Category Archives: Buffalo Bandits

Expect the unexpected

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The Emperor

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
                                            The Emperor

We are now 3 weeks into the 2012 NLL season, and things are exactly as I predicted. Toronto and Washington are on top, Colorado is struggling to find offense, and the highly touted rookies in Philly, Colorado, and Rochester are showing promise, but will probably need a year or two under their belts to really have an impact.

Or not.

Let’s take a look at what’s going as expected and what’s not.

Expected: The Buffalo Bandits are 2-0. Calgary is 2-1.
Unexpected: Toronto and Washington are combined 0-4. Colorado is 3-0.

Expected: Grant, Prout, Tavares, Shattler, Jamieson, Dickson are in the top 10 in scoring.
Unexpected: There are two rookies in the top 5.

Expected: Mike Thompson has the lowest GAA in the league.
Unexpected: He’s almost two full points ahead of anyone else. Brandon Miller is up around 15.

Expected: A number of players have scored hat-tricks.
Unexpected: Neither Adam Jones nor Kevin Crowley have had a game yet where they haven’t. Two for Crowley, three for Jones.

Expected: John Grant and Gavin Prout make a pretty strong offensive pair.
Unexpected: Both are in the top 3 in scoring, along with rookie teammate Adam Jones. Grant is averaging 10 points per game.

Expected: The rule changes have led to more transition scoring, which might mean more goalie assists.
Unexpected: Mike Poulin has 4 points in 3 games, and Tyler Richards has 3 in 2 games. Poulin is outscoring Stephan Leblanc, Tracey Kelusky, and Jeff Zywicki.

Expected: Colorado will be better than last year, when they had a terrible offense and a great defense.
Unexpected: Colorado has a great offense and a terrible defense.

Expected: Josh Sanderson will have a big impact on Toronto’s offense.
Unexpected: No Toronto Rock players are in the top 20 in scoring. Sanderson is tied for 32nd. Stephan Leblanc is tied for 49th.

Week 3 picks

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I went 2-2 with my week 2 picks, so as week three begins, I’m sitting a game under .500. Let us continue our drive towards mediocrity with this week’s picks:
Record: 2-3 (.400)

Game
Comments
Pick
COL @ EDM Edmonton has had lots of time to prepare for this game, but they have a whole new lineup, and haven’t played together against an actual opponent in over a month (since the scrimmage against Calgary). Meanwhile, Colorado won big last weekend, and I think they’ll ride that wave to a victory over the Rush. Mammoth
WAS @ PHI I think Philadelphia has improved quite a bit this off-season, and I have to say their thrashing at the hands of the Knighthawks last week surprised me. But even if the new and improved Wings play up to their potential, they can’t handle the Stealth. Stealth
BUF @ ROC Using similar logic to the Mammoth pick above, the Knighthawks won big last week, and they will try to ride that wave to another victory – but they’re facing the Bandits who just beat the defending champs, not the Rush who have yet to play. Mikey Thompson will let Messrs. Keogh and Powless know what playing in the NLL is really like, lest they think that last week’s offensive explosion was typical. Bandits
COL @ CAL Can anyone stop the Roughnecks? Sure, with the parity in the league this year, almost anyone can, and if Calgary was playing the night before and Colorado wasn’t, I might pick the Mammoth. But it’s the other way around, so I’m taking the Roughies. Roughnecks

Game report: Toronto 10 @ Buffalo 14

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I learned something about myself tonight while watching the Rock-Bandits game (in hi-def on TV, thanks TSN). I learned that I pay far too much attention to my twitter feed when watching lacrosse on TV. I missed more than one goal while reading or composing tweets so perhaps in future I might decide to shut down the ole Twitter app during the game. Apparently the Rock won, or maybe lost, I dunno. Luckily, I PVR’ed the game, so I can go back and watch the whole thing again. Hang on.

OK, so the Rock lost, in a couple of ways. Not only did they lose the game, 14-10 to the Buffalo Bandits, but they lost Blaine Manning early in the game to a broken collarbone. Post-game reports say that he’ll be out 6-8 weeks. Manning is the current Rock “iron man”, not having missed a single game since becoming a member of the Rock in 2002. This means that the next Rock game will be the first the Rock have played without Manning since the Championship game in 2001. Colin Doyle is the league’s Iron Man at 180-something games (and will tie Steve Toll for the all-time NLL record in the next game) but he played three years with San Jose.

Once again, the Rock offense was stagnant. Doyle scored 3 with singles scored by Carey, Billings, and Beirnes, but once again Stephan Leblanc, who has been amazing in his first two years in the league, was nowhere to be found. After two games, he has still yet to score. Dan Carey’s goal in the second came after a very nice behind-the-back pass from Josh Sanderson, but I think Sanderson got it in his head that he’s really good at that, and he attempted a number of behind-the-back passes and shots over the rest of the game. He finished with no goals and 3 assists, so I’ll let you be the judge of how well that turned out. Carey looked a little lost in his first game, but looked pretty good in this one. One of my concerns with Carey because of his concussion history was that he’d be reluctant to get into the corners, digging for loose balls. You can hardly blame him after what’s happened to people like Ken Montour and Merrick Thomson and Sidney Crosby, so it was nice to see him in there working hard for the loosies.

The defense fared almost as well as the offense in terms of goal-scoring. The Rock had four goals from defenders – two from newcomer Bill Greer, and one each from Sandy Chapman and Glen Bryan. Chapman, Stephen Hoar, and Phil Sanderson scored in the first game, so right now Chapman has as many goals (2) as Josh Sanderson (1), Blaine Manning (1), and Stephen Leblanc (0) combined.

I tweeted during the game that the Rock’s practice nets must be a touch bigger than the ones they were using in Buffalo. Shots on net were going high all night long. Maybe there was a scouting report that going high was the way to beat Mike Thompson. Actually, in the game against Calgary, that looked like the way to beat Matt Roik. It didn’t work against Thompson, but then again, not much did. Thompson was outstanding, and stopped more than one shot from point-blank range. In at least one case, the Rock forward was standing just behind the crease line, all by himself, for at least three seconds, trying to decide where to shoot. Three seconds may not seem like much, but when you’re a goalie about to face a shot from that close, three seconds is an eternity. The Rock shooter feinted shooting low, waited for Thompson to drop, and then shot high but Thompson waited him out and make an amazing stop.

In my picks for last week, I called a close game won by the Rock, and I was mostly right. Except that the Rock lost. And it wasn’t all that close at the end. I also said that I didn’t know who was going to score for the Mammoth, who scored 20, though I got the outcome right. And I said that Brodie Merrill and the Wings defense wouldn’t let the Rochester forwards get that many shots on Brandon Miller. I was kind of right there in that they only got 32 shots on Miller, but there was also the 26 shots on Wagar. I got the Calgary game right as well, making me 2-2 on the weekend and 2-3 overall.

Week 2 picks

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As the IL Indoor folks (I’m a newbie over there so I’m not in the “in” crowd yet) and the In Lax We Trust folks always do (and ILWT already have done), here are the week 2 picks for the entire NLL Chatter staff. I picked the Rock to beat Calgary last week, so I’m 0-1 to start the year. I can guarantee you that my average will not go down with this week’s picks:
Record: 0-1 (.000)

Game
Comments
Pick
TOR @ BUF I have to say that I’m not terribly confident with this pick. The Rock players are unhappy with their opening game and will be fired up to prove that they’re still the team to beat. But a healthy Mike Thompson showed last year that he can be as good a goalie as anyone in the league. Wiles and Buchanan will want to prove themselves to their new coach, teammates, and fans as well, and I think Tracey Kelusky will have a much better season than last year. Buffalo is a tough place to play as an opponent, but I’ll go with the Rock in a close one. Rock
MIN @ COL After Grant and Prout, the offensive numbers drop considerably for the Mammoth. Then again, same for Minnesota after Benesch and Crawford. This game features two strong goalies, but Minnesota has lots of rookies on their lineup while Colorado has more established players. Until the Swarm rookies prove themselves, I’ll take the Mammoth. Mammoth
ROC @ PHI I think the addition of Dan Dawson to the Philly offense will be huge, and not just because he’s nine feet tall. This is another battle of great goalies (aren’t they all, though?), but I think the Wings offense can overpower the Rochester defense and get more shots on Vinc than Brodie and the boys will let the Knighthawks get on Miller. Wings
CAL @ WAS TRich is a very good goalie, no question, and was outstanding in the Championship game last year. But in my list of NLL goalies, I’d rank Mike Poulin higher. Calgary are on a high after beating the defending champs in their own barn and I think that will carry over into a Roughnecks win. Roughnecks

NLL East 2012 season preview

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The 2012 NLL season is almost upon us, so it’s time to look around the league and see what’s changed. Obviously the loss of the Blazers changed the landscape quite a bit, but there were also some pretty major trades so just about every team has some significant changes from last year. We’ll look at the East division first, and then the West division in an upcoming article.

Buffalo Bandits

Biggest personnel change: Luke Wiles

Comments: Once again this year, not a lot of changes for the Bandits, but the ones they made were pretty significant. The addition of Wiles, former Blazer Kevin Buchanan, and journeyman Mat Giles may turn the Bandits from a very good offensive team to a holy-crap-good offensive team, rivalling the Rock. The trading of Chris Corbeil caught some people off-guard, but the return of Billy Dee Smith helps replace the loss of Corbeil. If Mikey Thompson is as good in net as he has been over the past couple of years, the Bandits will make it tough for the Rock to get out of the East, let alone repeat as Champions.

Bad news for the Bandits defense out of a pre-season practice, as Darryl Gibson will miss 8 weeks with an ankle injury.

Prediction: A close second

Philadelphia Wings

Biggest personnel change: Dan Dawson

Comments: Wings fans who haven’t been keeping up over the off-season are in for a shock when they return to the arena in January. Gone are Athan Iannucci and Ryan Boyle, replaced by Dan Dawson and Brodie Merrill. Former captain Tom Hajek returns after a year in Boston, and the Wings also traded for MLL superstar Ned Crotty who is relatively unfamiliar with the indoor game, only having played 8 NLL games with the Mammoth last year. If all these guys plus first overall draft pick Kevin Crowley can gel with the returning Wings, this could be a very good team, but there’s too much uncertainty for me to rank them any higher.

Prediction: Third

Rochester Knighthawks

Biggest personnel change: Shawn Williams

Comments: Williams played ten seasons for the Knighthawks, serving as their captain for the last two, before being traded to Edmonton. The Knighthawks also traded Shawn Evans to the Roughnecks and in a stunning offseason oversight, didn’t pick up a single guy named Shawn. They did pick up Casey Powell in the Blazers dispersal draft but he’s unlikely to play this year. They also got Ryan Cousins and Kedoh Hill in the Williams trade. For the third straight year, the Knighthawks are looking forward to watching an exciting young rookie they drafted – first it was Sid Smith, then Cody Jamieson, and this year there are two, Stephen Keogh and Johnny Powless. If they both play well, the Knighthawks could be very good. But I have a feeling that without Powell, the Knighthawks are a little young to make a huge splash this year. They have set themselves up nicely for some pretty successful years to come.

Prediction: Fourth

Toronto Rock

Biggest personnel change: Bob Watson

Comments: The retirement of Bob Watson will be huge for the Rock. The Rock have only had one #1 goaltender in the history of the franchise, and Watson was one of the top three goalies in the league pretty much every year of his career. But even if Roik isn’t at that level, he’s a solid goaltender who can play very well when he’s “on”. Many teams are built from the goaltender out, but with the Rock’s defense and especially their offense, I don’t think they need a superstar goalie to be dangerous this year. As long as Roik does a good job, he may not need to be outstanding. That said, he can be outstanding.

The Rock lost a few very good defenders in the offseason, namely Kyle Ross, Jeff Gilbert and a player I really liked, Creighton Reid. But Ryan Sharp is returning after missing almost all of last year with an injury, and Drew Petkoff will hopefully return this year as well. With the addition of Bruce Codd, the Rock defense could be as solid as any. A very good offense only got better with the additions of Dan Carey and Josh Sanderson. Sanderson, Manning, and Doyle were three of the top four scorers in the league in 2005, but that was seven years ago. Manning hasn’t been anywhere near the player he was then, but now the Rock also have Leblanc, Billings, Carey, Biernes, and Rob Hellyer (and Aaron Pascas, but it sounds like he might be missing the season due to work commitments), so there is no shortage of strong offensive threats for Sanderson to pass to.

Prediction: First as long as Roik doesn’t completely defecate in his sleeping apparatus, and I have no real reason to believe he will.