Bandits lose in overtime to Halifax

By Budd Bailey

The Buffalo Bandits played more than 60 minutes in their game against the Halifax Thunderbirds in the KeyBank Center on Saturday night. Yet it took less than a minute of that time for the game to get away from them … the last minute of play.

As a result, the Bandits dropped a 9-8 overtime that was on the painful side.

“A tough night,” Dhane Smith summarized. “We came out flat. … We didn’t play to our standard. We played to theirs. We had our moments to build momentum, but we let it slip away.”

Those final seconds deserve a good-sized examination. The game was tied at 8-8 with 32.3 seconds, and Buffalo had the ball. The Bandits called timeout to set up a play. It’s always a good idea to give the ball to Smith and let him create something. He cut to the middle of the floor and had a good opportunity, but couldn’t beat Halifax goalie Warren Hill.

“We drew it up, and there was almost too much time,” Smith said. “I missed Josh to my right a little bit. I could have given it to him. I was in the middle of the floor and I saw him. I hesitated a little bit. Warren made a good save. I wish I could have that one back. It obviously would have won the game.”

The T-Birds scooped up the ball with 7.2 seconds left and used their timeout. When play resumed, Clarke Petterson sprinted down the field and worked a give-and-go play in order to take a distant shot from the left wing. It bounced off of goalie Matt Vinc’s glove and into the net. An official ruled it a good goal, but such plays are always reviewed.

Imagine the relief on the Bandits’ side, then, when the first look at a replay on the scoreboard showed the clock reaching 0.0 seconds a couple of tenths before the ball was shown going into the net. It was as if the Governor had called just before midnight to offer a pardon.

“I was surprised that the ref called it a goal,” coach John Tavares said. “The light was green … and it seemed late, but I didn’t have a good vantage point from the far bench. It clearly wasn’t a goal when I saw the replay.”

Therefore, Buffalo had another chance to win – which meant mixing the emotions of having a second life combined with getting ready to take part in sudden-death overtime.

“You definitely want to look at how they scored because they might want to run that play again,” Nick Weiss of the Bandits said. “But it’s definitely an exhale.”

The next order of business was to win the faceoff to begin the extra period. Jake Withers of Halifax is one of the all-time greats at that skill, and he outfought Connor Farrell for the ball. Eventually Petterson had the ball on left wing, and took advantage of a nice pick by teammate Randy Staats to have an open lane to the net. He cashed in on the opportunity, giving the Thunderbirds the win.

Overtime lasted only 26 seconds, which didn’t crack the top five on the Bandits’ all-time list of shortest OT contests. But it was long enough to break some hearts on and off the field.

“Overtime is so crazy,” Weiss said. “We look at it one shift at a time. We always think we can play one shift and give our offense a chance. We have a lot of faith in them. But unfortunately, they scored on the first possession, and that’s tough to swallow.”

The frantic finish was a bit out of character for this contest. The game started off on the chippy side, with a flurry of goals and penalties in the first period. Buffalo had the edge in taking a 5-2 lead after 15 minutes.

From there, everyone calmed down for quite a while. Neither team was able to do much in transition play, as odd-man breaks were few and far between. There were stretches when excitement was difficult to find. The goalies were also quite good. Hill, who allowed only two goals in Halifax’s opener, settled down after the first period and stopped 30 of 33 shots the rest of the way. That’s a save percentage of .909, which is exceptional.

“He’s an amazing goalie, but there are a lot of amazing goalies in this league,” Smith said. “You have to stick to your system and take your shot. If you get good shots, eventually they are going to go in. …. Those things happen. It’s early in the season, and we have to figure those things out.”

“There weren’t many transition opportunities, so I assume they were trying to do exactly what we were doing,” Tavares added. “We had a couple of opportunities, but there weren’t any breakaways.”

Meanwhile, the Bandits received six goals from Smith and Byrne, but only two goals from other sources. Buffalo’s offensive stars usually can’t be shut down completely, but the team plays better when the “supporting cast” is able to contribute some goals and assists. That didn’t happen, and the Thunderbirds deserve some credit for that.

“Anytime you don’t get to 10 goals, we look at it as a bad game for the offense,” Byrne said.

“We had them under control at 7-4, and we let it get away,” Tavares said. “They seemed to get momentum at the right time.”

Halifax should be recognized for the fact that they didn’t have the lead for the first 50-plus minutes of the game, but hung around until ageless Cody Jamieson struck with less than seven minutes left to give his team the lead. Byrne tied it up less than four minutes later, setting up the frantic finish.

The Bandits hadn’t played in two weeks since their opening night victory, and they’ll have some more time to work on some issues. The next game will be in Calgary on December 28.

“The breaks in the schedule don’t help the offense,” Tavares said. “The more we play, the more chemistry we have offensively. You can practice all you want, but the chemistry is developed in the game.”

“I want to play,” Byrne added. “It (a bye week) drives me nuts. It’s frustrating, but it is what it is.”

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