Top-seeded Buffalo Bandits seek first pro lacrosse title since 1996
The Buffalo Bandits are a solid National Lacrosse League team year in and year out, yet, they've gone 12 excruciatingly long years without a pro title.
Coach Darris Kilgour and his players have talked about it and they are all aware that, as the No. 1 playoff seed this spring, they've got a wonderful opportunity to end the frustration and hoist the Champion's Cup. They are due - make that past due.
"The last two or three years, winning the championship is all we've talked about from the opening of the pre-season," says Kilgour. "It's not, 'Let's make it to the championship game.'
"We've done that. For everybody on the team, (not winning) the championship has been a monkey on our backs. It's something everybody on our team has thought about for a long time."
Buffalo had home floor for the 2006 final and lost to the Colorado Mammoth. The Bandits feel it is their turn now to win it all. Their fans agree. More than 18,000 packed HSBC Arena to witness a win last weekend and a full house is expected again Friday night when the Philadelphia Wings fly in for an East Division semifinal showdown. It'll be a single-game elimination nailbiter.
"It'll be absolutely huge to have the home crowd behind us," says Kilgour.
Buffalo is 7-2 at home this year.
John Tavares, the all-time leading goal scorer and point-getter in pro box lacrosse history, helped the Bandits win pro titles in 1992, 1993 and 1996. He's never been hungrier for a victory celebration than he is right now, and it shows in the way he's been playing. The NLL named him offensive player of the week on Wednesday for scoring four goals and assisting on four in a 14-10 home win over Portland last Saturday.
Bandits transition specialist Mark Steenhuis is having a great season, too, and Cory Bomberry, Delby Powless, Kevin Dostie, Roger Vyse and Brett Bucktooth are part of a diversified offence. Also, the importance of the mid-season acquisition of Mike Accursi can't be overstated.
"The last couple of games have been a lot more consistent in terms of how we've been scoring," says Kilgour. "We're pretty happy with where we're at and we're looking forward to getting (the playoffs) started."
Special-teams play should boost Buffalo's chances of advancing since the Bandits are first among all playoff teams both on power play and penalty-killing efficiency.
The back end, anchored by veterans such as Rich Kilgour and Pat McCready, will have its hands full.. NLL scoring champ Athan Iannucci has been close to unstoppable and has been selected player of the month for April. In six games, Iannucci scored 25 goals to set a single-season league record with 71 goals.
"They're very athletic and have some tremendous offensive players," says Darris Kilgour. "They'll try for a lot of breaks coming off the bench.
"With Iannucci, Merrick Thomson and Jake Bergey, who has always been a Bandits killer, they'll try to play up-tempo and we'll try to slow it down.
"We don't want to let them make it a 2-on-1 track meet. It'll be interesting to see which style prevails."
Philadelphia won the Champion's Cup in 2001, was out early in the 2002 playoffs, and has waited six years to get back. It split its two games with Buffalo during the regular season.
"It's the rubber match," says Wings coach Dave Huntley. "I know our guys are looking forward to the challenge."
Geoff Snider of the Wings set a NLL record for loose-balls pickups and also is the No. 1 faceoff man.
"Geoff is a ball winner for us," says Huntley. "He gets our transition going.
"He's been a great leader for our team."
The other East semifinal is Saturday night when the New York Titans play the Minnesota Swarm in St. Paul. The two teams also finished 10-6. They met twice, both times at Xcel Energy Center, and the Titans won both games.
After a slow start, New York caught fire and has mowed down opponent after opponent.
"If anybody had told me when we were 1-4 that we'd have to go 9-2 to make the playoffs I'd have been skeptical, yet, that's what we wound up doing."
"They are the hottest team in the league," says Minnesota GM Marty O'Neill. "Our players have been bearing down to make sure we don't get fooled by anything and that we play to our best capacity.
"Let the chips fall where they may."
It'll be the first home playoff game for the Swarm in their four years in the league. Attendance has been growing and more than 10,000 are expected Saturday.
"It's definitely snowballing," says O'Neill.
Minnesota is 6-2 at home and another win would be a big boost for the organization moving forward.
"A lot of the guys have been here for all four years and they want to do something more this year - for ourselves and our fans - and to prove to people out there who don't want to give us any credit because we're a young team.
"It's time to prove they can beat veteran players and get a playoff win under their belts."
Titans forward Casey Powell will make his first post-season appearance since he was with Rochester eight years ago.
"I'm happy for him," says coach Adam Mueller. "He's one of the most competitive guys I've ever met.
"He's always looking to improve his game. He's a big part of why we're doing so well this year."
No team in NLL history relying on a lineup with this many American players has looked as good as the Titans have this year. One of them, Greg Peyser, earned defensive player of the week honours after coming up big in New York's latest win.
"The players believed they could make the playoffs," says Mueller. "Now it's a new season and they want more."
In the West, the Calgary Roughnecks (7-9) are at the Colorado Mammoth (9-7) on Saturday night, and the Portland Lumberjax (6-10) are at the San Jose Stealth (9-7) on Sunday.
The Mammoth have serious injury woes with Josh Sims (high ankle sprain) and Dan Carey (concussion) unable to play.
"We just have to get some better efforts from some of our other players," says coach Bob McMahon.
Calgary is 2-6 on the road, and more than 18,000 Mammoth fans in the Pepsi Center will do all they can to help make it 2-7.
"We've started to play better . . . but we know we're headed into a beehive in Colorado," says Roughnecks GM Kurt Silcott.
Calgary will try to stay close and "we're just hopeful we can get some bounces at the end."
The Jax have upset the Stealth the last two times they've played in San Jose.
"That helps," says GM Derek Keenan. "We've played well the last five or six weeks so we have some confidence.
"It's going to be a tough game, as it always is between the two teams. It'll be extremely evenly matched."
San Jose coach Walt Christianson has to be leery about the impact Portland forward Dan Dawson might have on the outcome.
"He's a playoff kind of guy so he'll step up his game and we'll obviously pay attention to how we check him," says Christianson.
Inserts Keenan: "We know they're going to focus on Dawson so we'll have to get some secondary scoring."
Paul Dawson is a Stealth defenceman and will try to stop his big brother.
"Dan looks at it as a fun thing and a challenge," says Keenan. "(Paul) will be just another player on the floor.
"Dan would go through his grandmother to win a lacrosse game so it's not going to have any effect on how he plays Sunday."
Portland forward Peter Jacobs, 18, from Akwesasne, was named rookie of the month and for the week by the NLL for his four goals in his team's loss in Buffalo.
"Peter plays like a veteran who has been in the league for a long time," says Keenan.
Keenan says there is no obvious pick for the title.
"The league has never seen this type of parity and I don't think you could say there's a clear favourite in either division to win the championship."
The Stealth are at the bottom of the league in attendance, averaging only slightly better than 3,000 a game, so a playoff win would be a boost in efforts to raise the sport's profile in California.
Toronto captain Jim Veltman was named overall player of the week for scoring a goal, assisting on four and picking up 17 loose balls in his final NLL game last Sunday, a 15-14 home loss to Philadelphia. The Rock missed the playoffs for the first time in the franchise's 11-year history.
