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The Warriors were up 7-1 on the Halifax Thunderbirds at halftime Friday but the offence dried up and they wound up falling 10-7
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Published Apr 25, 2026 • 4 minute read
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Vancouver Warriors’ Jackson Suboch and Nonkon Thompson (No. 19) of the Halifax Thunderbirds battling for position. Vancouver Warriors photoArticle content
The Vancouver Warriors’ season came to an abrupt halt Friday, with the team winding up on the wrong side of one of the great comebacks in National Lacrosse League playoff history.
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Top-seeded Vancouver (13-5) coughed up a 7-1 halftime lead on their way to falling 10-7 to the No. 8 Halifax Thunderbirds (8-10) in the single-game elimination quarterfinals before an announced crowd of 9,073 at Rogers Arena.
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The Warriors put together a veteran team loaded with playoff experience. They were built to make a championship run this season. And, with the struggles of the Vancouver Canucks, the Warriors had an open lane to build up their brand and add to the fan base over the next few weeks.
This was a window. In the blink of an eye, it was slammed shut and boarded up.
Vancouver general manager and head coach Curt Malawsky had a one-word message to the team’s fans afterward: “Sorry.”
“We let them down. It’s borderline embarrassing to be honest with you. It’s hard to walk around with your head up high after that,” Malawsky added. “I try to look at the positives. We had 9,000 people in the building. We didn’t get the job done.
“But don’t give up on us. We’re going to work extremely hard and try to do stuff at the draft and in the off-season and try to bring it all back. But we let them down. I let them down. That’s how I feel.”
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The NLL semifinals and championship round are best-of-three sets. The single-game quarterfinals have been tricky for top teams in the past. The Buffalo Bandits are the three-time reigning league champions, and they scored a 10-9 overtime win versus the Georgia Swarm and a 5-4 triumph over the San Diego Seals in the quarterfinals, respectively, the past two years on their way to titles.
Halifax has played teams tight all season, too. The Thunderbirds lost six one-goal games, including falling 8-7 to the Warriors at Rogers Arena on April 10.
So it’s not that Vancouver lost. It is the way that they lost. The six-goal comeback ties an NLL record for biggest rally in a playoff game. It’s happened several times, the most recent a 2022 quarterfinal game between the Thunderbirds and the Toronto Rock that saw Toronto triumph 14-13 in overtime after being down 9-3 at the halftime intermission.
Halifax was 3-for-7 on the power play Friday, compared to 1-for-2 for Vancouver. It’s rare you see those kind of man-advantage opportunities in a playoff game, and the Thunderbirds had three-power play goals in that momentum-swinging third quarter.
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The more pressing issue on the night for Vancouver was that their offence disappeared. They went 30 minutes, 56 seconds without a goal, which is a lifetime in lacrosse.
Vancouver finished fifth in scoring in the 14-team loop during the regular season, averaging 11.1 goals per game. Their lineup features three players who finished in the top-10 in league scoring in 2025, with free agents Curtis Dickson and Jesse King signing on this off-season to join Keegan Bal.
But there were stints this year like Friday, where there was too much stand and shoot, too much perimeter.
“We weren’t getting inside enough. They pushed us to the outside. We had good looks but we were settling for the outside shots,” Malawsky said. “That’s on me. I need to get the ball down low, into the corner, turn them around a bit.
“If we could play it over again we’d probably do some things differently offensively.”
What’s next for the Warriors is difficult to guess. Vancouver had 11 players on its 21-man roster Friday who were at least 30 years old. There was a school of thought around the NLL that Vancouver could lose several players to retirement if the team went on a deep run.
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Guys could still opt to pack in it now. Malawsky could decide to make changes. Unfortunately for everyone involved in that equation, there’s plenty of extra time to think about it.
“Everyone is gutted right now,” Vancouver captain Brett Mydske, a defender, said Friday. “I’m at a loss for words right now.”
Mike Robinson beat Vancouver netminder Christian Del Bianco to the fair side with 15 seconds to go in the third quarter to knot the score at 7-7. Jake Withers jumped on a turnover at centre floor, raced off on a breakaway and snapped home the eventual winner at 3:53 of the fourth quarter.
Bal had three goals and six points for Vancouver. Jason Knox put up four goals and six points for Halifax. Del Bianco made 61 saves, while Warren Hill turned away 36 shots in the Halifax cage.
The Warriors lost to Buffalo in the semifinals last season.
@SteveEwen
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