(Photo Credit: Christian Bender)

See Last Week’s Preview for team comparisons, all games will be on ESPN+ and TSN+ in addition to the listed linear TV stations below

The best-of-three semifinals will see two double-headers, with the game 1s on Friday Night and the game 2s Saturday afternoon, with the eyes on the league once again looking towards the Great Lakes for a fourth straight semifinals matchup between the Bandits and Rock.

(1) Toronto Rock vs (4) Buffalo Bandits

• Game 1 – FirstOntario Centre – Friday May 3, 7:30 pm | TSN, WNLO
• Game 2 – KeyBank Center – Sunday May 5, 5:00 pm | ESPNU
• Game 3 (If Necessary) – FirstOntario Centre – Saturday May 11, 7:00 pm | TSN

This Season’s Bandits-Rock Regular Season Matchups: Game 1 (Week 9), Game 2 (Week 16)

Last Year’s Bandits-Rock Series: Preview, Game 1, Game 2

2022 Bandits-Rock Series: Preview, Game 1, Game 2

Isn’t it nice to have 3 year’s worth of recaps to prime up for the playoffs?

Anyways, there’s one more reason to take this excerpt from last year’s East Final preview to explain the setup for this matchup

From Owner/GM Jamie Dawick to Head Coach Matt Sawyer, to every single member of the Rock’s roster, they are sick and tired of losing to the Buffalo Bandits. Win their first championship since 2011 and make their first finals since 2015? Sure that’s the ultimate goal, but they are very aware that it won’t happen without getting past the wall that has stood in their way for four calendar years now.

Now it’s 5 years. Adding a 2014 win in the East Semifinal, the Bandits have won 6 straight playoff games against the Rock and haven’t lost to them in the playoff game since 2012, which was a string of three straight for Toronto over Buffalo. Just when you thought they were done loading up, they traded for Mark Matthews and returned the same rarely penetrable defense they built last season to look to counter the Bandits high-powered offense.

Injuries have been an undeniable part of both teams’ regular seasons, but outside of Latrell Harris for Toronto and Matt Spanger for Buffalo, the lineups have returned to full strength just in time for this next edition of the rivalry.

Toronto earned the first home game with their regular season prowess but we have seen during this series and the last three years of games that neither home floor nor the regular season head-to-head have been a hint towards what to expect in the playoffs.

The gameplans don’t really change either. As always, getting Nick Rose moving is the best way to open up scoring chances against him and being too static will allow him to get his angles properly set up for easy looking saves. Staying out of the box (for both teams really) for Buffalo will prevent Tom Schreiber and Mark Matthews from having the advantage. For both sides, soundness on screens to take away the opportunities for pass deflections and transition opportunities. The biggest thing to watch for on the powerplay will be if the Bandits return to the extremely packed in penalty kill they broke out in last year’s series for a myriad of blocks. The difference there would be that the back end of Ethan O’Connor and Bryce Sweeting from last year’s series is now Paul Dawson and a rotation of other Bandit penalty killing mainstays such as Steve Priolo and Nick Weiss.

(2) San Diego Seals vs (3) Albany FireWolves

• Game 1 – Pechanga Arena – Friday May 3, 10:30 pm | ESPNU
• Game 2 – MVP Arena – Sunday May 5, 3:00 pm | ESPNU
• Game 3 (If Necessary) – Pechanga Arena – Friday May 10, 10:30 pm | ESPNU

Recap of their Week 8 matchup in Albany: The Seals traveled to Albany and became the first team to take down the 2023-24 FireWolves, opening up to a 7-1 lead in the first half. Doug Jamieson left the game at halftime with a lower body injury, and Justin Geddie was strong out of the gate in the third quarter, allowing his team to go on a four goal run to get back within one, but the Seals rattled off 5 goals in 5:24 to convincingly walk away with a road win. A 4 goal 3 assist game from Austin Staats led the way for the FireWolves, while Wes Berg had 2 goals and 5 assists to match the team-high in points. Curtis Dickson had 4 goals, and Dane Dobbie had a goal and 5 assists, while Chris Origlieri stopped 43 of 50 shots in the win. San Diego’s defense held Ethan Walker to a goal and 3 assists and Alex Simmons to a goal and 2 assists as part of the win as well. For Albany, Jamieson made 17 saves on 24 shots in his half, while Geddie had 28 saves on 34 shots.

Two incredibly different paths got Albany and San Diego to this semifinal matchup. San Diego took a punch to the gut in the waning seconds of their opening round matchup with the eventual runner up Colorado Mammoth as the favorites coming out of the West in 2023. Two seasons with their all their chips in the middle on the quest to get Brodie Merrill an NLL Championship to cap off his legendary career. Well a calendar year later, Brodie was a late season addition to the lineup to go with trading for Trevor Baptiste to optimize their possession numbers on their way to a 13-5 record. They were expected to get here and did.

Yet in the Capital Region, a 3-15 season with a 167-233 GF-GA flipped into 206-191 for 7th and 3rd in the league respectively. While their first overall pick in the 2023, Dyson Williams, had people looking ahead to the 24-25 season after he finished out his final season at Duke, 2022 first round picks, Alex Simmons and Tye Kurtz, combined for 70 goals and 105 assists to earn rookie of the year nominees and out to a 7-0 start. At 11-2 on March 8, the cracks started to show and back-to-back losses to the Knighthawks started a five game losing streak before getting back into the win column to end the regular season.

Albany’s offense during that 5 game skid streak was the source of the team struggles while the defense hovered between 10-11 goals in each game. 3 goals allowed on Sunday, along with Doug Jamieson’s sustained success in the regular season with an .800 SV%, are certainly a sign that the back door will be ready to challenge the San Diego star power and take their chances in transition with 4 of the 9 goals the team scored against the Thunderbirds.

San Diego’s defense is no slouch either with the second fewest goals and shots on goal allowed in the NLL in the regular season and the least shot attempts, including only 7 goals allowed in that regular season head-to-head in Albany. It’s just as reasonable to expect the experience of the Seals to will them through a three game series as it would be to think that the FireWolves young offense will remain loose enough to not have the baggage of struggles in postseasons past with a defense that has some mainstays that were around during their playoff berths in 2018, 2019, and 2022. It’s as 2 vs 3 as you could expect — a three game series is highly likely along the way, and if the first round showed anything, a chess match between Glenn Clark and Patrick Merrill has the most slots in the spin of the wheel of possible outcomes.

Outlook

I don’t have a prediction for the winners but this is certainly the best chance we have gotten for both series going the full 3 games. And of course, the more lacrosse the better. This is also the most lacrosse we’ve gotten on linear TV in a week.