Vancouver Warriors head coach and general manager Curt Malawsky and Buffalo Bandits general manager Steve Dietrich are old buddies who speak every day.
That’s not changing even though the Warriors are meeting the Bandits in the best-of-three National Lacrosse League semifinals starting Friday in Buffalo. Game 2 is slated for Sunday at Rogers Arena.
The Warriors beat the Rochester Knighthawks 15-10 Saturday at Rogers Arena in the single elimination quarterfinals. It was their first playoff game in their six years under Vancouver Canucks ownership and just their second postseason appearance in the past 11 seasons.
The Bandits are the NLL’s standard bearers. They’re the two-time reigning league champions. They defeated the San Diego Seals 5-4 in their quarterfinal on Friday.
“We’ll be talking tomorrow morning and we’ll talk all through the week,” Malawsky said Saturday night of Dietrich, his former teammate back in their playing days with Rochester. “We just won’t talk about our teams. We’ll talk about everything but.
“Him and I are super tight friends. We’re super close. He said to me ‘you win your game and we win our game and at least one of us is going to the final.’ It’s cool.”
Malawsky tagged Dietrich as “the best general manager in the NLL,” because he puts a “good product on the floor year after year after year.” He had high praise for the organization as well, citing how “they recruit good people,” and how they’re “at the top of the mountain for a reason.”
The Bandits finished in first place in the regular season, with a 13-5 record. The Warriors were fourth at 11-7, but they won the lone meeting between the two clubs, scoring an 13-12 triumph in Buffalo on March 29.
It was a signature victory for the Warriors in what’s now a seven-game winning streak after ousting Rochester on Saturday. The run has coincided with Vancouver landing star goalie Christian Del Bianco from the Calgary Roughnecks in trade deadline blockbuster.
Del Bianco made 47 saves Saturday, and Keegan Bal put up five goals and six assists to pace the offence.
It’s been a stunning turnaround for the franchise and one that began with the Canucks recruiting Malawsky ahead of last season away from the Roughnecks after a stint there that included capturing the 2019 league championship. Vancouver went 4-14 the year before Malawsky signed on. They went 8-10 last year with him at the helm.
“When we got Curt last year, I think you saw a momentous change within the organization, top down,” Bal said.
The series between Buffalo and Vancouver also features a showdown between Del Bianco and Matt Vinc, 42, the Buffalo stopper who’s won the NLL top goalie award eight times. Del Bianco snagged it in 2023, the year that he also won the NLL’s MVP honour.
“He just keeps doing it. Every time I see him he’s like ‘This is it. This is my last year, and every time I tell him ‘You’ve said this to me five times now,’” Del Bianco relayed. “To do what he’s done at this level for so long is so impressive. You look at him and the kind of the shape he’s in and the mental fortitude and the kind of discipline to stay involved for so long. He’s the GOAT for a reason and it’s obviously a pretty exciting challenge.”
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