The Buffalo Bandits (1-1) and the Vancouver Stealth (1-1) will face off in their only meeting of the 2015 NLL regular season on Saturday January 17, 2015 at the Langley Events Centre. The last time these two teams met was a 2014 Week 13 battle at the Langley Events Centre where the Stealth emerged victorious with the 12-8 home victory.
Two weeks ago, the Bandits were faced with opening their 2015 campaign in doubleheader action and were unfortunately left with a split decision. The Bandits found themselves on the losing end of a 12-8 showdown with the New England Black Wolves on January 2, but came together as a unit and walked away with a 9-8 home victory in their home opener against the Edmonton Rush on January 3. With the Bandits receiving the Week 2 bye and a much needed week off to rest and recuperate from injuries, the team will definitely be recharged and ready to take on the Stealth.
“You use the time off to kind of heal up some wounds, but at the same time you use that to get better as well,” Bandits leading scorer Ryan Benesch said.
The one aspect of their game that the Bandits used the bye week to work on and get better in was their special teams play. While the Bandits defense has been doing very well so far by going 10 for 18 on the penalty kill, Bandits assistant coach Dan Teat knows that the Vancouver Stealth will use these opportunities to take control of the game.
“As far as the short man, it’s five guys against four, and in Vancouver there’s some pretty lethal shooters out there so we’ve got to prepare ourselves,” said Teat. “We almost want to try and guide where you can have those shots come from. Lewis (Ratcliff) and Johnny (Powless) and Rhys Duch, you can’t just let them fire from where they want to.”
On the other side of the coin, the Stealth began their 2015 season on a high note as they played Week 1 spoiler to the 2014 Western Division champion Calgary Roughnecks with a 18-14 road victory in Calgary’s home opener, but fell flat in their Week 2 showdown with the Toronto Rock as they were defeated 20-11 in their home opener.
“We did have a good first quarter, played very well at both ends of the floor,” said Stealth head coach Dan Perrault. “Unfortunately, I’d say that we only played 20 minutes of good lacrosse and that’s not going to win you much in this league. We need more of a consistent effort this week, obviously we have to play 60 minutes and we’ve got to keep the ball out of our net.”
One of the key ingredients to getting a more consistent effort from the Stealth for the rest of the season will be their ability to achieve their own brand of team chemistry.
When the Stealth traded away their second overall selection in the 2014 NLL draft as well as future first round selections in the 2015 and 2017 drafts to the Rochester Knighthawks, they believed that forwards Johnny Powless and Joel McCready were the key ingredients to help bring the Stealth back to the promised land.
In their first two games this season as members of the Stealth, Powless has one goal and five assists while McCready has two goals and one assist. While it’s a good thing to see scorers like Rhys Duch (14 points) and Tyler Digby (nine points), the team will need to see each and every scorer firing on all cylinders, instead of just the select few, for the team to gain some serious ground in the Western standings.
“I think it’s going to take some time,” Ratcliff said. “It’s tough when you’re trying to make it gel and you’re trying to get used to each other when the games mean so much.”
