Category Archives: Buffalo Bandits

Game Report: Toronto 15 @ Buffalo 9

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The Rock have traditionally played well in Buffalo; they were 13-6 in Banditland (including one playoff game) before Saturday night’s game. Given that, plus the fact that the Rock beat the Knighthawks convincingly last week and the Bandits lost even more convincingly in Calgary before coach Darris Kilgour questioned the heart of “everybody but about four people” on his team, it seemed inevitable that the Rock would prevail in this game. But this year, the inevitable may not happen, and what “can’t possibly happen” does. That’s why they play the games.

In this case the inevitable did indeed happen, as the Rock beat the Bandits 15-9 in a game the Bandits were only in for the first quarter and a half. Toronto took a couple of early leads, but never led by more than two. The Bandits tied it up early in the second before Garrett Billings’ second goal put the Rock up 5-4. The Toronto defense really stepped up their game at that point, and the Bandits offense didn’t get much in the way of good looks after that. Luke Wiles was shut down entirely (one assist) and Tavares was kept to 4+1. This year if you can shut down Wiles and JT, you’ve got yourself a win against the Bandits (and keeping JT to only 5 points is shutting him down). The Rock led 7-5 at the half, having already scored 4 power play goals. They would score another three in the fourth quarter.

Nick Rose had another solid outing for the Rock. In his second career start, Rose gave up 9 goals on 44 shots. He didn’t have to stand on his head, but was tested more than he was in Rochester last week, and made a number of very nice saves. The defense played very well in front of him once again, and a couple of people on the Wingzone message boards commented that Troy Cordingley was quite calm, cool, and collected behind the Rock bench because of it. (I was sitting up in the 300 level – best two seats I could get together on Thursday – so I could barely see Troy, let alone judge his mood.)

Late in the first, I wrote in my handy-dandy notebook that the Rock were passing very well, looking like a well-oiled machine. I then realized that this is a little easier to do when there’s five of you and only four of them. The Bandits were in penalty trouble much of the night, leading to the aforementioned 7 PP goals. It’s not even that the Bandits did dumb things and took penalties, they did dumb things at dumb times. Case in point: Doyle was given an “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty (which should really have been a delay of game) at 14:59 of the first, I believe for taking a shot after the shot clock had run out. Troy Cordingley must have disagreed with that rather vehemently, as the Rock were also given a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct (which was likely not really a delay of game). So the Bandits would have started the second quarter with a power play (they already had a man in the box) for 1:17, and then a two-man power play for 43 seconds after that. But what happens? Tom Montour takes a penalty 3 seconds into the second, and we play 3-on-3 lacrosse instead.

The biggest story of the game was the play of Garrett Billings. The man was everywhere. Four goals, eleven assists, fifteen points. He was involved in every goal scored by the Rock, and the NLL has said that this is the first time that’s ever happened. Seems weird that Stephan Leblanc can put up 4+5 and Doyle 2+6 and they barely get mentioned. Brendan Thenhaus also scored two, and it must have been nice for him to score a couple against the team that cut him earlier this year.

Other than the penalty thing, the Bandits didn’t really play all that badly. Thompson wasn’t at his best but wasn’t terrible, and did make a number of really good saves. Cosmo, on the other hand, was terrible. The Rock had 60 shots on net, but you have to wonder how many of those were on the PP. Take away the 7 PP goals for the Rock, and this is a 9-8 game with the Bandits winning. But you can’t just dismiss “the penalty thing” saying “if we just fix that, we’ll win more games”. Taking undisciplined penalties against a team with such a potent power-play unit is a recipe for disaster, and taking undisciplined penalties is fairly standard for Banditball. Whether it’s this year or not, the Darris Kilgour era in Buffalo will end at some point, and it will be very interesting to see the evolution of Banditball in the years following.

Other game notes:

  • Mark Steenhuis looks terrible in the picture they put up on the Jumbotron when he scores. His curly hair hangs down to his right shoulder in what looks like the weirdest comb-over you’ll ever see. Good God, man.
  • Just to continue the Bandits reputation as fighters and goons, there were two trivia questions asked by the in-game people at this game, and both involved penalty minutes. One was “who currently leads the Bandits in penalty minutes?” (answer: Travis Irving), and the other was “what is the Bandits record for most penalty minutes in a game?” (answer: 70).
  • Tom Montour scored a goal early in the fourth and then turned around and started stomping his foot and raising his arm in the air. I’m sure it was an inside joke of some kind, but that might have been the weirdest goal celebration dance I’ve ever seen.
  • My season tickets for the Rock are right at centre, seventeen rows up behind the player benches, and I love those seats. But at this game, my son and I were sitting (waaaaaay up in the 300 level) in a corner to the left of (and behind) the goalie at one end. In the first, Colin Doyle picked up a loose ball and ran behind the net and I could see, just as Doyle could, that Thompson was standing a little to the left and looking over his left shoulder. I thought to myself “there’s a hole on the right side! Jump and tuck it in!” just a split second before Doyle did just that. It was very cool to see the entire play develop, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that from the centre.
  • I have heard stories about fans wearing jerseys of the opposing team being taunted, harassed, or even physically attacked at sporting events, but I haven’t heard any such stories from Buffalo. I have never had an issue there in the ten years I’ve been going to Rock games there, and this time was no different. I even had a nice conversation with the Bandit fan whose young son was sitting next to me. I’m sure there are Bandits fans who are jerks (just like there are Rock fans and Wings fans and Stealth fans who are jerks), but I’ve never met one. I remember going to a Bandits game shortly after the 2002 Olympics, and a group of Bandits fans who saw our Rock jerseys stopped us and shook our hands, congratulating us on Canada’s double-gold performances in hockey.

Week 13 picks

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Wow. Do I ever suck at this game prediction thing. 1-5 last week, and I’m now getting to the point where if I get every pick for the rest of the season right, I might end up at .500. Just did the math: including the five this weekend, there are 22 games left in the season. To end up at or above .500 (i.e. the same odds as flipping a coin for each game), I have to go 18-4 from now on. Here we go.

Record: 18-32 (.360)

Game

Comments

Pick
CAL @ MIN I know Minnesota beat them a couple of weeks ago, but I still think Calgary is the top team in the league. It was just announced that Ryan Benesch will miss this weekend’s games with a concussion, so that won’t help the Swarm. This is why I usually wait until Friday to post my picks. (Because it’s made soooo much difference thus far.) Roughnecks
TOR @ BUF The Bandits will be pissed after last week, but they’ve been pissed most of the season and it’s done them no good. Yeah, they wiped the floor with the Rock a couple of weeks ago, but the Rock played much better the next week while the Bandits played much worse. The Bandits are over .500 (9-6) lifetime in Toronto, while the Rock are way over .500 (6-12) in Buffalo. Rock
WAS @ CAL Washington has definitely improved in recent weeks, but as determined as they are to make the playoffs, the Roughnecks are just as determined to finish first overall, and a couple of wins this weekend are what’s required to get in front of Colorado. I also know (thanks to an upcoming article) that when a team plays an away game followed by a home game in the same weekend, the most likely scenario is that they sweep both games. Playin’ the odds. Roughnecks
MIN @ EDM Edmonton is a better team than their record indicates and while the Swarm are still a good team without Benesch, I think the Rush will look at this as a golden opportunity to move up and try to get out of last place. Rush
COL @ ROC John Grant returns to Rochester. To my knowledge, there are no hard feelings either way – he didn’t demand a trade, nor is he upset with the Knighthawks trading him, and there were no personal issues with ownership or the coach or anything. There’s no reason to believe (a) he’ll be booed by the Knighthawks fans, or (b) he’ll have a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, so I’m not sure it’ll have that big an effect on his play. That and Shewchuk and Mac Allen are both back bodes well for the Mammoth. Mammoth

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4
Week 11 – 1-2
Week 12 – 1-5

Are Kilgour’s days numbered?

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Just before the season began, I wrote up my predictions for the final standings and some of the NLL awards. In the East division, I have 0 correct out of 4, while in the West division I have 1 correct out of 5. Some of my awards picks could still happen: Dan Dawson for MVP, Kyle Rubisch for Defensive Player, and Kevin Crowley for Rookie. My Goaltender (Mike Thompson) and Transition Player (Paul Rabil) picks aren’t looking too good, and my GM pick (Derek Keenan) ain’t looking great either, though you could argue that the Iannucci / Rabil trades were good trades, and the fact that both players ended up holding out wasn’t Keenan’s fault.DarrisKilgour

My pick for the Les Bartley Award was Darris Kilgour. This could also still happen – as long as the Bandits run the table while winning every game 15-0. If Darris can get his team to pull that off, people might forget the 6-game losing streak from earlier this year. But assuming that doesn’t happen, Kilgour will have taken a team that won the East last year, lost Chris Corbeil but added Luke Wiles, Kevin Buchanan, Mat Giles, Jeremy Thompson, and Anthony Cosmo, and coached them to a last place finish. Unless they turn it around very soon, this is likely to be their worst season since Kilgour began coaching the Bandits in 2003. Could this be the end of the Darris Kilgour era in Buffalo?

The problem here is that Kilgour is both the GM and the head coach. It’s unlikely that he’ll resign as coach but stay on as GM, and it’s unlikely that the Bandits owner would fire him from one of those positions and not the other. But for the sake of argument, let’s just talk about Darris the coach.

I’ve been of two minds about Darris Kilgour forever. I have a lot of respect for him as a coach (you don’t become the winningest coach in NLL history by accident), though I frequently disagree with how he coaches. The Bandits have had a particular “style” of lacrosse for years. When someone has talked about “Bandits lacrosse” over the last ten years, you know what they mean – tough, physical, gritty “old school” lacrosse, not always pretty and rarely flashy. One of those things that is hard to describe, but you’ll know it when you see it. I don’t think there have been as many player changes on the Bandits as on many other teams; it seems that players like Chris White, Billy Dee Smith, John Tavares, Roger Vyse, Tom Montour, Mark Steenhuis, and obviously Darris and Richie Kilgour have been Bandits forever. The fact that Kilgour has managed to create a recognizable style and get every new incoming player to adapt to it is a testament to his coaching ability.

If you ever listen to the Voodoocast podcast, they talk about the Bandits as nothing more than a team full of goons, and I’ve heard that sentiment elsewhere as well. For years, it seemed that the way to beat the Bandits was to piss them off – they’d start taking stupid penalties and beat themselves. Kilgour mostly put a stop to that and the Bandits started playing smarter, which corresponded exactly to them turning from a pretty good team to a perennial contender.

But this season, that seems to be gone. The Bandits are less disciplined than in the last few years. Indeed, the Bandits have given up 42 power play goals this year, 3.8 per game, more than any other team by over half a goal. They’ve also allowed more shorthanded goals than anyone (tied with the Rock). Mike Thompson has been wildly inconsistent, and the Cosmo experiment appears to have been a mistake. John Tavares and Luke Wiles are in the top 10 in scoring, but after that you have to drop down to #25 to find another Bandit (Chad Culp). They’ve given up 15 or more goals three times this season, and are dead last in goals against per game at 13.3. The next closest team is Philly, almost a full goal back at 12.5.

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote about Kilgour’s “gentle” reaction to the Bandits being down 11-8 in the first half of last week’s game against the Rock. In the second half of that game, the Bandits played perfect “Bandits lacrosse” – tough but not stupid – and outscored the Rock 13-3 in a convincing win, and then they went out and beat the Swarm the next night as well. But a week later, after the Bandits lost 17-6 to the Roughnecks, Kilgour had this to say about his team:

It’s pathetic. My team’s pathetic. My team’s stupid. I don’t even know what to say about these guys right now. I totally question the hearts of basically everybody but about four guys on our team. Other than that, they’re a bunch of bush leaguers and they don’t give a (expletive).

I get that he’s frustrated, but is this the way to get your team motivated to play for you? One week he makes a very smart coaching decision and gets the guys to play as a cohesive unit, and the next he says that almost everyone on the team sucks. There were three fights at the same time near the end of the game, as the Bandits’ frustration boiled over. For all of you who assumed that Kilgour sent them out there and told them to “send a message” or whatever, he had this to say:

That’s bush league. I didn’t send anyone out there to do that. They took it upon themselves to do it and you know what, I don’t care. That doesn’t show me anything. That doesn’t show me one thing. Show me you can play lacrosse, that’s what I want. I don’t care if you can fight.

But then again, it was Kilgour who sent Irving, Francis, and Priolo out onto the floor at the same time, and I doubt it was because he thought they had the best chance of beginning the Bandits’ comeback.

BanditlandOne problem with having a recognizable style is that you may become predictable. After Calgary’s blowout of the Bandits this past weekend, Shawn Evans said (emphasis mine):

We knew exactly what Buffalo wanted to do and how they play. They fell into our game plan. They took penalties. They ran around, they chased us. We did everything right. We killed them on the power play tonight.

Is it possible that Kilgour has lost the room? Have the Bandits been playing the same kind of lacrosse for so long that the rest of the league knows how to deal with them, and Kilgour’s style is no longer effective? Perhaps it’s time for Banditball to have a new face and a new style. I have no suggestions on who they should bring in, nor do I have any predictions on where Kilgour may go. He’s too good and too young to just retire. Darris has been a Bandit so long, it’s hard to imagine him anywhere else. Kilgour behind the Rock bench? Or the Roughnecks? Or the Swarm? It’s hard to picture, though so was John Grant in a Mammoth uniform at one point. As weird as it is for a Toronto Rock fan to say this, the National Lacrosse League is better with a strong Buffalo Bandits franchise. I’m not sure Darris Kilgour can deliver that any longer.

Top 10 surprises from the 2012 NLL season so far (pt. 2)

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In part 1, we covered Steve Toll, Athan Iannucci, Paul Rabil, Tyler Carlson, Evan Kirk, Matt Roik, and Nick Rose, as well as some rule changes. In this article, we’ll cover the top 5 surprises in 2012.

5. John Grant

John Grant being an impact player should not surprise anyone. He’s been an impact player his entire career in the NLL, MLL, MSL, or any other L he’s played in. But I don’t think anyone expected him to be as dominant as he has been this season. Not only is he 37, but he’s only three years removed from missing an entire season because of a serious injury that became life-threatening. He recovered well enough to go out and score 83 points in his last year in Rochester and another 83 in his first year in Colorado. Fine numbers, to be sure, but not Grant-like. In fact, 83 points was Grant’s lowest total (playing a full season) since his rookie year in 2000.

John Grant

Grant is a fierce competitor, so it is no surprise that he’d want to get back to his previous numbers – not because the personal stats are important to him, but because he wants to lead his team to as many wins as possible, and his contribution to that objective is putting up tons of points. Starting the season with 11 points was nice, but following it up with 9 and 10 points was amazing. Nobody thought he could keep up a 10-points-per-game pace, and he hasn’t. But he’s still averaging 8.3 points per game. He has yet to pick up less than 3 goals or 3 assists in a game and his season low for a single game is 7 points. He missed two games with an upper body injury, and then returned with another 7 point performance. Before the injury, he was on pace for 136 points in a season, blowing the old single-season record away by 21 points. In fact, even after missing two games (1/8 of the season), he is still on pace to break the record. Unbelievable.

4. Buffalo’s 6 game losing streak

The Bandits are mostly the same team as last year. They traded Chris Corbeil but got Billy Dee Smith back from injury, and also gained Luke Wiles and Mat Giles. They went 10-6 last year and given the team changes, you wouldn’t expect a huge drop-off this season. Sure enough, they started the season 2-0 with wins against the Rock at home and the Knighthawks on the road. And then it all fell apart. The Bandits lost their next six in a row, something they have never done before in a single season. (They did finish the 1999 season with five losses and missed the playoffs, then started 2000 off with a loss. Similarly, they finished 2009 with two losses and started 2010 with four, but there was a playoff win and loss in between.)

Some of the games were ugly. They managed to shut out Philadelphia for half the second quarter and all of the third, and still lost the game. They lost 19-11 to the Swarm in a game that included a 7-0 third quarter. They lost to the Knighthawks in a game that included a 7-0 second quarter. But there were two one-goal losses in there as well, including an overtime game against the Stealth. Of course, the Stealth were 0-3 at the time and then lost their next three.

Bandits coach and GM Darris Kilgour has a reputation for being fiery and passionate, and I’m sure that during this streak more than a few f-bombs were dropped. But after losing six in a row, the Bandits started their next game against the Rock down 5-1 and losing 11-8 at the half. Did Darris lose his mind and scream and yell like a stereotypical drill sergeant? Not at all. In his IL Indoor interview with Tracey Kelusky, Ty Pilson used the unlikely word “gentle” to describe Kilgour’s reaction. Kelusky said “he just said you guys are sticking with it, you guys aren’t panicking, and that’s something we were doing during that six-game skid… He said we’re playing confident, keep doing that and we’ll have success.” How did that go over with the Bandits? They outscored the Rock 13-3 in the second half and won 21-14. That is solid coaching.

3. This year’s crop of rookies

Every year, one rookie is singled out and given the NLL Rookie of the Year award. And every year, there are arguments that someone else deserved it as well. Last year, Curtis Dickson won it over Cody Jamieson, and in 2010, Stephan Leblanc beat out teammate Garrett Billings. This year, the number of deserving rookies who will not win ROY is crazy. It seems that every team has a rookie who’s having an outstanding season, and some have more than one. In the case of the Minnesota Swarm, you could almost nominate half the team.

There are high-scoring forwards like Crowley, Powless, Jones, Lincoln, and Keogh. There are defenders and transition guys like Gamble, Thompson, MacIntosh, and Cornwall. And there are goaltenders like Kirk, Carlson, and Scigliano. At this point in the season, the race is likely between Crowley and Jones, but all of these guys have played well so far and with a few strong games to finish the season, any one of them could find themselves in the ROY race. I don’t remember another season with such a strong group of rookies – not just in terms of how good they are, but in terms of how many good ones there are.

2. Colorado starting 6-0 and 8-1

Maybe others saw this coming, but I certainly didn’t. This is related to #5 above, the amazing play of John Grant, but even if you thought he’d have a good season, did you foresee Adam Jones being so good? And the defense playing well even without Mac Allen? And Gavin Prout playing so well? And Chris Levis? And Sean Pollock and Jamie Lincoln and Jordan McBride and Derek Hopcroft and Ian Hawksbee and Rory Smith and Creighton Reid and Ilija Gajic and…? Honestly, none of those things individually is an absolute shock but the fact that they all happened at the same time has resulted in the Mammoth being the best team in the league, which is a distinction they haven’t been anywhere near for years. The Mammoth only won 5 games in 2011, and managed to match that total in 2012 after… 5 games. They have a very good chance of doubling their win total from last year.

The team is quite different from last year – Mac Allen is out with an injury, Steve Toll retired (temporarily – see #10 on this list) as did Brian Langtry, Joel Dalgarno is out for the year because of work commitments, Ned Crotty and Dan Carey were traded, and Connor Martin was released. Instead, we have Adam Jones, Jordan McBride, Jamie Lincoln, Jon Sullivan, Rory Smith, Sean Pollock, Mat MacLeod, Creighton Reid, and Derek Hopcroft. Is the fact that a team with this many changes has gelled as well as they have a testament to good coaching by Bob Hamley, or Gavin Prout becoming captain, or some combination of both? I’m sure Mammoth fans don’t care, but they’re certainly enjoying the ride.

1. Washington starting 1-6

It was surprising that a bad team would retool and instantly become a great team, but it’s even more surprising that a great team would make very few changes over the off-season and become a lousy team. And that’s what the Stealth looked like for the first seven games of the 2012 season. They won an overtime squeaker against the also-struggling Buffalo Bandits, but lost to the Roughnecks twice, the Wings, the Knighthawks, and the Swarm, and they got smoked by the Edmonton Rush 16-5 in their own arena.

Rhys Duch

Sure, they lost Jeff Zywicki to injury early in the year, but he only played three games last year anyway. They traded Matt Roik but Tyler Richards played more than twice as many minutes as Roik did in 2011. Richards and Rhys Duch got injured as well, but not until the Stealth were 1-5. They did lose Luke Wiles, who’s tearing up the turf in Buffalo, and didn’t really replace him, so that’s something. But Duch and Ratcliff couldn’t find the back of the net, and Richards had a worse GAA than every starting goalie in the league and several backups.

The Stealth have been struggling with low attendance despite two consecutive Champion’s Cup appearances; the highest Washington crowd this year, 4687, is 600 less than the lowest crowd anywhere else (5267 in Rochester). Maybe you could use that fact to argue that winning and losing has no bearing on attendance in Washington so it doesn’t matter if they win or lose. But I doubt it. And I doubt the players are OK with losing if it doesn’t affect the crowds.

Part, maybe even most, of the problem was the absence of head coach Chris Hall. CH was the heart and soul of the Stealth, but our old nemesis cancer raised its ugly head once again, this time in the form of throat cancer, and Hall had to stay away from the arena to concentrate on his treatment and recovery. Thankfully, it seems that Hall has won this battle, and after missing the first six games of the season he returned cancer-free to the bench. The Stealth lost their first game after his return, but have won two of three since then.

Week 12 picks

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The Bandits are back! After I said last week that I wouldn’t be picking the Bandits until they proved they “are worthy of a pick”, they proved just that. Obviously my statement was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the thing that finally kept them going during the games and got them to play as well as we thought they would at the beginning of the year. Similarly, right after I said I wouldn’t pick the Stealth until they started winning, they started winning. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

So I ended up 0-2 on Bandits games. At least I got the Philly / Edmonton game right, though not by much. Six games this weekend, so let’s get to them.

Record: 17-27 (.386)

Game

Comments

Pick
PHI @ COL Now that the Mammoth don’t suck anymore, the Pepsi Center is a tough place for visitors to win again. John Grant will not be back this weekend, though my prediction of the Mammoth offense not being as good without him didn’t really come true. They really stepped up last weekend in his absence, and I see no reason why they couldn’t do it again, though the Philly defense has been really solid lately. Mammoth
BUF @ CAL Before last weekend, this would be a no-brainer, but with Buffalo playing so well last weekend, it’s a tougher now. Buffalo may be confident enough now that they can just keep rolling, but this one comes down to goaltending. I think Thompson at his best is better than Poulin at his best, but average Poulin beats average Thompson. If Cosmo plays as he can, he may be the best in the league but he still seems to be shaking off rust. Roughnecks
WAS @ EDM The Stealth have been looking more like the Stealth we expected over the last few weeks. They split with the Mammoth two weeks ago but even in the loss they looked pretty good against a team that was 7-1 at the time. If Paul Rabil announces he will actually suit up for the Rush I may change my pick, but I don’t see that happening. Stealth
TOR @ ROC The Rock are 3-17 lifetime in Rochester, but of course one of those thee was the Championship game in 2003. The other two wins came last season, so I think it’s safe to say the home-and-home curse between these two teams is over. The Rock will be breaking in new starting goalie Nick Rose and hoping to end their three-game losing streak, while the Knighthawks are looking to continue both their two-game winning streak and their three-game home winning streak. The Rock are my team and I hate betting against them, but they just haven’t impressed me at all over the last three games. Knighthawks
COL @ PHI This was my toughie of the week. Colorado certainly has the talent to sweep the Wings, but Philly has been getting better and better as the season has progressed. Philly’s first in the east though they’re not having the dominant season the Mammoth are having. The fact that John Grant is missing will help the Wings, but as I said above the Mammoth offense managed just fine without him two weeks ago. If one team sweeps this series, they will undoubtedly be the #1 team in the league, but I foresee a split. Wings
MIN @ WAS The Swarm are impressing me more and more, and they’ll be fresh while the Stealth will have played the night before and travelled from Edmonton. Certainly not a guarantee (both Colorado and Calgary have won the second game of back-to-back games this year), but I’ll go with the Swarm’s young legs on this one. Swarm

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4
Week 11 – 1-2

Game report: Buffalo A MILLION @ Toronto 14

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The Bandits and the Rock played a rare lacrosse doubleheader on Friday night. In the first game, the Rock played smart and the offense was clicking, while the Bandits were undisciplined and had lousy goaltending. Toronto won the opener 11-8. In the second game, it was just the reverse. The Rock couldn’t score to save their lives because of the great Bandits defense and they took the stupid penalties while the Bandits got their offense going, and Buffalo won the second game 13-3. Unfortunately, each of these games was only 30 minutes long, and their aggregate score was what really mattered.

The final score was actually Buffalo 21 @ Toronto 14, not A MILLION like in the title of this article but as a Rock fan, that’s what it felt like. Some of the numbers in this game are staggering – Toronto had 11 goals in the first half and 3 in the second. Buffalo had 8 (eight!) power play goals and four shorthanded goals. In contrast, Dan Carey’s beautiful behind-the-back goal in the second was Toronto’s second shorthanded goal of the season. The Rock had a run of five goals to take an early 5-1 lead, but in the second half Bandits had runs of 5 and 6 goals. Five different Bandits had 6 or more points.

How Rock fans felt as the game went on

Mark Steenhuis wasn’t having the greatest season of his career, but he was everywhere on Friday night. Near the end of the game when it was obvious that the Bandits were just killing time whenever they had possession, they’d just send Steenhuis out there by himself to run around and get pounded for 30 seconds. He didn’t even have anyone to pass to half the time – there were no other Bandits anywhere near him. One of those times, the Rock were on the power play but managed to allow Steenhuis to run around without really hitting him at all. After about 20 seconds of this he scored. A few Toronto fans actually started to boo the Rock defenders.

The Rock were much more undisciplined in the second half than the first. Toronto had four penalties in the first half, but only one that wasn’t coincidental with a Buffalo penalty. Buffalo had five, including two at the same time. In the second half, Toronto had six non-coincidental penalties. Matt Roik even got a penalty when he cross checked Luke Wiles in the head, though I did not see what Wiles had done. Wiles got a minor while Roik got a double minor. Toronto fans started booing when the penalties were announced, but Roik deserved it and was lucky he didn’t get five. There were two fights: Stephen Hoar and Travis Irving in the second, and then Patrick Merrill and Irving again in the fourth. I didn’t see the beginning of the second fight, and all I saw was Merrill on the floor with Irving pounding on him. My son asked if the guy who didn’t throw any punches could be given a fighting penalty; I said that in that case Merrill wouldn’t be given anything and Irving would just get two for roughing. But both got game misconducts and Merrill was also given an instigator penalty, so it sounds like Merrill picked a fight with the wrong guy and got his butt kicked.

On the plus side for the Rock, Garrett Billings continues his strong season picking up 9 points (3+6) and Colin Doyle had another good game with 5 goals and an assist. The Rock had four power play goals of their own and a shorthanded goal. Let’s see… other positives for the Rock… I’ll have to get back to you on that.

For the Bandits, Cosmo did not look sharp. He made a few pretty good saves, but the Rock seemed to have him figured out. He was pulled for Mike Thompson, who played very well. That is the Mike Thompson that I picked to win goaltender of the year. Mat Giles had 6 points (2+4), Steenhuis and John Tavares both had 4 goals and 3 assists, Luke Wiles had 5 goals and 2 assists, and new daddy Chad Culp had a pair of goals and six assists for eight points. I mentioned in the pre-season that if all the Bandits offensive guys could get it together, they could have a scary good offense, and we saw that on Friday.

I don’t really have a lot else to say about this game. It started off well for the Rock and it looked like the Bandits would continue on their losing skid. But then Toronto came out flat in the second half while Darris Kilgour must have given one hell of a halftime speech in the Bandits dressing room. The Rock have now lost four of the past five, while the Bandits season might have just turned around.

Other notes:

  • The singing of the National anthems was a study in contrasts. There were two singers, one for the American anthem and one for O Canada. The guy that sang the American anthem had a deep country-and-western sort of voice, and did a very good job. The woman that sang the Canadian anthem was local radio personality Josie Dye. She started off with the wrong words “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee”, and things got worse from there. After a few more lines it was obvious she was so nervous or flustered that she had totally lost track of the words and she actually stopped and started over. Then she got them wrong the second time as well and the crowd started singing very loudly – whether that was to drown her out or to help her remember, I can’t say. She seemed to remember the words after that and ended up finishing the song. She was actually a decent singer but the performance was shameful. I haven’t seen an anthem that badly butchered since Roseanne.
  • There was one unusual play in the first half – a shot clock violation was called on the Rock, and the Rock player (I think it was Doyle) immediately put the ball down, and then stood there waiting for the Bandits to grab it. The Bandits defense raced to the bench to get the forwards out, but a few seconds later the ref blew the whistle and Doyle picked up the ball again. He ran in and got a shot on net, though it was stopped. It was not clear why he was allowed to pick up the ball in the first place. My only guess was that the ref decided that the Bandits took too long on the line change.
  • Jesse Gamble had yet another nice game, scoring a goal and adding two assists. He’s impressed the hell out of me this season.
  • Ryan Sharp announced on Friday that he has retired from the NLL. He missed most of last season with knee injuries and I guess he aggravated it enough in the last game (or gradually over the season) that his doctor told him he had to stop. I can’t say I’ve been a huge fan of Sharp this season; while he was a big tough defender, of which the Rock have precious few, I felt he took too many unnecessary penalties. That said, it sucks when a player has to end their career early because of injuries.

Week 11 picks

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I have still yet to break the elusive .500 mark this season, and not just on the season as a whole; I haven’t broken .500 in any single week either. I went 2-4 last week, but was this close to going 4-2. I called the split of Colorado and Washington, but for some reason I decided that the Stealth would win in Colorado and the Mammoth would win in Washington. They did split, but each team won at home.

This is the first season that I’ve really made an effort at individual game predictions during the regular season. I have come to the following stunning conclusion: it’s hard. When the experts over at IL Indoor (and yes, I write there too but I’m just a fairly knowledgeable fan, those guys live and breathe lacrosse) are all under .500, what chance does an amateur like me have? You can go with “gut feelings”, but we all know how reliable they are. Or, you can attempt to use logic, but you end up with contradictions. Take the Philly-Toronto game from a couple of weeks ago:

  • The game is in Toronto, so I can clearly not choose Philadelphia
  • Philadelphia has a winning away record while the Rock have a losing home record, so I can clearly not choose Toronto
  • Toronto is the reigning NLL Champion, so I can clearly not choose Philadelphia
  • Philadelphia beat Toronto in their last meeting, so I can clearly not choose Toronto
  • Toronto beat Philadelphia in the game before that, and by a greater goal differential, so I can clearly not choose Philadelphia
  • Philly has Kevin Crowley, a potential rookie of the year, as well as former MVP Dan Dawson, so I can clearly not choose Toronto
  • Toronto has perennial top scorer Josh Sanderson and former MVP Colin Doyle, so I can clearly not choose Philadelphia
  • Philly has beaten the Bandits twice this year while the Bandits beat Toronto in their only meeting, so I can clearly not choose Toronto

I decided to go with Toronto, and Philly won. After using my dizzying intellect to do all that analysis, I picked the game wrong. The real choice should have been obvious: don’t make picks.

Record: 16-25 (.390)

Game

Comments

Pick
BUF @ TOR I believe I’ve chosen the Rock to win every game they’ve played this year, so perhaps I am a homer when it comes to that. But in my defense, it’s not like the Rock is a terrible team and my picks make no sense. Could the Bandits beat the Rock in Toronto? Sure. The Rock are under .500 at home this year, Cosmo’s shaken off a lot of rust, and John Tavares has stolen a game or two in his career. But I seem to go with trends for my picks – until Buffalo proves to me that they are worthy of a pick (and losing 6 in a row is not the way to do that), I won’t be picking the Bandits. Rock5
MIN @ BUF Gotta go with Minnesota on this one, mainly for the same reason as above, though Minnesota has been playing really well lately, so I might have picked them even if Buffalo wasn’t last in the league. Swarm
EDM @ PHI Toughie of the week. I picked Philly to beat Edmonton a couple of weeks ago because the Wings were in first in the East and Edmonton was second-last in the west. The Rush won. Now Philly’s in first in the east and Edmonton is last in the west. I gotta go with the odds and pick Philly again. Wings

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4

Week 10 picks

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And my streak continues. Other than week 1 which only consisted of a single game, I am 2-2 in every odd numbered week, and .500 or lower in every even numbered week. The last five weeks have alternated between 2-2 and 1-3, and that will end this week since there are six games.
John Grant will not be playing in Colorado’s two games this weekend, which may or may not make the picks in the Colorado games easier. After all, Rochester lost five players (including their top scorer) for one week and won, then lost when those players returned. I have said at least twice this season that Colorado’s offense was based mainly around Grant and if he were to get injured or started slumping, they wouldn’t be able to recover as well as other teams with more balanced offense. Now we’ll see how prescient those statements were.
Record: 14-21 (.400)

Game
Comments
Pick
CAL @ EDM Edmonton is a better team than their record indicates. If their offense can start clicking, their defense is good enough to make them contenders. But that has to start happening pretty soon, or it might be too late.  They’ve only had two home games, but they beat Philly last weekend at home, and they’ll be motivated to put on a good show for their Twitter jersey game. Rush
PHI @ TOR The Rock’s last four games were: two blowouts against Philly (one in each direction), then a convincing win against a good team (Rochester), and a humiliating loss against a bad team (Washington). Depending on which Rock team shows up this weekend, it could be good or it could be very bad for them. Philly’s on a two-game losing streak, but first place and the season series is on the line, so expect a hard-fought game. Rock
EDM @ CAL Yeah, the post-All-Star-game Rush will be better than the pre-All-Star-game Rush, but sweeping the Roughnecks? Not there yet. Roughnecks
WAS @ COL OMG look at me picking Washington. A couple of weeks ago this would have been a no-brainer: Colorado sweeps the Stealth, with the over-under on the weekend goal differential around 15. But since then the Mammoth have proved that they are beatable, and the Stealth have proved that there is indeed a good lacrosse team buried under there somewhere. The Stealth’s fortunes will continue – for one game, anyway. I actually made this pick before it was announced that Grant would be out, but I’m a little more confident in it now. Stealth
BUF @ ROC Buffalo can’t lose six in a row, can they? Well, I also thought they couldn’t lose three in a row, or four, or five. I expect Cosmo to have a better game as he shakes off more rust, but the Knighthawks are getting great production out of Cody Jamieson and great leadership and production out of Mike Accursi, and Matt Vinc had a great game against Philly. Hawks in a close one. Knighthawks
COL @ WAS Yeah, the post-All-Star-game Stealth will be better than the pre-All-Star-game Stealth, but sweeping the Mammoth? Not there yet. Mammoth

Previous weeks:
Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2

Week 9 picks

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In my picks last week, I stated “If anyone can beat the Mammoth, it’s the Roughnecks, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they did” but I picked the Mammoth anyway. I also said “Could the Rush… beat the Wings? Sure they could” but I picked the Wings anyway. I got the Toronto game right and the Washington game wrong, but I could have been 3-1 on the week instead of 1-3. Sigh.

Record: 12-19 (.387)

Game

Comments

Pick
COL @ BUF I’d like to say that the three week “mid-season vacation” for the Bandits plus Cosmo would equal a victory but I can’t. I expect them to be better in the second half of the season than the first half, but not yet. Mammoth
MIN @ CAL Calgary is the team to beat in the west now that Colorado is no longer undefeated, and not just because they beat Colorado. I expect Minnesota to put up a good fight (my respect for the Swarm is growing weekly), but the Roughnecks take this one. Roughnecks
ROC @ PHI In a rematch of the season opened for these two clubs, I’m sure nobody expects the same result (a 22-12 win for the Knighthawks). Not that the Hawks can’t win this game, but it won’t be a blowout. The Knighthawks are better in Rochester than on the road (0.9 more GF, 0.1 fewer GA), but then again Philly is much better on the road than in Philly (1.8 more GF, 4.8 fewer GA). Going with the numbers. Knighthawks
WAS @ TOR Washington is last in the league in offense, last in the league in defense, and will be without Rhys Duch and Tyler Richards. The Rock lost Colin Doyle last week and a bunch of other regulars are out, but they’ve dealt with lots of injury problems this year and have done just fine, thanks. Rock

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3

NLL Mid-season report: East division

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We’re half-way through the school year NLL season, so it’s time for report cards. Let’s have a look at each team and see how they’re doing offensively and defensively. I’ve assigned letter grades to each team’s offense and defense (which includes goaltending). Note that despite the fact that I’ll be spouting off stats all over the place, the letter grades are purely subjective based partially on the stats but partially on my own impressions of the team. The letters compare roughly thus:

A 2011 Rock (Champions)
B 2011 Stealth (Finished 3rd, but did well in the playoffs)
C 2011 Mammoth (Crappy record, but made the playoffs)
D 2011 Rush (did not make the playoffs)
F Syracuse Smash

In case you are unfamiliar with the logo, that would be the Syracuse Smash, who went a combined 6-30 (0-18 on the road) in three NLL seasons from 1998 to 2000. In one of those seasons, they went 1-11 and allowed 72 more goals than they scored – they allowed an average of more than 17 goals per game. In 2001, the Smash moved to Ottawa to become the Rebel, who were only marginally better. Only the Charlotte Cobras, who went 0-10 with 18.6 goals against per game in their only season (1996), were worse than the Smash. But at least the Cobras’ logo was cool – the Smash have the honour of having the worst logo in the history of sports.

Anyway, back to 2012. We’ll start with the NLL East.

BanditsBuffalo Bandits

Offense: C-

I suggested in the pre-season that the Bandits could be a very good offensive team with the additions of Wiles, Buchanan, and Giles. But alas, it was not to be. John Tavares is having his best offensive season in years and Wiles has been great. Giles hasn’t been bad but Buchanan only has two goals and Tracey Kelusky only has four. The Bandits are sixth in the league in goals per game at 11.7.

Defense: C

The Bandits are tied with the Wings for second in the east with the lowest goals against per game, at 12.7. Good news, right? Well, no. In this case, tied for second in the east also means tied for sixth in the league. Only two teams have worse numbers – the Knighthawks at 12.8 and the Stealth at 13. The goaltending wasn’t that bad but just got better with the addition of Anthony Cosmo. Mike Thompson started off with two very good performances, enough to make him the starter in the All-Star game where he played very well. But then the Bandits lost four in a row which wasn’t entirely his fault, but I suppose Darris Kilgour figured a bit of a shakeup was necessary. Having two goalies this good fighting for playing time is a problem many GMs wouldn’t mind having.

Overall: C

The Bandits have only played six games, and have had two bye weeks in a row. The NLL schedule maker will not be getting a Christmas card from Darris this year, methinks. Despite losing four in a row, the Bandits haven’t looked terrible, except maybe in the game against Minnesota. There’s too much talent on this team to continue losing for much longer so I expect a better second half from the Bandits, particularly with their new goaltending tandem.

WingsPhiladelphia Wings

Offense: C+

Dawson is second in the league in scoring, Crowley is eighth. Mundorf and Westervelt have also been good and Brodie Merrill leads the league with 3 short-handed goals. The team is seventh in the league with 11.3 goals/game.

Defense: B+

The Philly defense has been inconsistent. They’ve held opponents to 10 or fewer goals three times, but allowed 15 or more twice. Their overall goals against per game is 12.7 (tied with the Bandits for 6th) but if you take out that one blowout, it’s 11.2, which is good for third. Giving them an B+ because they’ve been pretty good in the last few games and I was very impressed with the Wings defense in their win against the Rock.

Overall: B-

Yes, they’re tied for first in the East, but three of their four wins have come against the Bandits and Stealth. They blew the Rock out of the water, and then got beaten handily by them 2 weeks later. They lost to the lowly Rush. If the Wings can get some consistency, they could be dangerous in the playoffs.

KnighthawksRochester Knighthawks

Offense: A

The Knighthawks are the only team in the league with six players with 20 or more points – even the Roughnecks only have five. However, the Knighthawks are also the only team to have played 8 games. They are third in the league at 12.8 goals per game.

Defense: D-

They have given up exactly the same number of goals as they’ve scored. Their 12.8 goals against is second-worst in the league, ahead of only Washington.

Overall: C+

Like the Wings, the Knighthawks have been inconsistent. They scored 22 in their first game, then lost their next three. They lost five of their top players and won, then got most of them back and lost. There seems to have been a few different teams calling themselves the Knighthawks this year – they really need to figure out which one they are.

RockToronto Rock

Offense: B

The Rock with Colin Doyle for a full game are 0-3. The Rock with Doyle for less than half the game (or not at all) are 4-0. Doyle’s been more of a setup guy than a goal scorer over the last few years, so maybe the problem is that with the return of Josh Sanderson, the Rock now have two setup guys. Sanderson may be deferring to Doyle because Josh is the new guy and Colin’s the captain, but that means Josh isn’t playing his game. Without Doyle, Sanderson can return to what he does best. Hopefully when Doyle returns, he’ll let Sanderson continue to run the show and Doyle can focus on shooting more and passing less.

Stephan Leblanc still has not shown his full potential this year, but in the absence of Doyle and Manning, Sanderson and Garrett Billings have really stepped up. In the last four wins, the Rock have scored 13, 14, 15, and 16 goals, so they’re going in the right direction. They are fifth in the league with 12.1 goals per game.

Defense: B+

Other than the one game against Philly, Matt Roik has been solid all season and has kept the Rock in games. And even in the Philly game, he certainly wasn’t “on” but he wasn’t horrible either. The defense in front of him has also been solid despite the rash of injuries (Phil Sanderson, Stephen Hoar, Drew Petkoff, Rob Marshall, Patrick Merrill, Bruce Codd, and Bill Greer have all missed games due to injury – and that’s not counting forwards Colin Doyle, Blaine Manning, and Rob Hellyer). The Rock are fourth in the league with 11.7 goals against / game.

Overall: B

After a slow start, the Rock really pulled it together and started playing like the defending champs – until they got smoked by Philly. But they recovered to beat Rochester a week later. Assuming that Doyle and Manning’s eventual return doesn’t screw up the offensive chemistry the team has built up in their absence, the Rock look to be heading back to the playoffs with an eye to their third straight Championship game.

 

Coming later this week: The NLL West.