Many NLL fans these days have heard the story that the Buffalo Bandits had a long winning streak back in the early 90’s that lasted an entire season. It’s true, but there’s more to it than just that. Let’s have a look the facts of this amazing streak.

1992 was the year that Dhane Smith, Tom Schreiber, Frank Scigliano, Graeme Hossack, and Lyle Thompson, among many other NLL players, were born. That year, the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (which become the National Lacrosse League in 1998) featured one team that had moved from the previous year and one expansion team. The team that moved was the New England Blazers who moved from Worcester, Massachusetts to Boston to became the Boston Blazers. That Blazers team lasted from 1992–1997 and other than the name, was not related to the Blazers that played in Boston from 2009–2011.

The expansion team was the Buffalo Bandits. It featured rookies John Tavares, Derek Keenan, Darris Kilgour, Rich Kilgour, Jim Veltman, Paul Day, and Bob Hamley, all of whom later became NLL coaches or GMs. Tavares, both Kilgours, and Veltman are all in the NLL Hall of Fame.

1992

The team didn’t have a particularly successful start, losing their first three games – despite scoring 17, 16, and 17 goals in those games. Only three games into their first-ever season, the Bandits made a coaching change. They fired coach Bob “Buff” McCready (father of future NLLer Pat and great-uncle of Joel) and hired a man whose name should be familiar to most NLL fans: Les Bartley.

There’s a reason that the NLL Coach of the Year award is named for Les Bartley.

That coaching change was the beginning of the longest winning streak in NLL history. Bartley coached his first NLL game on February 8, 1992 and suffered his first coaching loss on February 19, 1994, over two years later.

In their first three games, the Bandits scored an average of 16.7 goals and allowed an average of 21. Over the next five games (seasons were eight games long at the time), they scored 22.2 (five goals above the league average for winning teams) and allowed 12.4. Success continued in the playoffs, as they beat Boston and then Detroit to get to the Championship game in their inaugural season. In the finals, they beat the (original) Philadelphia Wings 11–10, in what passed at the time for a defensive battle. John Tavares capped off his rookie season by scoring the winning goal (behind the back) in overtime and being named Championship game MVP. No other rookie has been named Championship MVP in the 31 seasons since.

You can watch the entire Championship game here. Pretty sure it’s not in high definition. Jump to around 1:59:20 to watch the OT winner.

Some of the 1992 Bandits along with a few Bandettes. Clockwise from the left: John Tavares, (unknown), Darris Kilgour, Paul Day, Rich Kilgour, and Mike Mooradian is in the middle. Check out the size of those gloves.

Overall, Buffalo scored 161 goals in eight games. That comes to 20.1 goals per game, still a league record for a full season and almost two full goals ahead of second place. They allowed 125 goals, 15.6 per game, the second-highest total in the league that year. When they say “defense wins championships”, this isn’t what they mean.

Derek Keenan was named Rookie of the Year, having scored 49 points in their 8 games. This is equivalent to 110 points in 18 games, or more than current record holder Jeff Teat had in his rookie season (108). John Tavares was right behind him with 43 points and Darris Kilgour close behind him at 39. Goaltenders Bill Gerrie and Ross Cowie split the season almost equally, with Gerrie playing 243 minutes and Cowie playing 237. Both had GAAs above 15.

The Bandits played at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, which had a capacity of 16,325. 16,325 was also the attendance of each of the last two Bandits home games that season.

1993

In 1993, the Bandits added rookies Troy Cordingley and Randy Mearns. Their dominance continued, as they won their opening four games by 7, 4, 10, and 4 goals. There were a couple of close games, beating Boston by two, Baltimore by one in overtime, and Philadelphia by one, before they ended the regular season beating Detroit by six. They reached 20 goals in only two of their games, compared to four the previous year, but cut their goals against down from 125 to 108.

Their overall offense dropped to “only” 17.9 goals per game, the third-highest average in league history. They allowed 13.5 goals per game; considering they were undefeated, it’s a bit surprising that only two teams allowed more goals than the Bandits.

Their 8–0 record earned them a first-round bye. They met the Boston Blazers in the semi-finals, beating them 12–10 in Buffalo. This led to a rematch against Philadelphia in the finals and once again they beat the Wings in a one-goal Championship 13–12, though not in OT this time.

John Tavares led the team and the league with 58 points in 8 games, a pace for 130 points in 18 games. He was named Championship Game MVP for the second straight year, a feat that has only been matched once when Cody Jamieson was Championship Game MVP in 2012 and 2013.

All of the four Bandits regular season home games, and the two playoff games, were sold out.

The 1993 Bandits. Photo from Budd Bailey’s Bandits History site

The 1993 Championship game is here.

1994

Despite the retirement of Derek Keenan, the 1994 season started the same as 1993 for the Bandits, with four wins averaging 16.8 goals scored and 12.3 allowed. Slightly lower scoring at both ends of the floor than the previous year, but the Bandits still won each game by around 4½ goals. But then the unthinkable happened: in front of yet another sold-out crowd in Buffalo, the Bandits lost 14–10 to the Boston Blazers.

After the loss, the team collapsed and didn’t win another game all year, and the fans completely abandoned the team. No, of course neither of those things happened. They did lose a second game that season, but finished 6–2 and went to the finals against Philadelphia once again. But the league would have to wait another twenty years for a team to win three titles in a row (and the Bandits would have to wait another thirty) as Buffalo lost 26–15 in the highest-scoring playoff game in history.

All of the four Bandits regular season home games, and one of the two playoff games, were sold out.

The 1994 Championship game is here.

Legacy

The Bandits

The Bandits won the Championship again in 1996. Over the next 24 seasons, from 1997–2022, they appeared in the finals seven times but only won it all once, in 2008. Most recently, they went to the Championship game in five straight seasons, winning three straight from 2023–2025.

They had a streak of nineteen straight games with attendance over 15,000 (including thirteen sell-outs) from 1992–1995. Attendance stayed high (over 12k) until 1999, when they missed the playoffs for the first time. It dropped to a low of 7001 per game in 2003, but then started to climb again. The average hit 15,000 again in 2008 and after a slight dip just before the pandemic, they returned strong with over 14k in 2023, almost 17k in 2024, and a league record average of 18,470 in 2025.

John Tavares

Tavares played in the NLL until he was 46, and retired after the 2015 season. At that point, he was far and away the all-time leader in goals, assists, and points. The assists record has since been eclipsed by Dan Dawson, but Tavares still owns the goals and points records. He played almost half his career in seasons with less than 16 games, and yet he’s still 147 goals and 244 points ahead of second place in those categories, and 235 goals and 385 points ahead of the highest still-active player, Ryan Benesch. He was named league MVP three times, Championship Game MVP twice, and was an NLL All-Pro 19 times.

In 2016, the season after he retired, Tavares became an assistant coach with the Bandits, was promoted to co-head coach (with Rich Kilgour) in 2019 (both winning the Les Bartley award), and became the solo head coach before the 2020 season. He’s won three NLL titles as a coach.

Crazy fact: At least 299 players have played at least one game for the Buffalo Bandits. From their first season in 1992 to the present day, if you ever played for the Bandits, John Tavares was either your teammate or your coach.

Derek Keenan

Derek Keenan retired after the 1993 season, though he returned to play six games with the Toronto Rock in 1999 before retiring as a player for good. Keenan then became an assistant coach with the Rock and was promoted to interim GM when Les Bartley stepped down before the 2004 season. He was later head coach and GM of both Anaheim and Portland before becoming the coach and GM of the Edmonton Rush, moving with the team to Saskatchewan where he remains.

Keenan has won more games as a coach than anyone in NLL history, and has won four Les Bartley awards and four GM of the Year awards as of 2025.

Les Bartley

Bartley won another Championship as coach of the Bandits in 1996 and stayed on as coach until 1998, when a new opportunity arose. He took Jim Veltman with him to Hamilton and became head coach of the expansion Ontario Raiders, who moved to Toronto a year later to become the Toronto Rock. He saw similar success in Toronto, coaching them to four championships (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003) in five years. He had retired from coaching due to health problems by the time the Rock won the championship again in 2005 but remained as an advisor and VP. He passed away the day after the Championship game (and a week after being named Executive of the Year) in May 2005.

In 2004, the NLL renamed the Head Coach of the Year award to be the Les Bartley Award.

Les Bartley

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The Buffalo Bandits’ winning streak lasted 22 games and just over two years. This is six games longer than the next closest streak of 16 games by the 2007 and 2008 Rochester Knighthawks.

The Bandits’ 1993 season is the only undefeated season in NLL history. This is an incredible achievement, but I’m afraid there has to be an asterisk next to it because of the length of the season. The 8-game seasons lasted until 1995. They were followed by two 10-game seasons, three 12’s, one 14, and twelve 16’s before moving to the current 18 game schedule in 2014. Obviously an 18-game undefeated season would be much more difficult. The Edmonton Rush started the 2014 season with fourteen straight wins; from 1987 to 2001, that would have been an undefeated season.

The numbers

• Regular season wins: 17
• Playoff wins: 5, including two Championship games
• Average goals for during the streak: 18.1
• Average goals against: 12.9
• Average winning margin: 5.2
• Games scoring 20+ goals: 7
• Games giving up 20+ goals: 1
• Games winning by 6 or more: 10
• Games winning by 2 or less: 7
• OT games: 2
• Home game sellouts: 11
• Home games not sold out: 1