If the Eastern Conference in 2024-25 was a one-team show, the West was the conference that actually gave you a race. Saskatchewan and Vancouver were the class of the division, but Calgary pushed into the playoffs at 10-8, Georgia and San Diego both finished 9-9, and there wasn’t a week where you could assume you knew exactly how the bracket was going to shake out. That’s what good conference play looks like.
It still ended in heartbreak for the West — Buffalo won the Cup — but the 2024-25 NLL Western Conference was genuinely compelling while it lasted. Here’s the full breakdown.
Saskatchewan Rush — 13-5 (NLL Finalists)
The Rush were the best team in the West and the second-best team in the entire league — which in most years would be enough to win a championship. This was not most years. Saskatchewan ran through their side of the bracket with authority, sweeping Halifax in the semifinals, then pushed Buffalo to a third game in the Cup Final before losing 2-1. That’s not a collapse. That’s a great team coming up just short against a historically great organization.
The award haul tells you what kind of operation this is. Frankie Scigliano won Goaltender of the Year with a .795 save percentage and a 9.40 GAA — those are elite numbers. Matt Hossack won Defensive Player of the Year. Derek Keenan won GM of the Year, which speaks to the organizational depth that makes Saskatchewan’s sustained success possible. This wasn’t a team built to make one run — this is a program engineered to compete at the top of the league year after year.
Saskatchewan is a dynasty in waiting. The question isn’t whether they can get back to the Final — it’s whether they can finally get past Buffalo when it matters most.
Vancouver Warriors — 11-7
Vancouver had a strong regular season at 11-7 and looked every bit the contender in the quarterfinals, dispatching Rochester in a series win. Then they ran into Buffalo in the semis and got swept — the same wall that stops most teams trying to end the Bandits’ dynasty.
The Warriors have a genuine star in Owen Grant, who won Transition Player of the Year. Grant is electric — the kind of player who changes what a defense has to account for, which is the sort of weapon that makes playoff runs possible. Ryan Dilks added a First All-NLL selection, giving Vancouver two marquee names at the individual awards level.
The Warriors are a legitimate contender. Getting swept by Buffalo isn’t an embarrassment — it’s the outcome that happens to most teams that face the Bandits in the playoffs. Vancouver needs to figure out what the next step looks like, because they clearly have the pieces to make a deep run in most years.
Calgary Roughnecks — 10-8
Ten wins in the NLL gets you into the playoffs, and Calgary earned exactly that in 2024-25. The Roughnecks are a franchise in a complicated moment — they have enough to compete, but not enough to threaten the top teams in the West on a consistent basis, and the quarterfinal loss to Halifax was a reminder that .500-plus doesn’t mean you’re ready to go on a deep run.
Calgary losing to an East team in the first round stings a little for Western Conference pride, but Halifax earned that series win. The Roughnecks head into 2025-26 needing to make decisions about what kind of team they want to be — retool for a real push, or keep cycling through competitive-but-not-quite rosters. History in Calgary says they’ll get it sorted. The Roughnecks have won before and the franchise knows how to build.
Georgia Swarm — 9-9
Nine wins, nine losses, made the playoffs, lost to Saskatchewan in the quarterfinals. For a US expansion team, that’s a completely respectable 2024-25. The Swarm have proven over several seasons now that Georgia is not an NLL novelty — it’s a real market with a real team that belongs in the conversation when playoff seeding is discussed.
Getting bounced by the eventual finalists in the first round is nobody’s idea of a successful postseason, but it’s also not a reason to write Georgia off. They were 9-9 against a league that includes Buffalo and Saskatchewan. A .500 record in that field is something. The Swarm are a team that’s found their footing as an organization — the next challenge is breaking through that 9-win ceiling and becoming a genuine threat to win the West.
San Diego Seals — 9-9
San Diego matched Georgia at 9-9 and drew Buffalo in the quarterfinals — which is nobody’s preferred first-round matchup. They lost, but they made it a game. The Seals went down 5-4 to the eventual champions in a single-game elimination, which is one goal away from one of the bigger upsets in recent NLL playoff history.
A 5-4 loss to the defending champions, eventual champions in the opening round — that’s not a story about a team that doesn’t belong. That’s a story about a team that competed until the final buzzer against the best squad in the league. San Diego has been building a legitimate identity in the NLL, and 2024-25 was further evidence that the Seals are for real.
If they can sharpen the roster around the margins and get back to the playoffs, they have the kind of profile — competitive, feisty, willing to push favorites — that can create problems in a short series.
Colorado Mammoth — 8-10
Eight wins. Out of the playoffs. For a franchise with Colorado’s history — multiple NLL championships, one of the league’s most established organizations — an 8-10 finish and a missed postseason is a rough patch you don’t just shrug off.
The Mammoth have been through cycles before. They know how to build and they know how to win. But 2024-25 was a step back, and in a conference where Saskatchewan, Vancouver, Calgary, Georgia, and San Diego were all fighting for playoff spots, finishing one game out of the top eight is a genuine setback. Colorado needs to figure out whether this is a blip or a trend — and the answer to that question will depend heavily on offseason decisions.
Las Vegas Desert Dogs — 4-14
Four wins in an 18-game season. Last place in the overall league standings. Las Vegas is still figuring out what an NLL franchise looks like in a market that’s built its sports identity around the Golden Knights and the Raiders, and 2024-25 was another painful lesson in the gap between expansion optimism and competitive reality.
Vegas as a lacrosse market is still a work in progress — the Desert Dogs haven’t found the formula to turn local sports enthusiasm into consistent box lacrosse attendance and a roster capable of competing. A 4-14 record puts you in full rebuild territory, which means honest conversations about player development, roster construction, and whether the market can sustain the kind of investment needed to close the gap on the Saskatchewan and Vancouver-level programs.
The NLL wants Las Vegas to work. The league benefits from a footprint in a premier sports market. But wanting it to work and making it work are two different things, and right now the Desert Dogs are a team that needs substantial improvement before they’re relevant in the playoff conversation.
The Western Verdict
Saskatchewan is the dynasty in waiting the NLL needs. The Rush have been to the mountaintop before — they won the Cup in 2016 — and this 2024-25 squad was built well enough to get back to the Final. Scigliano in goal, Hossack anchoring the defense, and a GM in Keenan who clearly knows how to construct a winner. The only thing standing between Saskatchewan and a championship is a Buffalo Bandits team that seems allergic to losing.
The brutal truth is that the Rush can do everything right and still lose to the Bandits in the Cup Final, because Buffalo has Smith and Byrne and a dynasty’s worth of playoff experience. That’s not a knock on Saskatchewan — it’s an acknowledgment that sometimes the universe deals you a great team and an even greater team in the same era.
The West is the more interesting conference. The depth is real, the competition is genuine, and there are stories at every level from the championship contender to the team still trying to prove it belongs. Whether Saskatchewan finally breaks through in 2025-26 — or whether Buffalo stamps out that hope again — will be the defining storyline of next season.