Bandits’ reach exceeded their grasp
MONDAY EXTRA: Getting to the playoffs is an achievement for some NLL teams, but Buffalo was aiming higher
Published: May 18, 2009, 12:30 am
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Darris Kilgour knows something about winning championships. If you count playing and coaching, in the summer and winter, the Buffalo Bandits coach has more rings than fingers. He thought he had a chance to add to that collection this year with the Bandits, but it didn’t work as hoped.
“Anything less than a championship every single year, with as much talent as we have on this team, is a disappointment,” he said. “We had the great start, but then having to play on the road [in the playoffs against New York], we got blown out on the road. It’s all of our own doing.”
The Bandits had a good season by most standards in 2009. They went 10-6 in the regular season, tied for the East Division championship, and reached the league’s final four in the playoffs. Most teams would have been close to satisfied with it. But not the Bandits. They were unable to defend their National Lacrosse League championship, and they went out with a dreary 9-3 loss to New York in the East final that left John Tavares talking about retirement and Kilgour wondering if it was time to give up either the coach’s or general manager’s duties. The exit will be a painful memory that will last until at least next January.
Here are some of the highs and lows of the Bandits’ 2009 season:
Highlights
The twin terrors: No team had a better one-two punch up front than the Bandits’ combination of Mark Steenhuis and Tavares, who tied for the league lead in goals with 51. Steenhuis finished with 50 assists while becoming one of the league’s elite players. Steenhuis’ previous career highs were last year’s totals of 34-41-75. Tavares’ 51 goals tied his own personal best – not bad for a 40-year-old.
The“Monster”: Ken Montour may have been called 1A on the Bandits’ depth chart at the start of the season, but he was essentially the “other” goalie after Mike Thompson’s great finish to 2008. It didn’t take long for Montour to show this year that he deserved most of the duty in goal.
Montour was the only goalie in the NLL this season with a goals-against average under 10 (9.57). In addition, some of his saves were so jaw-dropping that they gave his teammates a huge lift. That’s why he was picked as the league’s best goalie.
Dee-fense: Billy Dee Smith grew up in 2009. He was always considered the toughest player on the team, but he added more maturity to his game this season. Smith set a personal best in points, and often went up against opponents’ best offensive threats.
Smith was honored after the season as the league’s top defender. He and Chris White gave the Bandits two top-flight players on the defensive unit.
Lowlights
The deceptive start: The Bandits opened the season 5-0 and 7-1. They played one playoff team in that stretch, and that was a Rochester squad that was defenseless without its first-string goaltender, Pat O’Toole. While the Bandits ran up some huge wins, it was tough to know just how good they were relative to the league’s best.
In the second half of the season, the Bandits played seven straight games against teams that wound up in the playoffs. They went 3-4. Throw in a loss to Minnesota, and you have a 3-5 second half.
Unbalanced scoring: As Steenhuis and Tavares went, so went the Bandits. Buffalo didn’t get enough scoring from its other forwards. A painful reminder came against New York on Saturday: Buffalo scored only three goals (one away from a league record for fewest goals in a playoff game) as the team’s top duo was blanked.
Roger Vyse had 16 goals in the first half of the season, but slumped to 11 in the second half and one in the playoffs. Sean Greenhalgh had scored 31 and 26 goals in his first two full seasons of NLL play, but he had 15 in 2009. Greenhalgh missed all of 2008 with a severe knee injury; perhaps he needs another year to come all the way back. Kevin Dostie went from 22 goals in 10 games in 2008 to eight goals in 14 games in 2009. Delby Powless spent time in the doghouse, as he was suspended for two games for violating team rules, and went from 18 goals to three.
Draw-backs: Kilgour is the first to tell you that he’s not that concerned about faceoffs. He figures his defense will get the ball back soon enough.
Still, there’s no denying the Bandits were poor at that phase of the game. They won 34.3 percent of the draws. The next-to-last team in the league in that department was Edmonton at 40.7. The Bandits lost 14 of 16 faceoffs to New York in the playoff game, and 18 of 23 to Boston in the first-round postseason game. In two games against Philadelphia, Buffalo only won seven of 58 draws. No matter how good a defense is, all of those extra possessions by the opponents can be draining.
Outlook
The Bandits have to admit the obvious. New York defeated them three straight times in 2009, so the Titans deserved to play in Friday’s championship game. Buffalo just wasn’t good enough. The Bandits more or less kept the same group from 2008 in defending its championship in 2009. It didn’t work, at least in terms of a title. If they are going to keep up with the Titans, some changes need to be made.
bbailey@buffnews.com
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