After riding a roller coaster of a regular season and being one post away from reaching the 2014 NLL Finals last year, Buffalo Bandits General Manager Steve Dietrich and head coach Troy Cordingley headed into the 2014 NLL Draft searching for that certain missing ingredient to their success. After the draft was over, it was pretty clear that the messing ingredient that Dietrich and Cordingley believed to be missing were left-handed scorers.
“We needed a lefty offensive guy, possibly two, and filled some areas where we felt we could get better at,” said Cordingley addressing the draft.
Dietrich agreed with Cordingley stating that “We’re getting a little older on that side so it was nice to find some younger left-handed scorers. I think that was probably a bit of a weakness for us last year”.
The Bandits lefty forward trinity currently consists of John Tavares, Ryan Benesch, and Shawn Williams. Besides the trio, the team had little help last season from anyone else on the left side in the scoring department.
When the 2014 draft was all said and done, Dietrich and Cordingley selected the best five left-handed prospects they could find at forward and transition to help replenish their deficiency on the left side.
The Buffalo Bandits did not have any draft selections in the first round this year due to the trade for Ryan Benesch the previous season. To get the Bandits back into a prime position in the first round they decided to make a trade with the Vancouver Stealth who had the ninth pick in the first round. The Bandits traded veteran defender Rory Smith, goaltender Eric Penney and the 12th pick in the draft for the Stealth’s 9th overall pick, 22 year old defenseman Nick Weiss, a second round pick in 2015 and a first-round selection in the 2018 draft.
For many Bandits fans including myself, the loss of Rory Smith was a very tough pill to swallow. Smith is a very heart-and-soul kind of player who was always willing to sacrifice his body and he did whatever he had to do to help keep shots from heading into the Bandits net.
Weiss comes to the Bandits as the 17th overall pick from the 2013 draft that played in 15 games last year as a rookie with the Stealth. Out of those 15 games, Weiss recorded 13 points (7G, 6A) and 86 loose balls. Weiss is a hard-nosed, gritty kind of player like Smith, so we will see how easy he will be able to gel with the other veteran defenders in the Bandits lineup.
With the 9th overall selection in the 2014 draft the Bandits selected Brandon Goodwin. Goodwin played midfield at Adelphi University and scored 26 points (19G, 7A) in 17 appearances last season. With his size and ability, the hope is that Goodwin will be able to clear out space for shooters like Tavares and Benesch to ramp up the left side scoring production. It also doesn’t hurt that Goodwin recorded 47 points over two seasons in Jr. A for Coquitlam and Langley.
The Bandits next draft selections were the 14th and 18th overall in the second round and they drafted two former Brampton Excelsior teammates in Matthew Bennett and Tyler Ferreira respectively.
With all the success last year from 2014 rookie sensation Mitch Wilde (who is also a lefty transition player himself), the Bandits are looking to continue on building to their already incredibly fast and effective transition game and hopefully Bennett will be reaping this upcoming season’s rewards. Bennett already moves the ball pretty well and has good lacrosse IQ. Hopefully his defensive prowess will also be able to shine through.
Ferreira is a 6’1” 155 pound lefty forward who was seventh in scoring this season for Brampton with 33 points (14G, 19A). Ferreira does have some decent speed and his ability to get in the face of opposing goaltenders is a very welcome sign.
For the Bandits fourth selection of the evening at 24th overall, the Bandits selected Jordan Dance. Dance is a heart-and-soul kind of player from the Jr. A Orangeville Northmen who can play both ends of the floor. Hopefully dance will be able to be the effective utility player that the Bandits need him to be.
After their fourth and what seemed to be final draft selection of the evening, the Buffalo Bandits traded their sixth-round pick in the 2016 draft to the New England Black Wolves for the 49th overall pick in the 2014 draft.
With what I believe could be the steal of the draft, The Bandits selected forward Mike MeInychenko from Kitchener-Waterloo of the MSL with the 49th overall selection.
At 5’11” and 195 pounds, MeInychenko is a very good shooter who has a tremendous ability to snake his way through traffic and get the open shot off. MeInychenko had an excellent 2013 playoff run with the Brooklin Redmen of the MSL but was limited with a foot injury this season for the Kitchener-Waterloo Kodiaks of the MSL. MeInychenko returned later on and had a solid 2014 playoff run with 10 points (4G, 6A) in five playoff games with the Kodiaks before they were eliminated by the Peterborough Lakers.
Overall, the Bandits did an excellent job on finding what they believe to be the root cause of their issue and addressed those needs in the draft. In regards to the Bandits trade with the Vancouver Stealth: while it is sad to see a gutsy player like Smith get sent away after being such an anchor last season on defense, the franchise did put themselves in a much better position for future drafts to come. Hopefully this will be one of those trades where it will hurt now but be forgotten in a couple of years after the results of the trade come in.
