The 2025 NLL season is over. Congratulations to the Buffalo Bandits, who became the second team in NLL history to win three straight Championships with an impressive 15–6 victory over the Saskatchewan Rush.
My prediction for game three of the finals was not entirely wrong, but mostly; I said last week that I’d expect it to be “a low-scoring, close, exciting game that’s down to the wire”. Well, it was exciting, anyway.
Only one game left. The Rush refused to be taken out in two games, and the Bandits lost their first playoff game in almost two years (Game 2 of their Championship series against the Mammoth in 2023). The 2025 season is now down to one game, next Saturday afternoon (at an unusual 4:30pm EDT start time) in Buffalo. Both teams have strong defences, incredible goaltending, and powerful offences so it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen, but low-scoring games have been far more common in these playoffs than high-scoring games. I’d expect more of the same – a low-scoring, close, exciting game that’s down to the wire.
There was only one game this past weekend but it was an exciting game, particularly the crazy ending. The finals are now set and will feature the Buffalo Bandits hosting the Saskatchewan Rush in a rematch of the 2016 finals. The Rush won that series in two straight but both teams are very different now. The 2025 Finals will be a great series.
And then there were three.
Christian Del Bianco and the Vancouver Warriors played two strong games, but Matt Vinc and the Bandits were just too much for them and the Bandits swept their semi-final series. Buffalo will now need to wait a week to see who they will host in the 2025 NLL Finals, and then wait another week to actually play again.
The Rush went into Halifax and won, but as I’ll explain below, it was a much closer game than the score would indicate, at least until the last few minutes of the game.
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.
Another exciting weekend in the NLL, and we’re a little closer to knowing the final playoff positions. We now know that Buffalo has clinched first overall, Saskatchewan is second, third and fourth will go to two of Halifax, Rochester, Vancouver, and Calgary (though Calgary can’t finish third and hasn’t actually clinched a playoff spot), and only Toronto and Las Vegas have been eliminated.
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.
We’re a little closer to knowing the playoff picture but incredibly, the only thing that was decided this past weekend was that the Rush have clinched a home playoff game. Buffalo and Saskatchewan are now tied for first, with Buffalo holding the tiebreaker, but there are still six other teams (COL, GEO, HFX, ROC, SD, VAN) that could still finish first overall. Four more (ALB, CAL, OTT, TOR) could finish as high as third, and the Wings could finish as high as sixth. Alternatively, any of those teams except Buffalo and Saskatchewan could finish tenth or lower. For example, with only three weeks left in the regular season, the Rock could finish 3rd or 14th.
Just like last year, the playoff race could come down to the very last weekend, or even the very last game, of the season. Once again, unified standings FTW.
Another busy weekend in the NLL with seven games. Blowouts were the name of the game this weekend, as four of the seven games featured a team that led by at least nine goals and three of them led by eleven. To balance things out, we had a one-goal game and a two-goal game, but most of the games were decided well before the fourth quarter even started.
I have more Not Awesomes than Awesomes this week, which is unusual, but even the Not Awesomes aren’t really that bad.
It’s hard to believe we’re talking playoff positioning already. It seems like the season just started a few weeks ago but we’re at week 15 now. Nobody has clinched a playoff spot or has been eliminated, but we’re getting close. Lots of awesome stuff happened this week, and there was a few things that were not, so let’s get into it.
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