In tongue-in-cheek fashion, the easiest way to defeat the Buffalo Bandits is to not let them score. More rationally, if a team gets fantastic goaltending and plays strong team defense, they can hold the Bandits’ offense in check. It worked for the Colorado Mammoth last June, and Saturday at KeyBank Center, in the Bandits’ first game since watching the Mammoth lift the NLL Finals trophy on their home turf, the Albany FireWolves continued the trend with an 11-10 opening weekend victory.

As mentioned in the season preview, Albany had to overhaul their offense over the summer, with all 5 of their top scorers from 2021-22 not returning to the team for this season, two signed elsewhere in UFA and the other three being traded for their own geographical reasons. That new-look offense took away some of the spotlights from Albany’s strengths, which have been their defense and goaltending for the last couple of seasons and went mostly untouched in the offseason. The defensive unit did not take long to get acclimated with the first game of the season, as both teams went scoreless for the first 10 minutes until Tehoka Nanticoke broke the scoring. However, that would be the last Bandits goal for almost 15 minutes, with Albany’s young offense registering 4 goals of their own during that stretch to make it 4-1 in the first 16:06.

The Bandits scored three of four to cut the deficit to 5-4 at the half, and the two teams exchanged goals to start the third, but Albany made the night’s first run soon after. Hiana Thompson scored on a dunk that snuck under the arm of Matt Vinc with 5:50 to go in the quarter, before Kieran McArdle and Tanner Thomson added goals of their own with 5:28 and 4:53 left in the third. Joe Nardella was able to win back-to-back faceoffs to give the FireWolves those consecutive possessions. One quick blink and it was 9-5 FireWolves with only 20 minutes for the Bandits to overtake the four-goal deficit and Banditland growing very frustrated.

Nanticoke scored on a backhand just before the final minute of the quarter. The Bandits wings helped secure the ensuing faceoff and Chris Cloutier took an open lane to the net to beat Doug Jamieson and re-instate the energy right before the end of the third quarter, with the score now 9-7. Buffalo’s offense started to get into a groove to start the fourth quarter, with Nanticoke putting another shot past Jamieson about 2 minutes in, but Marcus Minichiello’s foot crossed the crease before the ball entered the net, and Glenn Clark’s challenge waved the goal off. The Bandits were, however, able to score the next two goals with Kyle Buchanan scoring his second of the game with 11:58 to play. Matt Vinc stopped John Piatelli on the doorstep on the ensuing possession before the Bandits pushed in transition and Ian MacKay found Nanticoke for his third goal of the game. While that goal stood, the resulting scrum after Nanticoke collided with Jamieson on the goal mouth had Wario asking the tough questions. Patrick Kaschalk challenged Nanticoke and the two fought. Because the officials gave Nanticoke a five-minute major for the goalie interference, the combination of the two major penalties led to the ejection.

The Bandits penalty killers held the FireWolves powerplay for the first 3:46 of the five minutes, but McArdle caught Vinc cheating off the post and snuck the go-ahead goal past him to make it 10-9. Colton Watkinson scored in transition with 4:46 left to extend the lead back to 2. Nick Weiss fed Cloutier in transition for his second goal of the game to make it a one-goal game, but that was all as Jamieson his final saves of the night to keep the Bandits from tying the game and give Albany the 1-0 start to the season.

While the Bandits owned the shot differential, and Max Adler was able to hold Joe Nardella to only 14 of the 25 faceoff wins, goaltending ended up the great equalizer, as Doug Jamieson made 45 saves on the Bandits’ 55 shots on goal (.818 SV%) to beat out Matt Vinc’s 27 saves on 38 shots on goal. The script looked very familiar for the Bandits’ offense, as Dhane Smith was able to distribute 5 assists despite being left off the scoreboard. Cloutier, Buchanan, and Josh Byrne each had two goals with Cloutier and Byrne having three assists each to go along with Nanticoke’s hat trick. As for the FireWovles, Tanner Thomson was the team’s leading point-getter with 2 goals and 4 assists, while new faces Connor Kelly, Ethan Walker, and Kieran McArdle also had two goals each. Hiana Thompson, John Piatelli, and Colton Watkinson rounded up the scoring with a goal apiece.

From here, the Bandits are off this week, which will be good for extra recovery time to figure out how to overcome the slow start on offense and to get Steve Priolo back after missing week 1 with an illness. They will need to recover quickly, however, as they will be traveling to Hamilton to play the Rock in their next game.

Week 1 Around the NLL

• Halifax opened the season with a performance that continued last season’s theme of unfinished business, hosting the Philadelphia Wings and using a 10-3 first half to lead to an 18-8 victory. Ryan Benesch, Chris Boushy, Clarke Petterson, Randy Staats, and Cody Jamieson each had 7 point night for the Thunderbirds. Blaze Riorden had 5 goals for the Wings
• Toronto’s dominant lead after the first half at home in their opener was 13-4, including the first 6 goals of the game in the first 10 minutes on their way to a 19-8 win over the Vancouver Warriors. Tom Schreiber led the way with 3 goals and 5 assists, Corey Small had 3 goals and 2 assists in his Rock debut, and Mitch de Snoo added 3 goals and an assist in transition. Adam Charalambides and Riley Lowen each had two goals for the Warriors while Mitch Jones had 1 goal and 4 assists in his return to the lineup after only four games last season due to an injury
• A 7-4 fourth quarter and a couple of inches were not enough for the Riptide to return home against San Diego, with the Seals winning the offensive battle 15-14 on Long Island. Curtis Dickson had 5 goals and 3 assists in his Seals debut while Kevin Crowley had 2 goals and 2 assists in his debut. Jeff Teat didn’t waste any time setting the league pace in points with a 4-goal 7 assists night for New York.
• Rochester defeated Georgia 16-11 in a game you, devoted reader, already read all about
• The Saskatchewan Rush kept with the theme of opening night blowouts to wrap up the week 1 schedule, scoring the first six goals of the game and chasing Dillon Ward in an 18-6 win that saw them outshoot the Mammoth 70-46 on goal. Mark Matthews showed he was in midseason form with 2 goals and 8 assists, Robert Church had 4 goals and 5 assists of his own, and Marty Dinsdale had 3 goals and 4 assists in his return to the Rush after spending last season in Vancouver. Dan Lintner added four goals as well.

Stat Note

The NLL Stat pages were overhauled on Friday night before the season opened, with the majority of the information being used in last seasons lax posts now being gone. I’m going to give it the month to see if it goes back to how it was previously set up before getting too far into the #chartbuilding

Photo Credit: Michael Hetzel/NLL