The National Lacrosse League prepares for its third post-season this weekend with a common look. The Rochester Knighthawks will again be on the road. They can only hope that the end result doesn’t mirror last season’s playoffs.

Last season the Knighthawks won on the road in Baltimore in the semi-finals, then lost 13-10 in Toronto in the Championship Game. Tomorrow night they’ll travel to Buffalo to take on League MVP John Tavares and the Buffalo Bandits at HSBC Arena.

There’s another familiar sight on the post-season landscape as Philadelphia travels to Maple Leaf Gardens in this weekend’s other matchup. The two teams tangled there last season in the game whose winner would advance to the title game. The Wings were embarrassed 13-2 in a game which set a new record for fewest goals by one team in one game.

Buffalo hosting tomorrow night isn’t as rare as if the game were in Rochester (the Knighthawks have only hosted one playoff game in team history, 1995, their first season), but it is the first time since 1997 that a post-season game is being played in the Nickel City. That game was the final championship game of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, and the K’Hawks were the opponents and won. The year before, the Bandits had beaten the Hawks in Buffalo to advance to the title game where they beat Philly for their third World Championship. Those are the only two post-season meetings between the Bandits and Knighthawks over the years. The Bandits are 7-3 lifetime in home playoff games.

There likely will be fireworks in the contest. Not of the pre-game entertainment variety, but rather of the offensive nature. Buffalo was the league’s highest scoring team this year and Tavares tied for the league lead in scoring. Right behind him though was Rochester’s John Grant, Jr., named yesterday as the NLL Rookie of the Year. Grant had an amazing 77 points in his pro debut.

Toronto brings an intimidating 13-1 record in their two years (regular season and playoffs combined) in Maple Leaf Gardens to Saturday’s game as well as a season-ending four-game winning streak. The Wings are just 2-4 against them (regular season and playoffs combined) over the last three years, but have over 100 games of playoff experience on their roster.

This game is not expected to be as high scoring as Friday night’s. After all, the two goaltenders were chosen to the First and Second All-Pro teams announced yesterday. Toronto’s Bob Watson (First Team), led the league in goals-against average (11.04) and tied for the top save percentage mark (.771). Philadelphia’s Dallas Eliuk is pro indoor lacrosse’s all-time saves leader, and he’ll be facing a Toronto offense that produced the third-fewest goals in the NLL this season.

Capsule looks at the games: