Buffalo Bandits at Georgia Swarm
The Buffalo Bandits season is officially underway. By that, I mean we are finally three games into the season and have a slightly better sample size to look at to see how the team is shaping up. Injuries have been an early plague on the offense. New players and new faces to the Bandits have been stepping up, can that trend continue against the Georgia Swarm? We will find out.
The Georgia Swarm are off to a rough start this season. Unlike the Bandits, they have only played two games so far this season sitting at 0-2 with losses to the Rochester Knighthawks and Philadelphia Wings. Georgia is currently averaging 12 goals for and 14.5 goals against. Twelve goals for is a decent average but it did come against two teams lacking strong defense. Head-to-head, despite their injuries, I think the Bandits match up very well to Georgia. The Bandits are coming off their best game of the year and will be playing with a little extra motivation in this game with the strength of Damar Hamlin behind them.
Georgia is not an overwhelming team in any aspect of their game. On offense, they have a few star players in Shane Jackson, Lyle Thompson and Andrew Kew. Some fans will remember Brendan Bomberry from last year as he was often mixing it up with the Bandits defense. Jackson, Thompson and Kew have enough firepower to cause some concern. However, the Bandits defense was able to contain a more powerful Halifax offense. If they can keep the runs to a minimum, similar to last week, the defense will be in good shape.
The Georgia transition game can be used as a scary weapon. Led by Jordan MacIntosh and Jeremy Thompson this team can put goals in the back of the net in a hurry on transition. The Bandits are notorious for allowing quick transition goals so the defense will have to be on top of their game to keep these goals from causing any concerns on the scoresheet.
On defense, Georgia is not all that threatening. TJ Comizio leads the defense with twenty loose balls and six caused turnovers. Goaltender Craig Wende, like the rest of the team, is off to a tough start. He is currently averaging 13.72 goals against and a .730 save percentage. Both of these stats are music to the ears of an offense that is coming off an 18-goal performance.
The Buffalo player I’ll be watching in this game is Thomas Vaesen, if he is not replaced by Brad McCulley who is attempting to return from injury sooner than later. Vaesen is coming off his first career NLL game. Despite the Bandits putting up 18 goals last game, 7 of them from Josh Byrne, Vaesen was only able to contribute two assists. Getting the first game jitters out and now playing a weaker opponent should be good news for a player the Bandits know has a lot of skill. He played well in his first game despite showing up on the score sheet only a handful of times. I would love to see him get his first career NLL goal or maybe even three. I think he at least finds one in this game.
This is one of those games that the Bandits simply cannot overlook. This team is headed in the right direction after the rough loss to the Albany Firewolves. The Swarm may be a weaker team than Halifax or Toronto but anyone can beat you in this league. As we learned last year, every win counts. The Bandits lost four times last season and still barely won the East division. The Bandits need to go to Georgia, take care of business, come home next weekend, rinse and repeat.
Prediction - Bandits 15 Swarm 9