Chase for the Championship: NLL confirms playoff dates

Jesse King, Calgary Roughnecks, 2019 NLL Cup (Photo: Candice Ward)

The National Lacrosse League today confirmed their 2022 playoff dates, as well as launching a new post-season campaign: Chase for the Championship.

The leagues announcement states, “With 34 games on the schedule to determine playoff spots and seeds, the Chase to the Championship begins tomorrow, March 31 when the Philadelphia Wings host the East Conference leading, Buffalo Bandits, the first and only team to qualify thus far.”

The Bandits clinched their post-season pass this past weekend during a home-and-home sweep of the Halifax Thunderbirds. At 12-1, Buffalo boasts the best record in the league by far.

Of note, the NLL’s announced post-season plans will most definitely overlap the Premier Lacrosse League’s start of their regular season.

Last week, The Lax Mag reported on a new clause in PLL contracts that will not permit players to compete in non-PLL leagues during their season of play (June 4 - September 18 in 2022). Players TLM has spoken to confirmed that the NLL was not included in the list of prohibited leagues, although Canada’s Senior leagues like Major Series Lacrosse or the Western Lacrosse Association most certainly were.

Saskatchewan Rush, 2018 NLL Cup winners

As it stands now, three of the NLL’s seven post-season weekends would overlap the PLL’s regular season, a total of twelve games to be exact. If the NLL Finals are swept by the winning side, three overlapping weekends could become just two.

Also worth mentioning, unavailable NLL players would also more than likely miss most if not all of their PLL pre-season dates too.

Based on their potential dates of post-season play, 2022 NLL playoff games could fall anywhere from a Thursday to the following Monday. The league’s upcoming Week 18 schedule actually has that previously mentioned Thursday game between the Wings & Bandits, and also a Monday clash between Colorado & New York.

The NLL’s post-season & PLL’s opening-season schedules:

May 5-9

NLL: Single-elimination quarterfinal matchups
PLL: No games

May 12-16

NLL: First game of the best-of-three Conference Finals
PLL: No games

May 19-23

NLL: Conference Finals Game 2
PLL: No games

May 26-30

NLL: Conference Finals Game 3 (if necessary)
PLL: No games

June 2-6

NLL: First game of the best-of-three NLL Finals
PLL: Redwoods vs. Atlas, Whipsnakes vs. Chaos, Waterdogs vs. Cannons, and Chrome vs. Archers

June 9-13

NLL: NLL Finals Game 2
PLL: Chrome vs. Redwoods, Chaos vs. Archers, Atlas vs. Cannons, and Whipsnakes vs. Waterdogs

June 16-20

NLL: NLL Finals Game 3 (if necessary)
PLL: Waterdogs vs. Chrome, Atlas vs. Whipsnakes, Redwoods vs. Chaos, and Cannons vs. Archers

In last week’s TLM report on PLL contracts, 44 players that had previously competed in Canadian Senior seasons that were also rostered in the PLL were counted and confirmed.

That number will be even higher after including the growing number of Americans that compete in the NLL (Tom Schreiber, Trevor Baptiste, Matt Rambo, Connor Fields, etc.), as well as Canadians picked in the PLL’s upcoming College Draft (Jonathan Donville, Justin Inacio, etc.) when further examining players who will possibly have future difficult decisions to make between playing in the NLL playoffs or committing to early-season PLL contests.

PLL co-founder & the recently retired Paul Rabil has said in the past that he felt compelled to commit to a single pro season, ultimately dedicating 100% of his time to first Major League Lacrosse and then more recently the PLL, after no longer playing in the NLL.

@CurtisDickson17 @paultutka, Doesn't want to? Or is there a 7-week overlap between NLL & MLL? What if it was the other way, & MLL was first?

— Paul Rabil (@PaulRabil) April 7, 2015

A former first round draft pick of the San Jose Stealth, Rabil played in the NLL from 2009 to 2013.

The PLL team most impacted by the overlap are clearly the Chaos, who have 18 rostered players that also compete in the NLL currently: Wes Berg (San Diego), Josh Byrne (Buffalo), Chris Cloutier (Buffalo), Curtis Dickson (Calgary), Chase Fraser (Buffalo), Andrew Kew (Albany), Tehoka Nanticoke (Buffalo), Mac O’Keefe (San Diego), Ryan Smith (Rochester), Tanner Cook (Calgary), Kyle Jackson (Philadelphia), Challen Rogers (Toronto), Dhane Smith (Buffalo), Mark Glicini (San Diego), Dan Coates (Rochester), Ian MacKay (Buffalo), Max Adler (Buffalo) and Blaze Riorden (Philadelphia). Plus, Chaos Head Coach, Andy Towers, a former NLLer himself, serves as the Albany FireWolves’ colour analyst during home broadcasts at MVP Arena.

The Chaos captured the 2021 PLL Championship by beating the Whipsnakes 14-9, receiving arguably their best performances from many of the prominent players listed above.

While the Chaos would clearly never be in a situation where they would be missing all of that mostly high-end NLL talent, if the two current #1 seeds - Buffalo (East) & San Diego (West) - were to meet in this year’s NLL Finals, the Chaos could be without a total of ten players.

As shared on the NLL’s social media, if their season were to end today, the following matchups would make up the first round of the playoffs:

East

#1 Buffalo (12-1) vs. #4 Georgia Swarm (8-6)

#3 Halifax Thunderbirds (8-5) vs. #4 Toronto Rock (8-5)

West

#1 San Diego Seals (9-3) vs. WC Philadelphia Wings (6-7)*

#2 Colorado Mammoth (7-6) vs. #3 Vancouver Warriors (6-7)

*As stated in today’s announcement, “Under the new expanded playoff format instituted for this season, the top four teams in the East, top three teams in the West and one wild card team with the next best record qualify.”