Bandits' skid reaches four games

By Budd Bailey

The dynasty is teetering.

The Buffalo Bandits had won three straight championships entering this season and had designs on winning an unprecedented fourth in a row. They started the current season with three wins and an overtime loss, and looked to be a contender – as usual.

But suddenly the tide has turned, and the Bandits are in trouble. The team lost its fourth in a row on Saturday night, a very disappointing 13-11 loss to the Philadelphia Wings before a sellout crowd in the KeyBank Center (although some certainly didn’t try to brave the cold).

Yet it’s the details that are particularly disappointing. The Bandits had an 11-9 lead with six minutes to go. They were playing a Wings team that had lost six in a row and was at the bottom of the National Lacrosse League standings. However, Philadelphia scored the game’s final four goals to steal a victory.

The result was unacceptable to everyone connected to the Bandits, including coach John Tavares.

“Two-goal lead, and we took two stupid penalties,” he said. “It was like Ottawa – tie game and we took a stupid penalty. We’re finding ways to lose, and it’s frustrating obviously to everybody. I’m not going to blame the loss on one play, but we need to find ways to win. We’re finding ways to lose for whatever reason. We have to turn the page. … We have to be a little more disciplined, and be able to take a hit – not retaliate – and be smart enough not to take a penalty.”

Ian MacKay added, “I felt like we found a way to lose tonight. Tough one – a lot of things you can try to pinpoint, but at the end of the day we didn’t score more goals than they did.”

Buffalo started the game well enough, taking a three-goal lead in the opening five minutes. But Philadelphia needed less than five minutes to tie the game, thanks to scoring two shorthanded goals on the same Buffalo power play. Neither team had more than a two-goal lead for the rest of the game. The Bandits didn't seem to have the energy to pull away. They did the Wings a favor by letting them hang around, and in the end, Philadelphia capitalized on it.

“I thought we had a really good gameplan going into the game, and we played a first half that we were really pleased with,” MacKay said. “We came out fast, we came out aggressive. … That was the message this week – get back to basics, get back to fun. Now we have to bottle them up and get some more of them.”

The breaks of the game certainly didn’t go Buffalo’s way either. The Bandits had a couple of shots that danced right around the goal line. On at least one of them, it looked as if the ball may have even touched the mesh of the goal net. But video replay showed no conclusive evidence that the ball had clearly crossed the entire goal line, and so the “no goal” call stood up.

You can imagine how well that went over.

“I’m a coach in the National Lacrosse League, and I would think that if the ball hits the mesh, it’s a goal – that’s my thinking,” Tavares said. “On the first one by MacKey, I was told there was no evidence the ball crossed the line. My response was, is the mesh enough? … You can see it hit the mesh.”

“I don’t know what else has to happen for those to count,” MacKay added. “I saw the ball hit net both times. I know it has to cross the line. … It’s frustrating.”

Here’s a fact that will give Bandits’ fans pause. This is the team’s first four-game losing streak since the 2017-18 season. Buffalo finished that particular year with an 8-10 record and missed the playoffs. Two of the latest losses were relatively close, while the third was the major blowout in Colorado last week.

Here are some others. The Bandits already have lost as many games in this regular season as they did in all of 2023-24, five. The offense has gone from 13.4 goals per game to 11.1. The defense's goals-against number has risen from 10.8 goals per game to 11.9. It's interesting to look at Josh Byrne's production, since the offense usually goes through him. He's averaging 5.4 points per game, down from 7.4 points per game last season. The number is his lowest since 2019-20. That's more of a sign of team inefficiency than it is a criticism of Byrne.

Last week, Canisius basketball coach Jim Christian said he never brings up losing streaks with his team. He focuses only on the next game, and how to take steps forward. Tavares apparently read that same book.

“(It’s) exactly the same way,” he said about his approach. “Things are in the past. We just move forward. There’s nothing I can say that will make us feel good about this one. We have to get ready for Halifax. We have to find that one win and move forward. We can’t dwell on the past.”

The team has made some roster moves in the past few weeks. With players coming off the injured list, a few veterans like Mike Triolo, Ron John and Kiel Matisz have departed.

“We have a very veteran team, and we’ve got some guys on the practice roster that have looked good,” Tavares said. “We’ve had some guys come off IR (injured reserve), so we needed to make room. … We’re trying to find some youth and some energy.”

That all adds up to a distressing situation at the moment. It’s important to realize that it’s only a moment. But the schedule turns difficult now. Next week Buffalo plays at Halifax, which already as a win over the Bandits to its credit this season. That’s followed by games with Vancouver, Saskatchewan, Toronto and Colorado – all good teams.

Certainly no one would want to play a veteran team like the Bandits in the playoffs. But Buffalo has to get there first, and a turnaround is necessary for Buffalo to even play in May and have the chance to defend its titles.

“We’re scratching right now, and it’s not fun,” Tavares said. “The guys are working their butts off, and they’re not getting rewarded.”

(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)