2024 NLL Playoffs: Semifinal Series Preview
For the first time in over two decades, the opening round of the National Lacrosse League Playoffs saw all of the higher seeds go through to the semifinals with the Toronto Rock, San Diego Seals, Albany FireWolves and Buffalo Bandits all coming through in tightly contested quarterfinal contests.
Who’ll move onto the 2024 NLL Finals?
Again, we review why the remaining teams will win their upcoming best-of-three semifinal series, but also why they won’t in The Lax Mag’s Semifinal Series Preview.
Friday, May 3, 2024
(1) Toronto Rock vs. (4) Buffalo Bandits
7:30pm ET, First Ontario Centre (Hamilton, ON)
Click here for remaining series schedule.
(2) San Diego Seals vs. (3) Albany FireWolves
10:30pm ET, Pechanga Arena (San Diego, CA)
Challen Rogers, Toronto Rock (Photo: Christian Bender)
(1) Toronto Rock
Why they’ll win
Because on paper, the Rock were the best pound-for-pound team in the NLL during one of the most dominant regular seasons in history, and although the Knighthawks tested them at times in the quarters, Toronto held a lead for nearly 58 of 60 minutes, their game winner netted a few minutes into the second half. And while yes, the Bandits have had the Rock’s number in the playoffs and swept them during this year’s regular season (2-0), unlike past recent postseasons, Toronto comes in as the favorite for the first time in seemingly a while. Unlike their January 27th loss to Buffalo, you’d have to think Challen Rogers will get plenty of offensive opportunity against the Bandits during this semifinal series. Rogers had zero rips in that L, and missed their next match in March (another loss) due to injury. Since coming back on April 6th, Rogers has been a regular contributor on O, including leading the team with 5-points in last weekend’s W over Rochester. Rogers’ O vs. D positioning is always debated, so why bother bringing it up again? Last year, Rogers’ best offensive games came against… the Bandits, including a hat-trick in Game 1 of the East Final. In fact, Rogers regularly scores at a much higher rate versus Buffalo than the rest of the league. In regular season and playoff games against the Bandits, Rogers averages 1.41 goals per game, which includes five of his six career hat-tricks. Against other NLL teams he averages far fewer (0.76). Like last weekend, if the Rock win, expect their captain to impact the offense, early and often.
Why they won’t
Because the Bandits have the Rock’s number, recently in the regular season and especially over their postseason history. Toronto is just 1-4 over the two team’s last five meetings, and worse yet, are on an 0-6 playoff slide against Buffalo that stretches from 2014 until last year’s one-sided 17-8 loss that booted the Rock from the playoffs (also the game that ultimately led to all five minute majors getting an auto review by the refs). It’s been 4,381 days since Toronto had a W over Buffalo in the postseason, the Bandits leading their all-time playoff series 3-7. Since that last win on May 5, 2012, 14 players in that game were or are still in a coaching role in the league, including Buffalo’s current bench boss, John Tavares. In many recent losses, the Rock have lost in a variety of ways, this year falling behind early and not being able to battle back and then also blowing a lead late. Like the Bruins to the Leafs, the Bandits are in the Rock’s heads, and they’ll need a Herculean effort to overcome that this weekend. Buds in seven though, right?
Austin Staats, San Diego Seals (Photo: Kalea Vizmanos)
(2) San Diego Seals
Why they’ll win
Because the Seals grinded out a win last week against Panther City in the quarters, giving them an additional level of confidence they had yet to tap into. A hot opposing goalie (Dillon Ward in 2022 and 2023) has largely been their downfall in the playoffs, and even though PC’s Nick Damude played about as good as a goalie could (his 54 stops on 63 shots is a remarkably rare playoff ratio, only topped by a handful of all-time beauty backstops, including Ward), the Seals still slipped through and effectively rolled over that postseason roadblock. They also got Trevor Baptiste back, whose dominant dot play was pivotal in the possession game against Panther City (19/21, 91%), and will be again when they run into a more than capable Joe Nardella this weekend (Nardella topped Baptiste once in 2022, and was almost 50/50 against him this year). It’s also interesting to note that all four of this year’s semifinalists have a proven American-born face-off taker, because clearly… faceoffs don’t matter but also really do matter. Austin Staats showed that his personal best regular season production wasn’t going to slow once the playoffs started, Staats scoring four times, amounting for almost half of San Diego’s goals that game. The 3.89 points per game Dane Dobbie registered during the 2024 regular season was the second-lowest output of his career, and worst since 2012 when he averaged 3.87. Worried? The former Cup winner & Finals MVP had a hat-trick, Dobbie’s clutch strike two minutes and 49 seconds into the extra frame winning the game and continuing to build that playoff confidence the previously postseason-struggling Seals needed. San Diego didn’t sign Dobbie for the points he’d produce during the regular season. They signed him for what he did last Saturday (and has done for them before). The Seals are also the team that snapped Albany’s 6-0 win streak to start the season, and did it decisively at MVP Arena by a score of 14-7. Curtis Dickson, who was held scoreless last Saturday (so was Wes Berg, who scored in all 18 regular season games this year and averaged 2.28 per), had arguably his strongest game of the season against the FireWolves, scoring four times in that regular season win.
Why they won’t
Because the competition is now even stiffer and the Seals have not beat a team with a regular season record above .500 since March 9 (12-8W over Halifax). While they did defeat that young Albany team back in January, the FireWolves own one of the league’s stronger records against those .500+ clubs, and will come in more prepared and focussed for Game 1 on Friday night at Pechanga. Albany goalie Doug Jamieson had by far his worst game of the year against the Seals, something that is unlikely to happen again, especially after coming off a ridiculous 3-goals-against game in the FireWolves quarterfinal crushing of the Thunderbirds. They’ll definitely need more contributors on the scoresheet than what they got last week, with Staats and Dobbie owning seven of their nine QF goals. When they beat them back in January (AKA: a while ago), San Diego got goals from six different players, and a combined eight assists from goalie Chris Origlieri and their defense. To beat Jamieson again, they’ll need offensive output coming from everywhere to overwhelm one of today’s top tendies. This is no easy task.
Nick Chaykowsky, Albany FireWolves (Photo: Kevin McGurn)
(3) Albany FireWolves
Why they’ll win
Because they’re still seemingly being considered this year’s underdogs even after achieving the opening round’s most dominant game-winning performance when they extinguished Halifax with ease. Like we said last week, being counted out is when this team played their best ball of the season, and while the Seals are likely taking them very seriously, that not-now vibe from media, fans and seemingly everywhere else likely has their locker-room fired the fuck up. The FireWolves were one of the season’s least penalized teams (only Rochester & Saskatchewan spent less time in the sin bin) and keeping the Seals above-average PP unit off the floor (third most efficient man-up during the regular season) will be key. Although penalties were being called at a really high rate in their quarterfinal game, the FireWolves forced the final to be decided with five on the floor, and with a lower-ranking special teams unit, that’s also important for them. While Jamieson was obviously their Player of the Game last weekend, their transition, led by trade-deadline acquisition John Wagner (2G, 1A, 10LB, 2CTO, 2BLK), was equally as important in that QF victory. Between Jamieson and the D, the team collected 4 goals and 6 assists against Halifax, a point total that would have been enough to knock off the Thunderbirds. If they run their press that efficiently again, the Seals will struggle to keep up while backchecking.
Why they won’t
Because the Seals exposed them in multiple areas earlier this year and looked like the far superior team in that one-sided 14-7 L. San Diego is healthier, further focussed, have added Brodie Merrill and Chris Wardle, and are seemingly more confident than ever since that mid-January result. As much as their youth has been a positive this year, teams as young as Albany have never made an NLL Finals. While the addition of Merrill pushed the Seals to become this year’s oldest roster, with that comes experience and a list of high-level vets hungry for their first Cup. This last-ditch drive won’t be easy to stop. Albany has the youngest roster since the 2015 Minnesota Swarm (Source: NLLStats.com), the franchise needing a few more seasons to mature before winning it all in 2017, although they were still the league’s youngest team that year too. As pointed out in our recent Rookie of the Year breakdown, Albany does far better when Alex Simmons scores a hatty or more. In last week’s win over Halifax, Simmons had just one goal on 10 SOG, and the FireWolves offense had only five goals total, relying heavily on Jamieson and their transition to seal the deal. They’ll need more from their front-door core if they hope to upend the second-seeded Seals.
Dhane Smith and Josh Byrne, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Michael Hetzel)
(4) Buffalo Bandits
Why they’ll win
Because the Bandits always seem to beat the Rock when it matters most (more on that in Toronto’s why they won’t above): the playoffs. But besides that, in their narrow OT win over the Swarm last Saturday, Josh Byrne showed why he may be today’s top finisher (5G), Dhane Smith the sport’s finest facilitator (6A), and Matt Vinc the league’s most money shot stopper (his third straight game giving up under ten). Their defense (10 blocked shots to Georgia’s 5) and transition (Ian MacKay and Nick Weiss both scored game-tying goals in transition) were also on point. Why has Buffalo been so dominant during the playoffs in recent seasons? Their stars play big and their secondary support plays their role to perfection. And almost as if we scripted it, days after The Lax Mag crowned Byrne as 2024’s Clutch King, he goes off and scores a game-tying, three go-ahead, and that OT-winning goal in what was maybe the most clutch performance by any player all season. It was an all-time playoff performance too.
Why they won’t
Because as exciting as that quarterfinal conquest was, it was damn close, and the Rock have proved to be superior to the Swarm this season. In a rare recent postseason occurrence, Buffalo won’t have the upper hand with home-floor advantage, which belongs to the Rock all playoffs long. Will that matter? Maybe. During the playoffs, Buffalo owns an impressive 28-10 all-time record at home, but are only 8-14 on the road. Trivial, but obviously being away from Banditland isn’t an advantage either. While they were able to keep him relatively quiet during their two regular season wins over Toronto this year, Mark Matthews doesn’t share the Rock’s hurting history against Buffalo in the playoffs. During the 2016 NLL Finals, Matthews and the Saskatchewan Rush swept Buffalo to take the Cup, and although he hasn’t seen the Bandits a ton during his regular season career, Matthews has had some pretty big point totals against them in the past. Toronto did score 12 and 14 against Buffalo in those two contests earlier this year, and since that mid-March match between the two talented teams, the Rock have given double digits just once. Yes, Buffalo has a history of bouncing the Rock from the playoffs, but if they’re going to do it again this year, they’ll have to come up with a new postseason plan.