All games will be on ESPN+ and TSN+ in addition to other mentioned listings. The first round is single elimination.

(8) San Diego Seals @ (1) Buffalo Bandits – Friday April 25, 7:30 pm, TSN, WNLO

No matter who it was going to be to settle into the 8 seed heading into the final weekend of the regular season, it was going to be a team that has given the Bandits a hard time either this year or in a different part of the last three seasons. The Seals are not at all a prototypical 8 seed. For starters, none of Trevor Baptiste, Kyle Rubsich, or Ryan Benesch played in either matchup with the Bandits this season, and Zach Currier did not play in the second of the two games on paternity leave. While that’s not to say that they were a dominant team when those marquee roster pieces were healthy, they looked a lot more like the championship contender they sought out to be when everyone is available. Ironically, the road teams won each of the two games this season despite the Seals having had a better season at home (6-3) than on the road (3-6), including a three game skid in their last three road games of the season.

In the Seals win, it was the bookends that got it done, as they got out to a 4-0 lead in the first 7:09 to take the crowd out of it early, but as they saw after Connor Farrell scored his first career goal, the crowd can get back rolling in an instant. And that of course is the advantage that the Bandits will carry into Friday night that could be stronger than any other game-planning item on the legal pad, and John Tavares and his team know this better than anyone else would. Although it was the first round last year where they had their biggest scare of the playoffs with the Swarm taking them to overtime.

As the favorites and the cream of the crop, the Bandits hold an advantage where their best execution of what’s got them here is going to be their best gameplan. But in contrast, San Diego’s advantages are where they can truly look to optimize every advantage they can receive. The biggest one of those is the math game that comes with possessions. The more they can get the ball, whether that’s on faceoffs or with their ability to extend their own possessions and end Buffalo’s as abruptly as possible, they can turn the game into a math problem that will only further be optimized alongside their ability to pepper shot volume adjacent to Buffalo’s issues allowing a high volume of attempts.

For Buffalo as a whole, the theme of this playoff run will be their ability to stay out of the penalty box. After the most PIMs in the league this regular season, a byproduct of their extra aggressive defense, the value of possessions only gets tighter, and while they have shown a willingness to become even more of shot blocking extraordinaires, the special teams math would give San Diego what might be the most valuable asset in the matchup, keeping Josh Byrne off the floor and Dhane Smith being forced to play more settled defense if they do use him at the top of their PK while Paul Dawson and Cam Wyers are in the crease with Matt Vinc looking to soak every shot.

Of course, if a game becomes a math problem, it means the team that does more of their homework is going to have the advantage. And as the favorites, it’ll be the Bandits goal to make sure that no matter the amount of homework San Diego has done that it simply would not matter.

(4) Rochester Knighthawks @ (5) Vancouver Warriors – Saturday April 26, 10:00 pm, TSN

It turned out there would be more significance to the December 13th matchup between the Knighthawks and Warriors than that it was simply the first time that Rochester and Vancouver have played in Vancouver since 2017. It turned out in the end that the winner would be hosting a first round matchup between the two teams.

A lot has changed for both teams since the December matchup, of course starting between the pipes. Rylan Hartley did not make his return from a training camp lower body injury until February 1, and Christian Del Bianco was on the couch until the mid-March trade deadline ended his holdout in Calgary and brought him to the hometown Warriors. Rochester had also yet to add Mike Sisselberger to the lineup and with that were, unsuccessfully, facing off by committee in the first month of the season. That itself could make a big difference as Alex Stathakis won 15 of the 20 faceoffs in that first matchup of the season.

Whatever issues they did have scoring in December didn’t linger in Rochester. After being held to 7 in back-to-back weeks and then 6 to close out the month (the other two games coming against Buffalo), Rochester rebounded with 34 goals between the next two games and have since been one of the more consistent offenses in the NLL, being the defining trait of their 6 game win streak to secure their spot in the playoffs. On the other side of the matchup, the Warriors offense has also been consistent in their 6 game win streak, having only been held under 10 goals once since the calendar flipped to February, led up front by Keegan Bal scoring double digit goals in every game of the win streak and not being held without a goal once this season.

The clash in styles from the first matchup will carry into this one, as Vancouver’s ability to keep the ball out of the net goes beyond the addition of the 2023 MVP to the crease. The veteran core of Brett Mydske, Ryan Dilks, and Matt Beers has been the only one to hold Connor Fields without a goal in his entire time with the Knighthawks. The whole left side of the offense was held without a goal in the game, with 6 of the goals coming from Ryans Smith and Lanchbury and the other on a transition goal from Josh Medeiros. Curt Malawsky and Rob Williams’s defense will be okay with giving up shot volume to Rochester, so it will be up to them to ensure they can either get quality or immediate offensive rebounds when they have to resort to quantity. The defense has also been a different animal at home, as they only surrendered 75 goals at Rogers Arena across the entire season, winning 7 of the 9 games along the way.

With the expectation of the largest crowd in franchise history on Saturday, the Warriors and their fans are going to be juiced from the opening faceoff, creating an additional layer of adversity for the Knighthawks to overcome, but for the first time of their three straight playoff appearances they have the advantage in another key place: experience. While the Warriors roster has plenty of vets, guys like Owen Grant and Reid Bowering and most of the offense will be playing in either their first career playoff game or their first in a handful of years, the last of which up front being Kevin Crowley in 2023 with San Diego. Rochester has gone into hostile territory in Buffalo and Hamilton the past two seasons, so the adjustment to the lights will not be something to need to adjust to.

What they will, however, need to figure out in this third go-around is their starts. In their first playoff game back two years ago, the Bandits shut them out 3-0 in the opening quarter and a 4 goal run to end the first half before the Bandits went for the kill shot and turned a blowout into a massacre. And then last year, of course, was Toronto’s onslaught of goals in the first 3:46 as part of a 5-1 first quarter that had Rochester climbing a steeper mountain the rest of the way against a defense that certainly didn’t need to be spotted 4 early goals to feel in control. As has been the case for most of the last three seasons, Rylan Hartley may be the X-Factor once again on Saturday night, as a composed 60 minutes with limited to no runs could be enough to get the Knighthawks to the semifinals, which would, in turn, give them their first home playoff game in the expansion era.

The other big storyline in the lead up to faceoff will be the status of Ryland Rees, who missed the last two games of the season after sustaining a lower body injury during Rochester’s game against the Seals at the end of March. He is currently a game time decision.

(6) Calgary Roughnecks @ (3) Halifax Thunderbirds – Saturday April 26, 7:00 pm, TSN

The Thunderbirds have their first home playoff game in The Maritimes, the Rock did not make the playoffs, and even still, Nick Rose is standing between them and their first playoff win since moving to the Maritimes in 2019. It’s not too often in a playoff matchup either that both starting goalies did not play in the regular season matchup, as Rose was a trade deadline acquisition, and Mike Accursi has stated the plan is for Drew Hutchison to start his third straight game (although Cam MacLeod and Warren Hill, who were the starters in the season opening wild back-and-forth game will be the backups).

Enough has changed since the 18-17 season opening win for Calgary to not want to take too much away in analysis that could carry over, but up front, both offenses have had a lot of success this season that has been relatively stable both at even strength and with special teams, which is something that has allowed Halifax to outscore and outkill their defensive and penalty issues that have fluctuated throughout the season.

Sometimes it can be lazy to draw everything up in a matchup to the impacts of the goaltending, but considering the stakes and context of how both teams’ netminders have gotten to this place, it feels like the spotlights will indeed be on the creases.

(7) Georgia Swarm @ (2) Saskatchewan Rush – Saturday April 26, 9:30 pm

The regular season matchup between the two participants in the 2017 Finals was the type of slugfest defensively that the Rush would love if every game were like that: An 8-7 final with limited penalties and the offense sharing the wealth while the defense suppresses the opponent’s shot attempts. The Rush have done it with defense all season and, in turn, the best statistical season of Frank Scigliano’s career to share the top record in the NLL with the two-time defending champs.

While Brett Dobson had some stinkers this season, including being pulled in 3 of their last 5 games (all losses in the pulls, wins in both games where he played the full slate, the game against the Rush was his best of the season. With the knack for the big stage still early in his career, having won back-to-back championships outdoors and nearly stealing a game in last year’s opening round, there is a recipe for an upset bid from the Swarm to pair with the experience that the roster in front of them has in big games throughout all but two seasons while the team has played in Georgia.

But even with that steal-a-game ability for the Swarm, as shown in that regular season matchup, the recipe for an upset is going to have to likely target at least 10 goals, which 4 of the 5 teams to beat the Rush this season did (the exception being a 9-7 Bandits win). The Rush gave up less than 10 in 8 of their regular season games.

Of a fun trivia note, Six members of the 2017 Swarm are expected to be in the lineup this weekend for the current day Swarm, while 4 members of the 2017 Rush are still on the Rush, while a 5th, Jeremy Thompson, suits up with his brothers for the Swarm.

(Photo Credit: Buffalo Bandits)