National Lacrosse League

The 2012 NLL Playoffs begin on Friday, May 4th.  The division seeds are as follows:

East

1 Toronto Rock

2 Rochester Knighthawks

3 Philadelphia Wings

4 Buffalo Bandits

West

1 Calgary Roughnecks

2 Colorado Mammoth

3 Minnesota Swarm

4 Edmonton Rush

The schedule for next weekend:

Friday, May 4

Philadelphia at Rochester, 7:30pm ET, NLL Network

Saturday, May 5

Buffalo at Toronto, 7pm ET, TSN, RDS2 & NLL Network

Minnesota at Colorado, 7:30pm ET, CBS Sports Network

Edmonton at Calgary, 9pm ET, NLL Network

Overall Seeding

The Overall Seeding of Playoff Teams, which is used solely to determine home field advantage for the Championship Game, is listed below.

1. Calgary (12-4)*

2. Toronto (9-7)*

3. Colorado (11-5)

4. Minnesota (9-7)

5. Rochester (7-9)

6. Philadelphia (7-9)

7. Buffalo (7-9)

8. Edmonton (6-10)

*Division Champions

In the three-way tie between Buffalo, Philadelphia & Rochester for fifth place in Overall Seeding, Rochester wins the tie-breaker in the first step by having the best head-to-head record against the other two combined during the regular season.  Rochester went 4-2 vs. Buffalo and Philadelphia (3-0 vs. Philadelphia, 1-2 vs Buffalo). Buffalo went 3-3 (1-2 vs Philadelphia, 2-1 vs Rochester) and Philadelphia went 2-4 (2-1 vs Buffalo, 0-3 vs Rochester). 

Per league rules, only one team can advance in any tie-breaking step.  The tie-breaking formula is then re-applied to the teams remaining in the tie (Philadelphia and Buffalo). Philadelphia won the season series with Buffalo 2-1, so the Wings win the tie-breaker with the Bandits.