An incredible week of games starting with one of the best rivalries in the game, despite the results in recent years (Buffalo has won 11 of the past 12 matchups with the Rock since 2022). As I mention below, every game was a comeback to some extent but some were significant comebacks. Halifax/Rochester was as close as a game can be, to the point where we still don’t really know who won it.

Awesome

Rock vs. Bandits

This was one of the best games of the season, and possibly one of the best ever. The winless Rock, minus Matthews, Schreiber, Harris, and Ierlan, head into Buffalo to face the undefeated Bandits who have won their three games by an average of almost nine goals and are only missing Chris Cloutier. And yet what could easily have been a complete blowout was a close, hard-fought, knock-down drag-out battle right to the end. There were fights, almost-fights, lots of physicality, lots of penalties (deserved, undeserved, and uncalled) on both sides, lots of goals, some goals called back, power play goals, shorthanded goals, lead changes, pretty much everything you could hope for in a lacrosse game.

Nobody led by more than two, and nobody led by two for more than about three minutes. The Rock actually held a lead for about half of this game, almost 31 minutes, while the Bandits only led for about five. But until Dhane Smith scored the empty netter with eight seconds left, there was no time where anyone thought the game was settled.

Buffalo transition specialist Ian MacKay played a lot of offense in this one and for the second time this season, he scored five goals. He is now leading the team in goals, and even though the Bandits have only played four games, leading a team containing Dhane Smith and Josh Byrne is a big deal. Like Teddy Jenner said during the broadcast, I’m sure the Bandits would love to have MacKay on the offense all the time, but he’s too damn good as a defender and transition player to do that. They’ll just have to use him like the Rock use Challen Rogers, and have him on the floor in any capacity for as long as possible.

Ian MacKay and Chase Fraser are nonchalant while Bandits fans go nuts. Fraser does not skip leg day.

Goaltending wasn’t the star of this game at either end, but both Rose and Vinc had their moments. Troy Holowchuk got the loss but played really well in relief of Rose. He only allowed two goals on 13 shots in about 13 minutes, and made a number of game-saving saves before the Bandits finally got to him. It was more a matter of timing – if he had allowed those two goals on the first two shots he faced rather than the last two, things might have ended differently.

The fight in the third quarter was a bit unusual because of its duration. Big strong Elijah Gash and big strong Zack Belter went at it (and the irony of two fighters named Gash and Belter is not lost on me) and after a few punches were thrown, they both removed their helmets and gloves. Then Gash connected with a strong right and Belter went down hard. It’s not that Gash is so much stronger or bigger than Belter (Belter has an inch and five pounds on Gash), he just landed the perfect punch. While Gash was strutting around the floor and being held back by the ref, Belter had to be helped up and off the floor, and did not return. Nobody likes to see players injured so I hope he’s OK.

Given their current record and lengthy injury reserve list, the fact that the Rock more than held their own in that game was a big positive, so I’m sure they’re happy about that part of it and it should build a bit of team confidence. But at the end of the day, a loss is a loss so the hill to climb to get to the playoffs got steeper.

Comebacks

I already talked about Buffalo’s comeback against the Rock, though they were only down by two a couple of times so it wasn’t that big of a comeback. But there were others. In fact, every game was a comeback to some extent.

• Colorado was down 8–2 to Albany in the second and stormed back to win 15–13, despite a seven-goal performance by Tye Kurtz
• Philadelphia was down by two a few times but scored four in about 2½ minutes in the fourth to win it
• Rochester led by two for a minute in the third before Halifax scored six straight to take a four-goal lead, but then Rochester scored four to tie it with under a minute left before… well, I’ll get to that later.
• Saskatchewan pretty much dominated the Desert Dogs though the Rush were down 1–0 for two minutes in the first so technically it was a comeback
• San Diego led for almost 50 minutes of their game against the Warriors, though the lead was never more than three. But then Vancouver’s Keegan Bal decided he’d rather win, so he scored six goals in the fourth quarter including the game-winner to help make that happen
• Georgia led 3–0 after two minutes, but the Ottawa Black Bears tied it up early in the second and led most of the rest of the way

End of Halifax / Rochester game

After a complete goal-fest of a game, the Thunderbirds took a two goal lead in the fourth quarter, but Rochester held Halifax off the board for more than ten minutes and scored four of their own. The game-tying goal was scored at 14:06, with under a minute left in regulation time. By the way, the game was tied at 18 – that game-tying goal was the thirty-sixth goal of the game.

With the clock winding down, Clarke Petterson took a pass from Cody Jamieson, stepped around his defender to get a slightly better look at the net, and fired a shot to Riley Hutchcraft’s right that hit twine. Everyone in the arena and watching at home immediately looked at the game clock, which read 0:00. But did it hit zero before or after the ball crossed the line? Nobody knew. We still don’t know. We will never know.

The call on the floor was a goal. During the review, we saw a single camera view from behind the net. The ball was only visible in the frames where the game clock was at 0.1 seconds and 0.0 seconds. It was in the net at 0.0 and it was a long blur at 0.1. Given the camera angle, it was not possible to determine whether the ball was across the line or not. The eventual call was the only one they could make, which was inconclusive. The goal stood and the game was over. As the announcers said at the time, the game could not have been any closer.

This was only the 22nd game in NLL history where a team has scored 18 goals and lost, and only the third since 2007.

Not Awesome

Tyson Bell’s suspension

After the fan-assaulting incident in Week 4, Tyson Bell has been suspended by the league for seven games. He’d already missed one and also missed the Rochester game, so he can be back in the lineup on February 21 when the Thunderbirds visit Ottawa. Given the severity of the incident, I’d have thought 10–12 games would have been reasonable, but I’m glad they didn’t just slap his wrist with one or two games.

I have to admit I’m a little conflicted here. I have heard that the fan was yelling racial slurs at Bell, who is Black. I can only imagine what that feels like, and it would take an immense amount of strength to simply ignore it and keep walking. I do think that as a professional athlete, Bell needs to be able to summon that strength and ignore it, but a small part of me totally understands the need to do something about it. The league has taken steps against Bell, but the only thing it can really do about the racist fan is to ban him from the arena for life and revoke his season tickets if he has any. I don’t know if they’ve done that, but the ban would be difficult to police and so would effectively be symbolic.

No overhead camera in Rochester

As I said, we will never know whether the game-winning goal in Rochester was actually a good goal. But if there was a camera directly above the goal line, we might. Most NLL arenas have such cameras, but the Blue Cross Arena is one of the few (or possibly only) venue that does not. I confirmed with the league that there is no rule or mandate that all arenas have such a camera, but it would certainly be nice. If any of the Pegula family reads this article (the Sabres run the building), maybe you could make some arrangements?