Tavares truly is the leader

The crowd at the HSBC Arena on Saturday night seemed rather quiet prior to the start of the NLL game between the Titans, now of Orlando, and the hometown Buffalo Bandits. Perhaps the crowd was still in shock from the Bandits loss a week earlier to the worst place team in the East division and was expecting another horrible showing from the orange and black against the division’s best and the player of the month for February in Orlando’s goaltender Matt Vinc. As if this feeling of impending doom was felt by the players, just over two minutes into the game John Tavares laid a heavy check on Greg Peyser who crumpled to the floor (and laid there in a lifeless lump only to get to his feet showing no ill effects once the trainer came onto the floor) causing a bit of a skirmish. It all ended with Tavares and Mark Steenhuis in the box and a Titans powerplay.

Despite being down a man, Banditland came alive during that heated exchange. The Bandits killed the penalty and finally scored on a powerplay of their own on a shot from Steenhuis. The first quarter ended with the Bandits up 4-0 and Mark Steenhuis getting a natural hat trick. The second quarter saw some fights that left two Bandit players injured and the teams defence short two men. The scoring was a bit back and forth but Buffalo increased their lead by 1 leading 8-3 at half.

Orlando came out gunning in the third quarter and scored the next three goals to close the gap to two. The crowd was quiet once again as nervous tension built up. Buffalo escaped the third with a three goal lead though as Steenhuis stopped Orlando’s scoring run by netting his sixth of the game. Heading into the fourth, Buffalo looked more like they were trying not to lose but another big hit from John Tavares (this time clean) got the crowd and the team right back into the game. A short time later JT scored on the powerplay to get back a three goal cushion and the crowd began to sense victory. With over two minutes to play Matt Vinc was pulled for an extra attacker but Orlando was only able to score one goal with the extra man and Buffalo held on for the 12-10 win.

The tone was set early in that game, not that there was a big surprise after the division final last year, and the action didn’t let up until the final whistle blew. The officiating left a lot to be desired and the Titans players found the new carpet a little too comfortable but overall, that was a great hard hitting, action packed game. The kind of game Buffalo excels at. That win also gave Darris Kilgour his record tying 93rd regular season win. The only other coach with that many wins is the late great Les Bartley.