By Budd Bailey
Josh Byrne had something of a Midas touch for a while on Saturday night.
Almost everything he touched turned to goal.
The Buffalo Bandits forward scored six goals on seven shots in the first half alone, and finished the game with seven goals and five assists for 12 points. He led the undefeated Bandits past the Philadelphia Wings, 19-14, before 17,561 in the KeyBank Center.
“You hear about guys like Steph Curry and LeBron (James) talking about being in a flow state,” Byrne said about being in the zone. “You’re not really pressing. You’re not trying too hard. Everything is working. I didn’t have to do a whole lot. Guys were setting seals and setting picks. I think something that’s underrated is that they are so focused on Dhane (Smith), because of how great a facilitator and goal scorer he is, that sometimes I get more room. Suddenly, it’s a wide-open shot.”
The 30-year-old forward tied his career best in goals and assists in the game in a dominating performance. How dominating? At halftime, the score was Byrne 6, Philadelphia 5. In other words, he had a (warning: silly lacrosse term coming) "sock trick" before half the game was over. At the end of the night, he was one off the team record for goals in a game, set by Mark Steenhuis in 2009.
“Sometimes the ball just goes in for you, when everything’s working,” said Bandits coach John Tavares, who knows a little something about scoring goals in this league. “In the second half, I could see him backing off a little bit, trying to be the facilitator. It’s important to push forward and make the right play, regardless of many you have.”
While Byrne led the way, the Bandits certainly were not a one-man team. For about the first 40 minutes of the game, Buffalo played as if it was leading a clinic on how to run an offense. Philadelphia, which came into the game with an excellent 4-1 record, was thoroughly outclassed during that time.
“When you’re an opponent and you try to gameplan for us, you worry about all the other guys,” Byrne said.
Dhane Smith headed up the “supporting” cast, by quietly putting the ball where it should go. He finished with a goal and nine assists over the course of 60 minutes.
Then there’s Chris Cloutier, who was back in the lineup after missing several weeks with an injury. The forward had two goals and two assists overall, and set plenty of picks to help the offense go.
“Chris is a great goal scorer,” Tavares said. “It’s nice to have his touch back in the lineup. The one thing he knows how to do is put the ball in the back of the net.”
Chase Fraser had an even bigger night on the stat sheet on Saturday, finishing with three goals and four assists. Fraser has struggled a bit this season, but maybe “Honky Tonk Night” relaxed him a bit. He said after the game that he found himself singing along to the country songs playing on the arena’s sound system. Or, maybe his game-tying goal last week against Toronto gave him some confidence.
“It helped me get in the groove,” Fraser said. “We’ve had how many bye weeks so far, so it’s been tough to get into that groove. That goal washed over me. When I received the pass from Dhane on the play, everyone in the crowd stood up. … The energy that we get from them on the floor is just amazing.”
If you are looking for Ian MacKay’s name in that list of offensive standouts, he had some other duties on this night. The Bandits had a couple of injuries to their defensive unit, and so Tavares moved MacKay to the so-called back door to help out there. It’s handy to have a player who can be used anywhere, and MacKey even found time to score a couple of goals.
“We had no choice but to put Mickey on the back end,” Tavares said. “It’s hard not to give him some offensive time since he’s our leading goal scorer and keep him on the back end. So I gave him the green light more often to play up front than usual. Every team has two or three guys like that, who fill multiple roles. I really like having Mickey on our team. He’s one of the best offensive players, one of the best defensive players, and one of the best transition players. He has a lot to offer.”
The only drawback to the game came after the Bandits were up 16-7 fairly late in the third quarter. The Wings scored the next six goals to cut the lead to 16-13. Western New York native and ex-Bandit Joe Resetarits and Holden Cattoni had eight points each for Philadelphia.
A big lead can be a little troublesome in a sport like lacrosse. It’s only human nature to take the foot off the gas a bit, no matter how much warning the coaches provide about the dangers of a letdown. That’s especially true against a team such as the Wings, which has some weapons.
“It’s hard not to (relax),” Tavares said. “At the half, the message was it’s 0-0. What we did to them in the first half, they could do to us. They have that type of offense. … I was hoping that it wouldn’t end up being close, but it wound up being that close. But we found a way to win, and that’s what matters.”
“We knew they would score,” Byrne added. “There were some crazy bounces that ended up in the back of our net. As an offense, we weren’t getting off in time in the third and fourth quarter. We have to be better.”
The lead was still three with half the period left, but the Bandits slammed the defensive door and added a couple of power-play goals to wrap things up. With the win, the Bandits improved to 5-0. This edition of the team is only the fifth in history to five games in a row or more at the start of the season; the last was in 2021-22. More importantly, the team has a two-game edge in the loss column on everyone else in the National Lacrosse League.
“We are not worried about who we are playing,” Byrne said. “We are not worried about 18 games. We worry week to week, and how to get better. … Doing those things each and every week is what makes us successful. I don’t worry about our record. In the playoffs, the winner goes on and the loser goes home. It doesn’t matter what our record is. I try to treat every game like that.”
The Bandits have yet another week off now, as they return to duty to play Albany at home on February 1.
(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)
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