The Buffalo Bandits Crash the Party
The Calgary Roughnecks packed the Rough House with 16,443 fans for their St. Patrick’s Day party against the Buffalo Bandits. However, it was the Bandits who were partying by the end of the game after winning 11-6. To me, this game wasn’t about revenge. This game was about the Bandits making adjustments and responding to the 11-17 loss that Calgary handed them the previous week. I don’t think this was their strongest performance, or necessarily a great game, but it was the rebound victory they needed.
The offense has been, off, the last three games. They have scored 9 goals, 11 goals and 11 goals. Now, they have faced Frank Scigliano, a goalie of the year candidate, and Nick Rose, last year’s goalie of the year. However, this Bandits offense has proven time and again that it does not matter who is in goal or what team they are playing, they can score in bunches. There are two seemingly obvious issues with the offense right now, three if you want to include the power play. The first is Dhane Smith. The last four games he has had 4 points, 5 points, 4 points and 4 points again. In that stretch he has only 4 goals on 34 shots. That is a shooting percentage of 11.7 percent. Last year, his shooting percentage for the entire season was 19.4 percent. Before this four-game stretch Dhane had not been held to under 8 points in a game. As great as Josh Byrne is, this offense still funnels through Dhane. If Dhane is struggling, the offense is going to struggle. The other issue continues to be the left side of the offense, outside of Byrne. Byrne finished the game with 3 goals and 3 assists. Josh has not been quite as electric as he was to start the season, partially because of Dhane and partially because of the rest of the offense. However, he has still averaged at least 5 points in every game this season remaining consistent. Ian MacKay has played the last four games primarily out the back door. He only has 2 goals and 1 assist in those games. He has had multiple goals called back due to crease violations, but this isn’t about MacKay. Since MacKay has been on defense, Chris Cloutier has taken a big step backwards. In his last four games, he has scored 1 goal and added 5 assists for just 6 points. In the two games prior to this stretch, Cloutier had a 6-point game with 3 goals and 3 assists, as well as a 4-point game with 1 goal and 3 assists. It looks like it is no surprise that the left side of the offense is missing MacKay. Not only has his offensive ability been big for the Bandits this season, but it has also been big for Cloutier’s success as well. With all that being said, prior to these three games, the Bandits had not been held to under 13 goals in a single game. They have two great opportunities next weekend to right the ship and show what their offense can do. If they struggle in both games this weekend, there may be a bigger problem.
The Bandits defense welcomed two new players from the trade deadline in Kiel Matisz and Ron John. Matisz started his Bandits career scoring the first Buffalo goal of the game on his first shot in transition, not too bad. Ron John did a nice job playing defense and pushing transition himself. None of the stats for either of these players explode off the page after one game, but these two will only get better as they continue to become acclimated to their new team. The Bandits defense was a bit shaky in the first half. A lot of the big chances came on Calgary’s power play or in transition, but if it was not for Matt Vinc playing hero ball, this game would have been much different early on. I think the defense put together a better second half. The Roughnecks losing Tyler Pace to an injury in the first quarter didn’t hurt. As far as positives for the defense, two came to mind. Last week, against the same team, the Bandits blocked only 5 shots. This week, Paul Dawson had 7 blocked shots, Cam Wyers had 5 and the team had 17. The other big difference between the two games was the physicality that the Bandits brought. Last week, it looked like Calgary caught the defense off guard with the hard picks they were setting on offense. This week, it was the Bandits defense that was setting the hard picks clearing Roughnecks players out of the way all game long. We talk a lot about how Vinc does not seem to have back-to-back bad games. The last time he allowed over 15 goals in two consecutive starts was all the way back in 2007. This was quite possibly the best bounce back performance I have ever seen. Vinc was incredible to start the season, but I think this was his best game of the year. If Vinc could play like this every game, the Bandits would never lose again. I don’t expect him to be nearly perfect the rest of the season, but if anyone could do it, it’s him.
The special teams have been the weakest aspect of the Bandits game all season long. I would love to say it has only been the last four games and have some nice stats to back it up, but I can’t. It is getting harder and harder to believe that the power play will be fixed. It is simply not possible for an offense with this much talent to be so bad on the power play, but here we are. Before this game, where they went 0-for-2 on the power play, the Bandits were 10th in the league at 41% on the power play. The Philadelphia Wings are number one in the league at 56%. As a point of interest, the Las Vegas Desert Dogs are 4th in the league at 50%, and last in the standings. The Bandits offense has not needed the power play to score goals, but when it comes to playoffs, a power play goal could be the difference between chasing a three peat or going home. The penalty kill was 2-for-4 in this game and was 5th in the league at 59% before the game. It hasn’t been quite as elite as we saw last year, but it has still been great.
The Bandits have yet to lose two games in a row and have solidified their position at the top of the standings. They have things to work on as they enter the final stretch of the season. The scariest thing for the rest of the league is that the Bandits have yet to play their best lacrosse. At this point, if they want to save it for the playoffs, I’m okay with that. The Bandits have a big opportunity to push further ahead in the standings with a double header weekend and another chance to fix the few issues they have.
Goaltender Breakdown
In this segment, I will breakdown how the goalies, offense and defense all performed on the goals in the game. How many were impressive goals, breakdowns in the defense or on the goalie.
Nick Rose
Inside – 5
Mid-Range - 5
Outside – 1
Transition - 2
*0 goals were on the penalty kill
*0 empty net goals
Matt Vinc
Inside – 2
Mid-Range - 3
Outside – 1
Transition -
*2 goals were on the penalty kill
Goal 1 – PP goal – Simply a perfectly placed shot with good movement by Calgary power play
Goal 2 – PP goal – Nice skip shot by Dobbie with only a few seconds left on the power play
Goal 3 – H. Dickson used his big body to power through Martin/Wyers gets in tight and scores (D)
Goal 4 – King shakes loose of Martin and finds himself all alone in front of the net for the goal
Goal 5 – Bit of a scramble play leads to Haiden Dickson finding himself in a nice spot on the floor and burying a nice shot over Vinc’s shoulder
Goal 6 – It looked like MacKay was a step behind Cook who was streaking across the top of the floor and fires a quick shot to catch Vinc moving (D)
0/6 on Vinc
2/6 on the defense
Challenges by the Bandits – No challenges
Referee Corner
Like many of the fans out there, I find myself often questioning what the refs are doing on the field. From no goals and players being ejected, to calls that simply do not make sense. In this segment, I will attempt to use the rulebook and my best judgement to understand some hot topics from the previous game.
Bandits – 0-2 on the PP
Roughnecks – 2-4 on the PP
Thomas Whitty – Holding – Whitty grabs hold of the player’s stick as he was moving past him, before the pass ended up reaching him. Originally, I did not see a penalty on this play, but I was looking a bit too far ahead as the hold happens just a smidge behind the play – good call
Kiel Matisz – Dead Ball Foul – A cross check to a player who had dove into the crease. I don’t blame Matisz for doing it and it once again seemed like a quick call that could have been let go, but I get it – good call
Cam Wyers – Illegal Cross Checking - Inacio did a nice job bating Wyers into cross checking him and selling the call a bit. Wyers knows better than that - good call
Cam Wyers – Holding – Wyers wrapped his arm around the player and yanked him backwards – good call
Ian MacKay– Roughing – MacKay looked to slash Dobbie, then Haiden Dickson flew in and crushed Curtis Dickson on accident, hilarious, and then there was a scrum – good call
Thomas Whitty – Illegal Cross Checking – Whitty got involved in the MacKay scrum sticking up for his player – good call
6/6 – good calls
This was possibly the most physical I have seen the referees allow Buffalo to play without calling much. The Calgary players were getting tossed around and the referees were not getting involved. Most of the calls they made I agreed with, thought it was a well called game.