The Vancouver Warriors play their first-ever National Lacrosse League playoff game in six years as a Vancouver Canucks’ property on Saturday night at Rogers Arena, and they come into that on a raucous roll, with a six-game winning streak that has seen them trailing on the scoreboard for all of three minutes, 22 seconds during that run.
The No 4 seeded Warriors (11-7) play host to the the No. 5 Rochester Knighhawks (10-8) in a 7 p.m. start at Rogers in the single-elimination quarterfinals. The teams met just once this season, and that came in Vancouver’s home opener on Dec. 13. The Warriors won 10-7 night.
That was one of eight games this season that Vancouver has allowed single-digit goals. Six of those came at Rogers Arena. Vancouver gave up the fewest goals (172) in the 14-team NLL this season, and also had the circuit’s best home record (7-2).
It’s been quite a turnaround. The Canucks bought the lacrosse team in June 2018, and changed their name from the Vancouver Stealth and moved them from the Langley Events Centre to Rogers Arena.
In their five years out of the LEC, they made the postseason just once, losing out in the 2017 first round. In their first five years under the Canuck umbrella, they were 27-58. That included going 8-10 last season, which was the first under Curt Malawsky as general manager and coach.
Malawsky, who’s a Coquitlam product, had a successful run as bench boss of the Calgary Roughnecks, including guiding the team to the 2019 league championship. His contract with Calgary ran out after the 2023 season, and the Canucks recruited him away when that happened.
Malawsky has neatly assembled arguably the league’s best defensive unit, adding free agents Matt Beers, Ryan Dilks and Jeff Cornwall to a group that already included Brett Mydske, Reid Bowering and Owen Grant. He made the blockbuster trade of this NLL season, landing goaltender Christian Del Bianco from the Roughnecks for defender Brayden Laity, two first-round draft picks and future considerations.
This six-game run has coincided with adding Del Bianco, the 2023 league MVP.
Vancouver gave up 39 fewer goals than they allowed in 2024. They permitted 75 fewer goals than 2023, when they went 4-14.
This is brand new territory for the franchise, this being a legit contender. Malawsky has been through it before with Calgary. The same goes for Del Bianco, who backstopped that 2019 team.
There are others, too. For instance, Mydske, Dilks and Cornwall all won three league titles with the Edmonton/Saskatchewan Rush.
“There’s a lot of excitement around the organization for getting in, but a lot of us have been there and been down that road and understand that the real grind starts now,” Malawsky said after the Warriors’ 11-5 win over the visiting Philadelphia Wings in their league play finale last week. “The pressure, comes now.
“We have to temper our excitement tomorrow. Tonight this organization and our fans deserve it. We’re going to enjoy ourselves and then come tomorrow morning it’s back to work.”
More Malawsky from last week: “When we built this team, number one, you want good people. But I think number two, right up in the list is, you want champions. You want guys that have kind of been through it. It’s hard to stand up there and say ‘This is how you do it, this is what are you supposed to do,’ if you haven’t won a championship.”
Rochester is led by Connor Fields, who finished third in league scoring with 46 goals and 123 points. Fields had one game this season where he didn’t score a goal — that visit to Vancouver back in December.
The Knighthawks also feature defender Ryland Rees, a Port Coquitlam product who was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 entry draft. He missed the Knighthawks’ final two regular season games with an undisclosed injury.
Adam Levi is reporting that Rochester coach Mike Hasen is calling Rees a game-time decision against Vancouver.
(Photo courtesy of the Vancouver Warriors.)
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