Four quarterfinals and four favorites advance. Records are broken in Buffalo. Attendance struggles in Saskatchewan. Keegan Bal put up 11 points. Jake Boudreau scores four transition goals. And a wonky schedule for the one semi-final develops. With that, let’s get into it.
Goals? Who Needs Goals?
If you’re Chris Origlieri, you have to wonder what else you could have possibly done to get your team a win. If you allow 5 goals in a game, and shut an offensive powerhouse like the Bandits out for an entire half, you should be celebrating your advance to the next round… right?Â
Besides, no winning team had ever scored less than 6 in a game before. Oddly enough, the Seals were involved in that game too earlier this year, a 6-5 win over Ottawa which tied the 20+ year record for fewest combined goals in a game and broke the record for the fewest by a winning team. Origlieri’s 0.886 save percentage has to be one of the highest save percentages in a loss. The difference, you’re playing against Matt Vinc, who was on an absolute heater with a 0.923 save percentage.
We have two new records in a 5-4 Bandits win. I don’t know how this game gets topped and this record might last more than 20 years as well. And it could have been 8 goals had Zach Currier not scored with less than a second to go. And even crazier, 6 of the 9 goals were scored in the second quarter.
There are a lot of what ifs in this game, especially Kyle Buchanan’s goal with under a tenth of a second to go in the first half. It wasn’t a game of inches and seconds, it was the game of less than an inch and less than a tenth of a second that produced the game winning goal.
A big shout out to Dave Buchanan who had to take over play-by-play duties in the third quarter as the broadcast had audio issues from the main booth. He did a fantastic job from between the benches on a second’s notice. What could have been a disaster was quickly turned into a highlight in the game.
San Diego’s playoff luck continues to fail them. All time they are now 3-7 in playoff games. Given the age of their team over the years, one has to wonder how much that age catches up with them late in the season with a lot of wear and tear on those bodies.
Buffalo advances to the semis where they’ll play Vancouver, who beat Rochester 15-10 on the strength of an 11 point performance by Keegan Bal. Bal might be the greatest street free agent of all time, having no team sign him in 2018 until Dan Richardson signed him as an SFA in the 2019 season.
This series could be one defensive slugfest with Christian Del Bianco facing Matt Vinc. You never know what kind of game you’ll see, but my gut tells me that the first to 10 goals wins the game in this series.
One thing that was unfortunate, but inevitable this week is we saw the last game of Ryan Benesch’s career. At the age of 40, this was coming some time. Beni didn’t have anything left to prove in the league. No, he might not have won an NLL title, but he leaves the game as one of the top players of all time in goals, assists and points. Eventually the body can only take so much.
But the biggest gift these last few years have given him is the ability for his son Parker to see him play. Those that have read Random Thoughts for years know how big of a Beni fan I am. One of the nicest guys in the league. A great social media presence. He will be missed.
Swarm Rushed in Saskatoon
The Rush kept their miracle season going with a 13-9 win over Georgia. This was a strange game at first where the Rush offense really wasn’t that inventive. They were just taking any shot they could against Brett Dobson and weren’t getting him to move at all. The Rush were down 2-0 early and it could have been worse had it not been for some key Frank Scigliano saves. But then as they always seem to do this year, the Rush got 4 goals inside the last 5 minutes of the quarter to go up 4-2, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the night.
One of the keys in this game was transition chances. Both teams had a number of them, but it was the Rush that converted at a much higher rate. Jake Boudreau would end up with 4 goals, Jake Naso got an empty netter, and Mike Messenger scored a beauty with 50 seconds to go in the half.
Mike Messenger would like to officially RSVP for tonight’s #SCtop10.@SaskRushLAX pic.twitter.com/5L4mZuBsPM
— NLL (@NLL) April 27, 2025
The degree of difficulty here is off the charts as Messenger catches the ball slightly behind him, catches it backhanded, gets around and then stuff it far side twister.
While the Rush almost let Georgia back into it early in the third quarter, the Rush ultimately put some distance between themselves and the Swarm early in the 4th. The Rush’s defensive effort here has to be commended. When you can hold Lyle Thompson and Shayne Jackson to a goal each and Andrew Kew without a goal, you’ve given your team every chance to win the game. For Frank Scigliano, the stats are good, saving 38 of 47, but it’s the timing and the key saves, especially on the Swarm’s transition that won’t show up in the stats and really tells the story of the game. And then there was the one save from Scigliano which has to be up there as a save of the year candidate.
Frank Scigliano proves NOTHING is impossible!! 😱@SaskRushLAX pic.twitter.com/uZBA4WboIO
— NLL (@NLL) April 27, 2025
The Rush offence did what they normally do, spread the ball around and score by committee. Keep in mind, this is a team that finished tied for first overall, and their top scorer, Zach Manns finished 27th in league scoring. Nobody on offence scored more than twice or had more than 4 points. And one has to wonder if Jake Boudreau had that performance a week earlier, whether he would be winning the Transition Player of the Year.
The Rush now face Halifax who they’ve never played well on the road, although they’ve had some barn burners in overtime in Halifax. If history tells us anything, expect an OT game or two in this series.
Faceoff Data
Earlier this year I posted about how faceoff wins 60% plus were correlating to a much higher overall win ratio. Now the data has shifted slightly because more teams acquired faceoff specialists as the season progressed, but the final data still tells a story. Note that four games this season ended up tied at the dot.
| Faceoff Win % | Overall Record | Win % |
| 50.1-59% | 23-19 | 55% |
| 60-69% | 25-17 | 60% |
| 70-79% | 17-10 | 63% |
| 80%+ | 8-3 | 73% |
The 60%+ figure had an overall win percentage of 63% and overall the team that won the battle won 60% of the time. It might not sound like much, but winning 60% of the time is an 11-7 record, which would have earned you a home playoff game.
In week one of the playoffs, three of the four teams that won also won the faceoff battle (Buffalo was the exception). The winning teams won 56% of the draws.
Attendance in Saskatchewan
Even pre-COVID, I was perplexed by the attendance at Rush home playoff games. The first few years in Saskatoon the arena was sold out. Then the attendance started to taper off. There is a pattern when it comes to attendance in Saskatchewan. December is always terrible. Bruce Urban explained to me some time ago that between building momentum and a number of Christmas parties getting in the way, December was always a tough sell. In 2019, he had told me that they had already sold more tickets for their next home game in late January than they did that night in mid-December.
It takes until March for the momentum of regular season attendance to pick up. In April it really picks up once the weather isn’t sometimes -20 to -40 Celsius (-4 to -40 Fahrenheit). In the last few years this has also been exasperated a bit because of changes to the ticketing system for season ticket holders. In order to encourage more season tickets being purchased, the Rush management has adopted a system that allows season ticket holders to exchange tickets for a game they cannot attend for any other game that season. Plus, they added a feature to invite a friend, so for every season ticket purchased, you received one free ticket to any game during the regular season.
Naturally, many people forget about the free ticket until the last minute and are most often pushing tickets for games they can’t make to later in the season, not earlier. This does give rise to part of the reason the arena is fuller towards the end.
But you would think that the momentum of the Rush’s success this year, the first home playoff game in six years, and a number of other factors would have led to great crowds for the post-season. The only other live sports competition this time of the year is the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League, and they were swept in the opening round of the playoffs nearly a month ago. University sports all ended a month ago and the Saskatchewan Roughriders don’t start training camp for another month.
If there is competition of any form, it’s the NHL playoffs. For NLL hardcore fans, watching the NHL playoffs is secondary. But I’m not talking about the converted. I’m talking about the casual fan. The fan that will only come out a handful of times per year. How big the impact of hockey fans staying at home to watch their favourite team in the playoffs instead of coming to an NLL game is difficult to estimate.
But here’s where this gets mind boggling as to the 5,400 announced attendance for Saturday’s game against Georgia. I had posted on Twitter about being confused as to why there is always an attendance downturn come the playoffs. Several people voiced their opinions. One was that its difficult to sell a playoff game when you only have a week’s notice. But that wasn’t the case here. The Rush knew they had a home playoff game secured with three games to go in the regular season. One comment is that as the weather gets nicer, people want to enjoy the outdoors. This comment is valid later in May, and especially on the Victoria Day holiday which will coincide with the NLL Finals. It’s the unofficial start to summer and people flock to campgrounds. But on this night it was 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit) so hardly amazing weather.
One of the comments was about the ownership, but that too isn’t the case here. Not only were the Rush quick to get the ball rolling on selling playoff tickets and securing a date for the first home playoff game as soon as the Rush were confirmed to have a home date, the front office made the best offer that Rush fans have ever received to buy playoff tickets. It was called Pay as We Play. If you agreed to buy a ticket to every playoff game the Rush hosted, you only paid $25/ticket for most seats and $50 for the President’s Club seats. Even though I knew that not all of my family could make every game, I still went ahead and bought four of them. Our seats are typically $60/seat. Even if half my tickets went unused, I’m still paying less than I would at full price.
That’s why the attendance last weekend was so disappointing. The tickets were advertised all over the city and on social media. We didn’t see the tactics used earlier in the year which turned many people off. The price was ridiculously cheap. And yet, it was one of the worst attended home games of the season.
Players also can’t be happy about the numbers. Their playoff bonuses are based on a percentage of the ticket revenues, subject to a flat minimum. If you’re playing in the game in Buffalo, there would have been a significant playoff bonus. If you’re playing the game in Saskatoon, you’re likely earning the flat minimum. This isn’t about to get any easier, and I’ll discuss that next.
Confusing Semi-Final Schedule
On Saturday night we started to hear rumblings about when the semi-final games would take place. In fact, Vancouver announced their semi-final home game in the arena on Saturday night. The Buffalo-Vancouver schedule makes perfect sense. It’s the Saskatchewan-Halifax schedule that doesn’t.
Having to play the last two games at home reminds me too much of the old mini-game system. A decade ago, when the NLL played a best of three series, the first game was hosted by the lower seed. Game 2 was hosted by the higher seed and if those games were split, a 10-minute mini-game was played immediately after game 2 to decide the series. Most teams looked at having to play the first game on the road as a disadvantage and an erosion of their home floor advantage. More often than not, the lower seed ended up winning.
This is my main issue with the set-up for this series. How much of that home floor advantage is lost by Halifax hosting game one. Given, its easier to fly from Buffalo to Vancouver because you take the bus for a little over an hour to Toronto Pearson and then take any one of several flights to Vancouver from there. Its not as easy from Saskatoon to Halifax as you’re taking a connection in either Calgary or Toronto. But if securing enough plane tickets on short notice was the issue, then a charter plane should have been the answer.
I just talked at length about the issues with attendance in Saskatoon for the last playoff game. Imagine having to sell tickets to game 3 on 20 hours’ notice. Because the SaskTel Centre is booked on May 9th, the only option available is a Saturday and Sunday game.
The only advantage I see here is that if Vancouver vs Buffalo ends in a sweep, TSN has its game, or maybe games of the week in Saskatoon. But this situation should have been avoided.
Until next time…
Thanks. Informative as usual.