NLL 2025 Postseason — Semifinals; Site Postseason Update and Caution
The potential 6 games of the Semifinals of the 2025 NLL Postseason; TyMerLacrosse.com updates and a word of caution
Photo Credit: Halifax Thunderbirds
And then there were four.
The favorites showed why they were the favorites in the 2025 NLL Quarterfinals, four games where three of them weren’t particularly close and one that didn’t reach double digits in combined goals. That top quartet dance again in their best-of-three series split (potentially) between two weekends.
For the Warriors and Bandits, they play two games this weekend — one on Friday in Banditland and the other on Sunday at the Rog. If they split the weekend, then they return to Buffalo on May 10 for a win-or-go-home contest to decide who advances.
HFXvsSAS is in a similar boat. Kinda. The second seed Rush should host the first game of the three-game series, but the teams agreed last minute to host game one in the Maritimes this weekend and play the last two games in SaskTel Centre next weekend. This situation isn’t unfamiliar for the NLL; the Mammoth and Roughnecks held a similar series back in the West Conference Finals of 2023, where the lower seed Mammoth advanced past the Roughnecks in three games. People can freak out and imagine there’s some conspiracy going on or this tanks the Rush’s home floor advantage or whatever other nonsense they think is a worthy hill to die on, but man, this is the NLL. Both teams agreed to it; if it was a begrudging agreement on either end, then that’s their problem (nobody’s ever truly happy in the NLL even when everything’s going their way); travel from Buffalo to Vancouver (via Toronto) is much easier than from Saskatchewan to Halifax, and chartering a plane to put both teams on for a two-game weekend is a powder keg that nobody wants to pay for.
We pick the dumbest things to get worked up about (I type while sipping tea and definitely not thinking about any recent articles I’ve written blowing up at the NLL, nope, never happened, couldn’t be me).
This preview tackles the entire Semifinals in one go. I also wanted to use the opportunity to talk about the minor updates to the site I’ve made for the postseason and caution freaking out over small samples.
Here’s how this works: I’ll tell you the matchups, the results of their five most recent contests (if applicable), top three (or four) scorers on each team, probable starting netminders, and team offensive and defensive shift stats as slash lines (S%/SOG%/E%) (offense on the left, defense on the right). All stats are based off my work for this site; as of the Semifinals, all stats are from the 2025 NLL postseason. Regular season stats can be found here.
This is intended to be bare bones, quick and easy content to get you caught up before the weekend’s games. No analysis or storylines, just the stats.
If you’re in the US, all games are available on ESPN+; if you’re in Canada, you can catch the games on the TSN app or NLL Plus.
Here’s what’s ahead.
Photo Credit: Buffalo Bandits
Vancouver Warriors (4th seed, 11-7 | 1-0)
vs.
Buffalo Bandits (1st seed, 13-5 | 1-0)
Friday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m. ET at KeyBank Center
Sunday, May 4 at 9:00 p.m. ET at Rogers Arena
Saturday, May 10 at 7:00 p.m. at KeyBank Center (if necessary)
Last 4 Meetings:
Tied at 2-2
Warriors
15.0 GF/GAME | 10.0 GA/GAME
Bandits
5.0 GF/GAME | 4.0 GA/GAME
Warriors Top Scorers
Keegan Bal, 11 PTS (5G, 6A)
Adam Charalambides, 5 PTS (5A)
Kevin Crowley, 4 PTS (2G, 2A)
Bandits Top Scorers
Dhane Smith, 3 PTS (1G, 2A)
Kyle Buchanan, 2 PTS (1G, 1A)
Josh Byrne, 2 PTS (2A)
Ian MacKay, 2 PTS (2G)
Probable Starting Netminders
Warriors
Christian Del Bianco — 10.00 GAA | .821 Sv% | 0.74 GSAA | 60:00 min.
Bandits
Matt Vinc — 4.00 GAA | .923 Sv% | 5.98 GSAA | 60:00 min.
Offensive & Defensive Stats
Warriors O | D
TrueES — 20.4/71.4/16.4 | 15.9/70.5/13.2
TruePP — 0.0/40.0/0.0 | 0.0/69.2/0.0
TrueFB — 37.5/100.0/25.0 | 12.5/100.0/12.5
TrueSH — 20.0/60.0/16.7 | 0.0/50.0/0.0
Bandits O | D
TrueES — 4.3/83.0/3.4 | 4.6/64.6/5.2
TruePP — 0.0/28.6/0.0 | 7.7/53.8/12.5
TrueFB — 50.0/50.0/20.0 | 25.0/50.0/20.0
TrueSH — 0.0/50.0/0.0 | 0.0/50.0/0.0
Photo Credit: Saskatchewan Rush
Halifax Thunderbirds (3rd seed, 11-7 | 1-0)
vs.
Saskatchewan Rush (2nd seed, 13-5 | 1-0)
Saturday, May 3 at 6:30 p.m. ET at Scotiabank Centre
Saturday, May 10 at 9:30 p.m. ET at SaskTel Centre
Sunday, May 11 at 8:00 p.m. ET at SaskTel Centre (if necessary)
Last 5 Meetings:
4-1 in Thunderbirds’ favor
Thunderbirds
16.0 GF/GAME | 12.0 GA/GAME
Rush
13.0 GF/GAME | 9.0 GA/GAME
Thunderbirds Top Scorers
Thomas Hoggarth, 8 PTS (3G, 5A)
Randy Staats, 7 PTS (2G, 5A)
Mike Robinson, 6 PTS (1G, 5A)
Clarke Petterson, 6 PTS (1G, 5A)
Rush Top Scorers
Jake Boudreau, 5 PTS (4G, 1A)
Ryan Keenan, 4 PTS (2G, 2A)
Austin Shanks, 4 PTS (2G, 2A)
Probable Starting Netminders
Thunderbirds
Drew Hutchison — 12.00 GAA | .774 Sv% | -1.83 GSAA | 60:00 min.
Rush
Frank Scigliano — 9.00 GAA | .816 Sv% | 0.40 GSAA | 60:00 min.
Offensive & Defensive Stats
Thunderbirds O | D
TrueES — 11.3/62.3/11.8 | 9.8/75.6/8.3
TruePP — 25.0/100.0/20.0 | 11.8/70.6/15.4
TrueFB — 33.3/75.0/30.8 | 40.0/80.0/36.4
TrueSH —22.2/55.6/20.0 | 0.0/50.0/0.0
Rush O | D
TrueES — 11.4/65.9/9.3 | 10.5/76.3/10.0
TruePP — 11.8/82.4/13.3 | 16.7/50.0/12.5
TrueFB — 35.7/92.9/38.5 | 20.0/86.7/17.6
TrueSH —12.5/87.5/11.1 | 0.0/66.7/0.0
Site Postseason Updates
The main statistics on this site — when you click Advanced Stats in the top left of your screen if you’re on desktop or top right via the dropdown menu on mobile — now feature the 2025 NLL postseason stats. The 2024-25 NLL regular season statistics are still available if you go to Past Seasons’ Stats. I’ll probably swap them back once the season’s wrapped up.
At the beginning of every season, I usually caution readers not to read too much into stats until a team has played four games. Anything less than that has useful information but falls into the realm of small sample size (SSS). The postseason is even worse, the SSS of SSS, like when Akira Toriyama needed to figure out new power scaling for the Saiyans beyond Super Saiyan 3 and went, “What if they were gods,” and we got that SSGSS nonsense that eventually was superseded by Ultra Instinct (Boudreau is currently operating in Ultra Instinct mode).
It’s fun to look at the stats from the previous four games and the 6-9 remaining games of this season, but take them with a rock of salt. The Bandits aren’t going to allow four goals against every game; conversely, their offense won’t pot just five goals. The Thunderbirds high-flying offense caught a thermal last weekend, but expect them to descend back to earth a bit.
Trying to mine substantial meaning in a condensed gauntlet is foolhardy; enjoy what’s happening, marvel at the Bandits TrueESE% of 3.4%, all that jazz. Use the postseason stats to compare a team’s current performance with their regular season statistics. But don’t freak out over anything. What we saw near the end of the season is likelier to be what a team is than a flash in the pan.
This is a really weird way of saying “Use my stats but don’t take them seriously but pay attention no not like that nothing matters except for the stuff that matters that you again shouldn’t take seriously cause the postseason’s effectively The Room of Spirit and Time but lacrosse.” That’s right, two Dragon Ball references in one blurb.