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| Who doesn't love a good banner-raising ceremony? |
The operative number for the Buffalo Bandits in 2025-26 figured to be four.
The Bandits had won their third straight championship in 2025, a remarkable achievement that had only been accomplished by the Rochester Knighthawks (2012 to 2014) in the National Lacrosse League. But no one in the history of the league had ever won four straight.
Could the Bandits do that? They'd need some key figures back from the 2025 roster to do so. The first order of business, then, was to see if some veterans were ready to return. As the 2025-26 season approached, players such as Matt Vinc, Paul Dawson and Kyle Buchanan enlisted for another year.
But there are always changes on a roster from year to year. In this case, Chris Cloutier and Chase Fraser had the chance for a good-sized pay hike and a bigger role in an offense if they signed as free agents elsewhere. They did so, both joining Las Vegas. Cloutier was a very good secondary threat so that defenses couldn't completely concentrate on Dhane Smith and Josh Byrne, while Fraser probably was the emotional center of the team. (Cloutier had 40 goals in his new home, while injuries shortened Fraser's season.)
The Bandits still had players like Ian MacKay and Buchanan up front, and had to hope that the team would have some young players, like Tehoka Nanticoke, could step up a bit. Just in case, they signed old friend Ryan Benesch to a contract. General manager Steve Dietrich also had the chance to pick up a valuable player on defense, as he gave up some draft choices to Philadelphia for another ex-Bandit, Mitch de Snoo.
The team opened the season with its third straight banner-raising ceremony in the KeyBank Center.
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If the team needed a reminder of what was the task for the coming season - add to the banner collection - that moment served its purpose. Buffalo and Georgia played the first 30 minutes evenly, but a big third quarter led to a 15-11 victory. The Bandits had 60 shots on goal, and Smith finished with four goals and four assists.
Two weeks later, Buffalo looked to be on its way to another win. It had 7-4 lead in the middle of the third quarter. But Halifax ran off four straight goals to take the lead. Josh Byrne tied the game with 3:09 left, but the Thunderbirds won it only 26 seconds into overtime - a somewhat shocking result.
“Overtime is so crazy,” Nick Weiss said of the Bandits said. “We look at it one shift at a time. We always think we can play one shift and give our offense a chance. We have a lot of faith in them. But unfortunately, they scored on the first possession, and that’s tough to swallow.”
The Bandits had a couple of weeks to rebound, and did so with a convincing 13-7 win in Calgary. Back home on January 3, Buffalo played 49 great minutes in taking a 14-7 lead. What could go wrong in so little time? The Desert Dogs answered that question by scoring five straight goals goals to get within two. Smith added a little insurance, but the 15-13 didn't leave anyone watching Buffalo to be full of confidence about the team. “Not the way we wanted it, but … good teams find a way,” forward Ian MacKay said.
Sure enough, a road trip to Rochester provided the first sign of major trouble. The Knighthawks had a 7-3 lead early in the second quarter. Buffalo never really got within striking distance, and dropped a 12-9 decision. Even more worrisome was a fourth-quarter collapse at home against Ottawa on January 16. The Black Bears scored four straight goals at the start of the fourth quarter and stole a 10-9 decision.“We were going back and forth, and couldn’t go on a run,” Smith said. “We need to step it up a bit.”
That was only a warmup for what happened next. It took the Bandits less than four minutes to figure out they were in major trouble on January 31 in Colorado. The Mammoth had taken a 3-0 lead by that point, and it extended the margin to 6-0 after 18 minutes of play. Leads like that are almost always safe, and the Mammoth didn't make any mistakes in a 20-9 romp. Smith and Byrne combined for only eight points, while Andrew Kew had seven goals for Colorado.
That certainly felt like the team had hit bottom, but it didn't get any better at home on February 7 against lowly Philadelphia. The Bandits scored three goals in a row at the start, and then gave up four. It was going to be one of those nights. The Wings scored the game's final four goals to win 13-11. It was one of five wins Philadelphia had during the season.
“Two-goal lead, and we took two stupid penalties,” coach John Tavares 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.”
The Bandits had lost four in a row to fall to 3-5, and seemed to be in serious trouble. The team had lost to some teams at the bottom of the standings, and the upcoming schedule was loaded with tough opponents. It had moments where the roster looked out of gas and tired. Suddenly, the road to the championship seemed difficult; making the playoffs was no longer a given.
Buffalo showed a little life on Valentine's Day, with Smith scoring a short-handed goal with 2:24 left to give his team an 11-10 win in Halifax. About a week later the Bandits played a streaky game in Vancouver, going down by 4-1, rallying to lead 7-5, falling behind 10-7, and finally losing 11-9. Buffalo was 4-6 with eight games to go. It was the key moment of the regular season.
Dietrich knew the trading deadline was coming up in a handful of days. He certainly could break up the team at that point, selling off some parts in order to help a rebuilding process. Dietrich also could try to load up for one last push with some trades. He opted to wait until the team got through two more games that weekend against Saskatchewan and Toronto before making that decision. Meanwhile, the team had what sounded like an emotional meeting, pointing out that some of the veterans had come back for one more kick at the can and the rest of the team was letting them down.
That set up the best game of the season, a home game against Saskatchewan on February 27. There were all sorts of shifts in momentum in a well-played game. Buffalo had a 10-7 lead after three quarters, only to give up three goals to send the contest to overtime. Both teams had good chances in the extra session, which stretched out for more than six minutes. Finally, Byrne fired home a shot from long distance to give the team an emotional 11-10 win. Tavares was asked if he felt more joy or relief when the last shot of the game went in.
“There was a lot of relief,” he said. “This was a much-needed win in the season. We had a great game against Vancouver, which is a great team, and we played another great team tonight. We still have a great team. We put ourselves in a bad situation and it’s definitely a relief to get the win and get back in the playoff hunt.”
Even better, the Bandits came back the next night and had enough left in the tank to pound the Rock, 14-9. The team was 6-6 and had an early funeral to the season. Dietrich responded by trading for Joe Resetarits, giving up Lukas Nielsen and a second-round draft choice to Philadelphia to acquire the Western New York native. It was one last signal to the rest of the league that the Bandits were going to do whatever it took to have a chance at winning that fourth title.
With that settled, Buffalo settled in for a nice run of victories. The rematch with Colorado was a much different contest, as the Bandits broke the game open in the third quarter in a 13-10 win. Smith and Byrne both had four goals and five assists to lead the way.
“With the offense here, you don’t have to do too much,” Resetarits said about playing with Smith and Byrne. “You’ve got the best one-two punch, in my opinion, in history, with a supporting cast. To be a part of that, you do whatever you can to help the team win.”
On March 21, Buffalo looked dead with seven minutes to go and San Diego leading by 8-4. Buffalo scored the next five goals, including Dhane Smith's tally in overtime, and took a shocking 9-8 decision.
It was a similar story in the next game, as the Bandits came back from a 7-4 deficit with nine minutes left to steal a 8-7 win from Saskatchewan. Resetarits had the game-winner. In yet another chance to avenge a loss, Buffalo only let Vancouver hang around for a quarter before blasting the Warriors - the eventual regular-season champion - by a shocking score of 15-5. The Bandits scored the last six goals of that game; Byrne finished with 10 points.
The Revenge Tour continued on April 11, as the Bandits treated Rochester like a bug on the windshield in a 12-6 win. Buffalo took a 5-1 lead in less than 16 minutes, as four players had at least two goals each. That game had an emotional tinge to it under the circumstances. This was the Bandits' final home game of the regular season. While the win wrapped off a playoff spot, there was no guarantee that this collection of players would ever be together on its home field again.
“When I came in tonight, I wondered when the last time I was going to be playing in front of Banditland,” Buchanan said. “You want to take advantage of those things. But then it’s gone. What do you do with that information? You want to put out the effort and do the small things. That’s the way I try to savor it. Having fans and friends here, it’s not hard to get up for it. It’s certainly pretty special. I think when you win, you not only get closer, but you spend a lot of time together. … You build bonds that last a lifetime.”
“When you don’t know the future, you want to soak up those memories,” goalie Matt Vinc said. “I’ve got a lot of friends and family here, and playing here – it’s a special place. Having the opportunity to go out with a great group of guys, you don’t take it for granted. Your career goes by pretty fast. We’re fortunate to have a special group here. Hopefully we can keep things going.”
The Bandits seemed primed for another playoff run. They had won seven straight games, and still had at least a mathematical chance to finish first in the overall standings. Buffalo needed to win its last game at Oshawa and receive some help, but at least it was possible. The Bandits looked like the team that no one wanted to play in the postseason.
Then everything, including dreams, fell apart.
Oshawa, of 5-12 record entering the contest, scored the first seven goals of the April 18 matchup. (Buffalo had only given up the first seven goals in a game in two other contests since 2005 - and hadn't given up more than that.) The Bandits didn't even score until 25:17 had elapsed. Buffalo moved within three goals a couple of times, but couldn't conclude a big comeback. The Firewolves had played spoiler in an 12-8 victory.
That put Buffalo in fifth place in the final standings, trailing Vancouver, Colorado, Saskatchewan and Georgia in that order. With eight teams in the playoffs, the Bandits would have to open the postseason on the road.
There were some highlights in the regular sason. Smith finished with 118 points, and he probably was the most consistent player on the team. Byrne wasn't far behind at 113, including five game-winning goals. MacKay had 34 goals, Buchanan had 26, and Nanticoke had 21. Vinc finished with a goals-against average of 9.85, the first time he had been under 10.00 as a Bandit.
Georgia was waiting in the first round, a best-of-one matchup. Buffalo had needed overtime in 2024 to knock off the Swarm in a similar situation, but this time it had a potential difference-maker in goalie Brett Dobson. He had set an NLL record for goals-against average in a season. If you thought that might be a result of good team defense, he also broke the league record for save percentage in a season. This was going to be a difficult task.
An announced crowd of only 4,134 - the second-lowest for a road playoff game in the Bandits' history - turned out on April 25. Georgia must not have needed the motivation that comes with a big crowd. The Swarm had a 3-1 lead after 15 minutes, and it ballooned to 8-2 only seven minutes later. Since at least 2009, Buffalo had never erased a five-goal deficit in a playoff game ... let alone six. A five-goal run in the middle of the second half by the home team essentially ended any slim hopes that the Bandits had. The final score, 17-10 for the Swarm, was essentially academic. The dynasty was official over.
The first round of the playoffs in the league turned out to be an odd one. The three top seeds all lost at home and were done for the season. If the Bandits had beaten Georgia, they would have had the top seed through the rest of the playoffs.
The 2024-25 season will be remembered for its inconsistency, but maybe one key factor in the team's play had been overlooked. Buffalo had played in 17 playoff games during its three championship runs. In other words, the Bandits had played the equivalent of almost four seasons in a period when everyone else played a little more than three. That might have been a heavy lift. (Tack on a trip to the Finals in 2022, and it's 23 extra games in the previous four years.)
It had been one of the great runs in Buffalo's sports history, but all such streaks must end sometime. Everyone could only wait to see what would happen before the next opening night of the season comes November.
