Bandits/Titans Review

Matt Vinc was able to become the star against his hometown team. Vinc was a star for Canisius College and tonight he was finally able to beat the Bandits. He was the star for the Titans tonight who beat the Bandits 10-9 in overtime. Vinc stopped 34 of 43 shots while Jordan Hall netted the game winner on the powerplay. Casey Powell led the Titans in scoring with 3 goals and 2 assists and Mike McClellan had a goal and 4 assists. Dostie led the Bandits with 4 goals while Andrew Lazore's first game with the Bandits netted him 2 goals as well. Jordan Hall's game winning powerplay was caused by Delby Powless's roughing penalty. Mike Thompson started this game but was pulled 15 minutes into it. Ken Montour played the rest of the game giving up 7 goals on 37 shots.

Bandits/Roughnecks Review and Bandits/Titans Preview

Since this is a two game weekend, I figured that I would tie both the review of Friday's game and the preview of Sunday's game together. First the Roughnecks. The Bandits won 17-9 against the not-so reunion of Steve Dietrich against his old mates. Dietrich was originally set to start but was pulled when team doctors realized that he had suffered a concussion rather than the flu diagnosis he was given. In to fill in for him was Ryan Avery. Avery originally backed up Dietrich in Buffalo, but was then sent to the Roughriders in 2006. Boy did he get pounded. Avery gave up 16 goals on 47 shots and was eventually pulled with about 3 minutes left in the game. The Bandits leaders were Dostie and Steenhuis who scored 3 goals a piece and Tavares who netted 2 with 7 assists. Brandon Swamp filled in for the injured Roger Vyse who it appears may have a detached retina suffered at his construction job. For the Roughnecks, it was Curt Malawsky who did much of the scoring, scoring 3 goals. It was Mike Thompson in net for the Bandits giving up 8 on 51 shots. He was pulled late in the game to give Ken Montour some action, he saw 3:55.

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Onto the Titans game on Sunday. This game will be played in MSG for just the second time for the Titans. Due to the 2 week lockout, the Titans will only get 5 home games. The Titans are looking for revenge after the 17-13 loss they suffered at the HSBC Arena. We should be seeing Ken Montour in net because Kilgour said before this weekend he wanted to get Montour some action in. The late minutes in the Roughnecks game would suggest that as well. He will face Matt Vinc for the Titans who played started against the Bandits during that January 19th game. The Titans did well against the Bandits and they did it through their specialty, on the man-up. The Titans went 6-14 on the power play on the 42 penalty minutes the Bandits had, including 4 major penalties. The Bandits were able to hold their own, scoring 2 shorthanded goals and going 3-8 on the power play as well. The Titans will be led by their leading scorer Casey Powell who has 12 goals and 15 assists which puts him tied for 10th in total league scoring. The Bandits will be led by their two major weapons, John Tavares and Mark Steenhuis. Tavares leads the team with 33 points while Steenhuis leads the team with 15 goals.

Here is the preview of the game from the Buffalo News with a good article on Matt Vinc.

History in the Making in Buffalo

As I said in the Bandits preview, John Tavares needed 4 more goals to break Gary Gait's all-time goals scored record and that's how many he scored. Coming at 13:08 in the third, Tavares scored his fourth of the night and his 597th of his career. Besides that, there was more of a game played and the Bandits did win 17-13. The offense looked really good with Tavares scoring 4, Dostie scoring 3, and Steenhuis and McCready scoring 2. This game is much closer than what it was supposed to be and that came in through the 67 penalty minutes that the Bandits had during the game. This gave the hottest powerplay in the league 15 opportunities, which they scored on 6 of them. If the Bandits can't seem to stay out of the penalty box, the better teams in the league are going to crush them. The other issue with this team is the faceoff. The Bandits won 7 of 34 in faceoffs. The ball possession in this case needs to be better and I think that the answer is Brandon Francis. Francis went 14 of 27 against the Knighthawks last Saturday and I really think that he needs to be in the lineup more.

Buffalo vs. New York

Its the Bandits and the Titans on Saturday at the HSBC Arena. The Bandits had two faces agains the Knighthawks this weekend, looking beleaguered at the start of Friday's game to being outscore that same team 6-1 in the fourth to win Saturday's game. The defense of the Bandits looked very shaky with the transitional approach so the philosophy of strict offense and defense played much better against the tough defense of the Knighthawks.

Tavares and Steenhuis lead the team with 11 points and Roger Vise's 4 goals on Saturday leads the team in goals. The offense looks good but still needs some firepower with the loss of Greenhalgh and Bucktooth. Vise and Dostie have looked good scoring 7 goals between the two of them (4 and 3), but these two really do need to keep the consistency from these two games. The defense looks solid under the leadership of Richie Kilgour and if this team is going to meet Rochester again in the East finals, need to keep that up. Thompson looked shaky in his first start on Friday but most of those chances that Rochester scored on weren't his fault but more breakaways and open chances the defense gave up. Al Montour stepped in and looked fairly good playing cleanup role. Thompson looked much better on Saturday so his confidence should not be much of a problem.

Onto New York. The Titans looked good in their only game against the Lumberjax winning 14-11. Their offense led by Casey Powell and Pat Maddalena looked alright, but defense and goaltending were the main issues that plagued this team last year. The Titans helped shore up their defense with 2007 1st pick Jordan Hall. The goaltending is led by Matt Vinc who let in 11 in his only appearance this season. So, as of now, the Titans look to be a contending team but it is still early. I think the Bandits take this one pretty handedly 19-10.

John Tavares still needs 4 goals to take the all-time goals lead, and if this game gets out of hand quickly I think that Saturday is the night it happens. It would be good to see him do it at home. There is one more note. It seems that Pat Merill may be suspended for this game depending on if he appeals or not. Merill is being suspended for one game due to a "dangerous" hit in the Portland game. It is subject to appeal and its not known yet whether he will appeal or not.