It’ll be interesting to see what tricks head coach Curt Malawsky has up his sleeve to re-ignite the Vancouver Warriors’ offence and extend their best-of-three National Lacrosse League semifinal playoff set against the Buffalo Bandits.
The Warriors host the Bandits Sunday (6 p.m.) at Rogers Arena, needing a win to keep their season going after falling 9-3 in the series’ opener Friday in Buffalo. Game 3, if required, would be next Saturday in Buffalo.
Vancouver came into Friday on a seven-game winning streaking, including a 15-10 triumph over the Rochester Knighthawks in the single-game quarterfinals. They had averaged 13 goals a game over that stretch.
The Warriors (11-7) finished fourth in the NLL regular season — four points behind the front-running Bandits (13-8) — and this is the second appearance in the playoffs for the franchise in the past 11 years. It’s their first in the postseason since the Vancouver Canucks bought the team in 2018.
This is the deepest the franchise has gotten since the team went to the league final 2013 as the Washington Stealth.
There’s extended playoff experience with the club, though, and that’s headlined by Malawsky, who guided the Calgary Roughnecks and whose success there included winning the league title in 2019. The Coquitlam product is in his second season with Vancouver and also has the general manager title.
The Warriors were a league-best 7-2 at home in the regular season. That’s on their side for Sunday. They were missing veteran left-hander Riley Loewen for undisclosed reasons on Friday, and there’s no word on whether he’ll be back in the line-up for Game 2.
Loewen, 35, was fourth in team scoring in the regular season (19 goals, 41 points in 16 games). His biggest asset is that he’s willing to do the dirty work, getting loose balls and opening up space for others by setting picks. He also has history in the Malawsky system, playing for him Calgary for three seasons, including that 2019 championship campaign.
He has 15 NLL playoff games on his resume.
Friday’s offensive output was a season low for the Warriors. They had been held to single digits in scoring five times, lowlighted by a pair of seven-goal nights.
Vancouver fired 38 shots at Buffalo netminder Matt Vinc, and found the net once each in the first, second and fourth quarters. All their goals came on the power play. They were 3-for-5 with the man advantage.
The Warriors trailed 7-2 at halftime.
Their offence has dried up at points this season, and once again it felt like they were too stagnant, with too much stand and shoot from the outside. They seemed to have trouble getting to the middle of the floor against the Buffalo defence.
All three Vancouver goals came from right-handers, with one each from Keegan Bal, Kevin Crowley and Dylan McIntosh. Bal, who was the Warriors’ leading scorer in the regular season, had one goal and two assists.
Christian Del Bianco made 39 saves in the Vancouver net. Vancouver’s seven-game winning streak coincided with the Warriors adding the former league MVP in a trade deadline blockbuster with Calgary.
Vinc turned away 35 shots in the Buffalo cage. Lefty Josh Byrne, who’s from New Westminster, had one goal and four assists to pace Buffalo. Fellow southpaw Ian MacKay tallied four times in the victory.
(Photo courtesy of the Vancouver Warriors)
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