The playoff picture is almost set, as we now know six of the eight teams that will play in the post-season. Once Halifax beat Rochester, Georgia clinched the fourth spot and the door was open for Toronto and Buffalo to clinch with wins. They both did, and so now we have Ottawa, Las Vegas, Halifax, Rochester, and San Diego playing musical chairs for the last two spots.

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.