It was roughly a year ago when I last wrote something here and it happened to be the shellacking that the Bandits handed to the Knighthawks and Rock. Fast forward to now and the Bandits are having the roles reversed on them.
The Toronto Rock come into town with their Eastern Conference leading 4-1 record and their defeat of the Philadelphia Wings 19-11 last night. The Rock are lead by captain Colin Doyle who came back to the Rock after the San Jose Stealth moved to Washington. Doyle has been a key member of a Rock team that was rebuilt after not making the playoffs last season. In the win over the Wings, Doyle had seven points while the Rock took it to the Wings early with 11 goals in the first half. Doyle is now two points away from becoming the third ever player to score 1,000 points in the NLL.
The Bandits are trying to find a semblance of their domination that they have had over the league in the past few years. Their 1-4 record has been severely disappointing for the team and the changes that have been made in the past couple of weeks have changed the dynamics of the team. Their first win was last week over the Minnesota Swarm, 11-7, and they are looking to build off that win. One of the big disappointments for the Bandits have been the lack of offense in their game. Scoring 9 goals/game, which is the lowest total in the league, is not going to win any games and the offense needs to step up. The loss of John Tavares for the start of the season at this point has not helped production, but there are a handful of great shooters on this team that need to find the net.
Game time is 7:30 pm and can be heard on 1520 AM and seen on nll.com
