It’s been a busy off-season so far, and there’s lots more to come. Because we don’t have a CBA for next season, teams aren’t allowed to sign free agents yet though they’re allowed to talk to them. I’m sure many handshake agreements have been made and once we have a new CBA and free agency opens up, all of these deals will be announced. Then we’ll see how much the NLL landscape has really changed.
Until then though, let’s take a look at some of the significant moves made so far.
Recently I wrote about non-players who deserve consideration for induction to the NLL Hall of Fame once their careers are over. In that article, I covered owners as well as broadcasters and today I’m going to cover GMs, coaches and officials.
We are through the first round of 2025 playoff games. Home fans in all four cities were sent home happy as the higher seeds prevailed in each quarterfinal game, and the semifinal matchups are set. The defending champion Buffalo Bandits will take on the unbeaten-in-seven Vancouver Warriors, and the Halifax Thunderbirds, fresh off their first-ever playoff win, will meet the Saskatchewan Rush, fresh off their first playoff win in six years. These series are going to be amazing.
For all you fans of NLL teams that are not in the playoffs, or maybe those of you who want to bet some bucks on the NLL playoffs, here is a handy reference guide for why each playoff team may or may not win the Championship.
That will do it for the 2025 regular season. Seems like just a few weeks ago we were getting ready to start the season and now it’s already over. But of course, the playoffs are an entirely different beast, and even though there are no more than thirteen games left before the long off-season, those games will be the most meaningful ones played all season. There was an awful lot of Awesome this past week, so let’s get into it.
A couple of surprises this week as the Desert Dogs beat the Rock in OT and almost knock them out of the playoffs, the Wings break their losing streak, and the Roughnecks shut down the Rush’s offense, particularly in the second half. The Bandits return to the win column, the Thunderbirds and Knighthawks celebrate their entry into the playoffs with wins, and the Warriors continue their winning ways with their new goaltender.
Trade deadline day in the NLL was pretty uneventful and boring… until it wasn’t. And then it really really wasn’t. First, former MVP and Goaltender of the Year Christian Del Bianco was sent to the Vancouver Warriors for defender Brayden Laity and some pretty high draft picks. Del Bianco had been holding out this entire season, asking for a trade closer to his home in Vancouver, and since Calgary is the closest team to Vancouver that isn’t Vancouver, there was really nowhere else for him to go.
There were a few other deals made that day as well which I’ll touch on too.
The battle for first place was won by the Bandits… for now. There were low-scoring games all over the place in week 14 – only one of the five games featured more than 21 goals, and two of them had both teams held under 10. Unsurprisingly, goaltending is featured in a number of my Awesome entries this week.
We saw a few significant trades this past week, notably two huge ones involving the Toronto Rock as well as another significant one involving the Wings and Desert Dogs. Then on Saturday, the Seals and FireWolves made a deal. The Toronto trades look like they’ve given up on the season and have begun the rebuild, but it may not be as bad as that. The Wings have massively improved their defense, the Seals and Rock get picks for the future, and the Desert Dogs and FireWolves both get some more firepower up front.
Rock goalie Nick Rose was traded to the Calgary Roughnecks earlier today. I’ll probably talk about that particular trade, as well as any other upcoming trades (several of which are rumoured), in another article later but today we’re going to look at how Rose came to the Rock in the first place.
NLL Chatter 