday morning that Comcast are trying to sell the Wings franchise. However, the messages have been mixed – the league says that Comcast will no longer own the Wings and they are “engaging with prospective ownership groups”, hoping that “this transition will lead to an exciting new chapter for the franchise and its players”. This is similar to what they said about the Rochester Knighthawks when the Pegulas decided not to run that team anymore. Luckily a new owner (the Seneca Nation) was found quickly and operations continued.

But the Wings posted that they will “cease operations of the Philadelphia Wings franchise” and will “root for our players as they pursue new opportunities throughout the league”. This strongly implies that the franchise is just done and we’ll soon have a dispersal draft. If there’s new ownership taking over the franchise, whether they move it or not, the players wouldn’t have to pursue new opportunities. It’s unfortunate that we’re getting conflicting messaging from the league and the team.

The article you’re reading was published at 12:30pm EDT on Monday, so only a couple of hours after this announcement. It will likely be out-of-date quickly, as clarifications and updates are announced. Keep watching social media for updates.

Awesome

Halifax comeback

After 2½ quarters of getting manhandled by the Georgia Swarm, the Halifax Thunderbirds decided enough was enough. Warren Hill locked things down in the net, their defense stepped up and their offense found another gear and dominated the rest of the game. After being down 14–4, they outscored Georgia 12–2 over the next 22 minutes or so, including ten goals in the fourth quarter (tied for the second-most ever; two teams scored 11 in a quarter). Georgia dominated the first half but sometime in the third quarter, everything was reversed. The Georgia announcers noticed it too – Drew Petkoff said something like “The second half has been all Halifax” and when he said that, the Thunderbirds were still down by about four goals. Georgia’s offense just stopped working; perhaps they took their foot off the gas once they were up by ten, and then by the time they realized they needed to slam it down again, it was too late. Brett Dobson was taken out to give Devlin Shanahan some playing time with about seven minutes left, but it was just at the time that Halifax started to pour it on. It was very weird to see a team winning by three or four with a couple of minutes left and they are the ones who are nervous about how the game is going to end.

Warren Hill and the Halifax defense were very good in the second half. I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it again – when your goalie makes all the stops he needs to and a few he isn’t expected to, that gives your team confidence and that confidence can drive everyone else to step up their game just a little bit.

It was an absolutely amazing comeback, and literally the biggest on record. Nobody other than Halifax, since 2005 anyway, has come back to tie a game after being down by nine goals, let alone ten. And Halifax has done it twice. In a game in 2020, they were down 12–3 to the Saskatchewan Rush before coming back to tie the game at 14:35 of the fourth, only to lose in overtime.

Unfortunately for the Thunderbirds, this game had a similar ending. Once they completed the comeback and tied the game at 14:10 of the fourth, Jordan MacIntosh scored 32 seconds later to give the Swarm the lead once again, and there was no time for Halifax to recover. I’m not sure what’s more difficult for Halifax – not coming back and losing by a dozen or having the comeback and losing anyway. Hopefully they can take it as a bit of a confidence booster – they know they can come back in a game that seems out of hand. Of course, they’d need to start that comeback just a few minutes earlier. But ideally, they don’t let the game get out of hand in the first place.

Jordan MacIntosh

This season, Georgia had an NLL record streak of eleven straight games allowing fewer than ten goals. But in the other three games they’ve played this season, they averaged 15 goals against. There’s a lot more good than bad there, but the bad is… pretty bad.

Rochester comeback

In Las Vegas, the numbers weren’t quite as big, but the outcome was the same. After Vegas took a commanding 8–1 lead in the first quarter, Rochester started chipping away immediately. They pulled Rylan Hartley for Riley Hutchcraft, who gave them an outstanding effort the rest of the way. Vegas only scored twice in the second and twice in the third while Rochester scored nine over the same timespan, and completed the comeback with two more goals in the first minute and a half of the fourth. The Knighthawks even took the lead a minute later, though that only lasted a minute before Adam Poitras scored his fifth of the game. But this was the second big comeback of the weekend that did not result in a win for the comeback team. Vegas scored five over the last eleven minutes or so and Landon Kells prevented Rochester’s attempts at coming back again.

It was a great game for the backup goaltenders. As I said Rylan Hartley had a terrible start but Hutchcraft came in and played great for Rochester, giving them the stops they needed to build confidence (and I’ll say it again), and that confidence was what they needed to mount the comeback in the first place. No, it wasn’t quite enough and Vegas had a mini-comeback of their own at the end of the fourth.

At the other end, Alex Buque played a pretty decent game overall but once Rochester completed their comeback and took a lead, Kells came in and shut the door on them, stopping all 11 shots he faced over almost twelve minutes.

I don’t know if it’s physical or mental or some combination, but Rylan Hartley just hasn’t been the same since his controversial hit on Steph Charbonneau at the end of January. Before that game, he was 4–1 and had a save percentage of 78% or higher in each of the four wins – four great games and one not-so-good (plus one that he lost but played the full game and wasn’t bad). Since the hit, he’s had one great game (the February 28 overtime win over Saskatchewan where he allowed just ten goals in 62 minutes) and four not-so-good, where he was pulled in every game. In the four games where he was pulled, he only had a save percentage of 60% or higher once. 60% is a really low bar for save percentages. Given how Hutchcraft played on Saturday, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s now Hutchcraft’s net.

Buffalo comeback

The numbers were much lower in this game than the Rochester or Halifax games, but yes, it happened again. Buffalo only managed two goals until more than ten minutes into the third quarter, but they could have been in much worse shape than that – they were only down 6–2 at that point. Chris Origlieri was sensational and the Seals defense was excellent as well, limiting the Bandits’ chances and keeping this powerful offense to just one goal per quarter until the fourth. Buffalo’s defense was very good as well but the Seals offense managed to get just a few more by Matt Vinc.

A four-goal comeback isn’t nearly as big a deal as a seven-goal or ten-goal comeback, but the Bandits were still down by four with less than six minutes left in the fourth quarter. The way Chris Origlieri and the Seals defense was playing, it seemed that a third comeback on the weekend would be unlikely. But the first two comebacks were unlikely anyway, so why not do it again?

Over the next five minutes, Joey Res scored an almost-empty-net quickstick off of a beautiful pass by Dhane Smith (remember that name, it will come up again), Clay Scanlan shook off his defender and scored from the doorstep, and Tehoka Nanticoke cut inside and scored on a weird play where the ball hit the metal bottom of the net and bounced out immediately, forcing a review. Then with 44 seconds left, Dhane Smith shot a bouncer underneath Origlieri to tie the game. But Smith wasn’t done – four minutes into the overtime period, he took an innocent-looking shot from the area he loves to take shots from and it just beat Origlieri for the game winner.

Three huge comebacks on the weekend but the Bandits were the only team to capitalize on theirs.

Kyle Killen

Killen has been solid as a secondary scorer for the Desert Dogs this season and for the Warriors over the previous couple. He’s good for a point or two per game, with a couple of 4- or 5-point games scattered throughout the season. But he’s scored 14 points over the last three games including ten points (5+5) over the two Rochester games, and was looking really confident in those games. He missed three games so he won’t get back to the 59 point range like 2022, at least not this year, but it’s good to see a bit of a resurgence from Killen in Vegas.

Acting like a goalie

Earlier in the season it seemed there was a “zero tolerance” policy with respect to this new “Acting like a goalie” rule. If you were standing in the crease or had your foot on the line, and the ball hit you, you’d get this penalty. It got to the point where I wondered why offensive players weren’t shooting at defenders standing in the crease just to get a penalty call. In recent weeks, the number of such calls has dropped significantly, so it appears that the officials have decided (or have been instructed) to call this penalty only if the defender is actually trying to block shots while standing in the crease. If a defender is in the crease and the ball hits him incidentally, the penalty is no longer called. I fully agree with this decision.

I saw this happen during Friday’s Halifax/Georgia game. This particular penalty was called at least twice during that game. In another case, a Georgia defender was hit by a shot while standing in the crease. But he was focused on the offensive player he was guarding, who didn’t have the ball, and didn’t even know the shot was coming. No penalty was called – the ball did hit him but he wasn’t “acting like a goalie” so there was no reason to give him a penalty for it.

Quickies

• Toronto Rock – The top five teams in the standings right now are Saskatchewan, Vancouver, Colorado, Georgia, and Toronto. The Rock have beaten three of them in their last five games, and lost to the fourth, Georgia, by only one back in January. Nick Rose has played very well in his three games since returning from injury, and the team is gelling at the right time. Watch out for these guys.
• Calgary Cooks – There were three Cooks in the Calgary/Colorado game on Saturday – Tanner and Carter for Calgary and Conner for Colorado. Carter and Conner are brothers, and I believe Tanner is unrelated. Conner had one CTO to his name in that game but nothing else, while Tanner scored two and added three assists and Carter scored his first career goal and added a helper too.
• Andrew Kew – I don’t think I’ve said much about Kew even though he has been awesome all season. He’s the top scorer on his team and top ten in the league despite missing three games. He’s on pace to tie his personal best of 106 points in 16 games in the 2023 season, but he’ll only have played 15 games.
• Keegan Bal – It’s funny that on X, everybody is talking about how nobody is talking about Keegan Bal and what a great season he’s having. I assure you, nobody is sleeping on this guy.

Not Awesome

Georgia collapse

See above.

Las Vegas collapse

See above.

San Diego collapse

This was far less of a “collapse” than the others but still, losing a four goal lead in less than six minutes isn’t great.

Broadcast resolution in San Diego

This has been an issue in the past, and I’ve been told it’s actually a lighting problem rather than a camera problem. I don’t know what causes it, but games broadcast from San Diego are always hard to watch. The video quality was just terrible compared to all the other streams. I was watching that game and the CAL/COL game on NLL+ Multi-View, but I had to switch to watching each game individually because I just couldn’t see anything in the smaller window. Normally if you take a video with bad resolution and make it bigger, it gets even less watchable but somehow not in this case. Watching games from Rochester used to be like this – there was no HD technology in the arena. That’s been upgraded so it’s fine now, so it’s time to do the same to Pechanga by fixing the cameras or lighting or whatever.

Bets

I don’t bet much on sports, but every now and again I’ll see some odds that look better than I think they should be, and throw down a few bucks. I was excited about Georgia being up by so many, since I bet on them, and about Buffalo’s comeback since I bet on them as well. Unfortunately, they were both –1.5 bets, so the teams had to win by two or more. Georgia had it in the bag and let it slip away, and the Buffalo comeback was great and all but an OT win was insufficient.

And if that weren’t bad enough, the site that runs the Who Ya Gott and Preston’s Picks pools didn’t send out the weekly reminder emails, and without the reminder I forgot to make my picks for either one. I was in the top ten overall in one of them and the top 15 in the other. Who Ya Gott doesn’t lock your pick for each game until the game begins, and I realized the problem part-way through the Rush/Rock game, so I was able to get my picks in for four of the six games. I got all of them right. But Preston’s Picks locks ALL the games for the weekend at 6pm or so on Friday, so I was 0–6 in that one.

I would have picked Georgia over Halifax, and I probably would have picked Toronto over Saskatchewan (though I’m not 100% sure) so I would have gotten at least five out of six right. Instead, I dropped 5 spots to 19th in Who Ya Gott and I dropped 25 spots to 34th in Preston’s Picks.

Not a great gambling weekend.

Then there were the seven games on the weekend. We began with an OT thriller on Friday night and ended with two games decided by seven goals.

Awesome

Trade deadline

We’ve had trade deadlines in the past (most of the time, actually) where almost nothing happened but the last two have been pretty eventful. Last year saw Christian Del Bianco head to Vancouver and Ottawa, Vancouver, Buffalo, and Albany involved in a four-way trade. This year had even more movement. I won’t go over all of the deals since that’s been done in multiple places by people with more in-depth knowledge than me (one of whom is Adam Levi on IL Indoor), but Joe Resetarits playing with the Bandits and Tyson Bell with Las Vegas will both make significant impacts, Marshal King gets to play with his brother Jesse in Vancouver, and Rochester native Blaze Riorden heads home.

It wasn’t a trade but Buffalo releasing Ryan Benesch (pictured at right, two or three years ago) was also big news, and Oshawa was happy to sign him just a few hours later. Benesch rewarded them with a six-point night on Friday, passing Colin Doyle for fourth place on the all-time scoring list. Benesch has been on many people’s list of “players I want to see win a Championship before they retire”, including mine, but I’m not sure this move will help that happen, at least this season. But it’s great for the FireWolves, who are stacked with offensive players under the age of 30. Bringing in a vet like Benesch basically gives them another offensive coach. It’s like the Rock bringing in Dan Dawson, but I’ve checked the rules and Dawson is not allowed to score goals during games. Benesch is, and will.

There was one other big move made on trade deadline day, and it also wasn’t a trade. See the first Not Awesome entry for that.

Close game in Halifax

The Rock and Thunderbirds always seem to play entertaining and sometimes chippy games. Friday’s game was definitely the former but not so much the latter. There were only six penalties in the whole game, but it was tied ten times. Partway through the fourth, it looked like we might need overtime but then Halifax scored twice and they grabbed some momentum, so no overtime. Then the Rock tied it, so we’ll need overtime. Challen Rogers scored his second straight to give Toronto the lead with under two minutes left, and Toronto had a bit of momentum, so no overtime. Then Brendan Bomberry tied it yet again with under twenty seconds left, and guess what? We headed to overtime.

OT lasted far longer than most overtime periods in the NLL, and both goalies made some incredible saves. It was almost six minutes before Josh Dawick was able to get one past Warren Hill. Toronto now owns the tiebreaker over Halifax though they’re also three full games ahead of Halifax in the standings, so that may not matter.

NLL+ Multi-View is back

I think it actually debuted last week but there weren’t any games that happened at the same time. I have two very minor complaints about it but the fact that it’s there at all outweighs both so I’m still listing this under Awesome. The first is that the background outside of the two game displays is constantly moving. Not only is this a waste of bandwidth but it’s distracting. The background needs to be a solid colour or a static non-moving image. The other complaint is that on Saturday night there were three games live at the same time, and Multi-View showed only two of them, so I kept having to switch tabs a lot which is the problem that Multi-View is supposed to solve.

Calgary Roughnecks

The Roughnecks are having a pretty tough season. They’re 4–9, in 12th place, and are likely to miss the playoffs. They had seven straight games of 10 or fewer goals, giving up 11 or more in all but one of them. But last week they beat the Knighthawks, and convincingly. They scored 14 and gave up only 7, and that was in the Knighthawks barn. Then this week they came home and broke the Ottawa Black Bears’ four-game winning streak with another convincing win. Aden Walsh looked really good in both games, and the Calgary offense was well-balanced with Dickson, Cook, Pace, and particularly Brayden Mayea scoring some beautiful goals.

Could Calgary pull a Vancouver and run the table after the trade deadline? Could they make the playoffs? Honestly, I think we need to pump the brakes a bit here. Both of those are possible but unlikely. It is only a two-game streak, and they play 3rd place Colorado next weekend. But their strong play in these two games against teams much higher in the standings does show that the Roughnecks are pulling things together. Next season could be a lot better than this one. But for now, Calgary fans, you have an exciting young team – only Tyler Pace and Riley Loewen are over 30 – so enjoy watching these guys play.

Not Awesome

Rochester coaching change

The most surprising move at the trade deadline wasn’t even a trade. The Rochester Knighthawks fired head coach Mike Hasen and assistant coach Pat O’Toole, which nobody saw coming. No, the Knighthawks season hasn’t gone the way many thought it would, but honestly, they’re 5–6 and half a game out of a playoff spot, which isn’t that bad. They did have a four-game streak where they lost to Toronto, Vancouver twice, and Ottawa – all teams ahead of them in the standings – but they’ve also beaten the Bandits and the Rush. I guess losing by seven to the 2–9 Calgary Roughnecks was the breaking point. But given Hasen’s coaching tenure in Rochester – five+ seasons with these Knighthawks plus nine more with the original Knighthawks, including Championships in 2012, 2013, and 2014 and a Championship appearance in 2018, I’m surprised it only took a bit of a slump and one bad game to turf Mike Hasen. So that was Not Awesome, and then the team responded by getting beaten handily by Las Vegas, a team with whom they are fighting for a playoff spot. That’s two Not Awesomes for Rochester, and we’re not done yet.

Rochester ignores Tucker Out Lymphoma night

It seems that the Knighthawks decided not to participate in the Tucker Out Lymphoma event in Las Vegas on Sunday. They did not have custom jerseys or stickers on their helmets or anything. This is disappointing considering Shawn Williams played the majority of his career in Rochester, even though it was for a different franchise. The Bandits still have it every year, and Williams played far more games for Rochester than for Buffalo.

Brett Dobson on Saturday

Of course Brett Dobson is still awesome overall so I had to qualify the title here. He didn’t have a great outing this past weekend, but as most “bad goalie outings” tend to be, it was the defense as a whole that didn’t have a great game. No, Dobson didn’t make all the incredible saves we’ve seen him make this season, but he also saw a few more one-on-ones and clear-lane shots from guys like Keegan Bal than he usually does. He was pulled, put back in, and then pulled again, and Devlin Shanahan played more minutes in that game than any other in his career apart from one start with the Bandits two years ago.

Dobson’s GAA for that game was 22.35, the highest in any game in his career, and his save percentage was 63.6%, fifth lowest of his career and lowest in two years. But even with that bad outing, his GAA is still 7.70, best in the league and a full point better than the best season in NLL history. His save percentage is 84.5%, best in the league and 3.6 percentage points better than the best season in NLL history. Don’t take that Goaltender of the Year award away quite yet.