The Links: Buffalo Bandits lay 14-5 beating on Toronto Rock to open East Conference Finals
Matt Vinc, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Michael Hetzel)
We spent Saturday morning collecting all the media mentions from last night’s series opener of the 2023 National Lacrosse League East Conference Finals between the Buffalo Bandits & Toronto Rock, where the #1 seeded Bandits took a one-side 14-5 score in Game 1 at the KeyBank Centre. The two teams meet again tonight for Game 2 of their series (FirstOntario Centre, 7pm ET), Buffalo one win away from going to the NLL Cup Finals for a third straight season, and fourth time in six years.
Click here for The Lax Mag’s NLL Playoffs schedule, scores and more updates, plus keep reading for last night’s links from Banditland.
During last week’s NLL Quarterfinals, the Bandits’ came close to setting new high-scoring playoff records when they crushed the Rochester Knighthawks 20-8. Last night in their overpowering performance against the Rock in Game 1 of the East Conference Finals, goalie Matt Vinc and the Bandits put up some pretty impressive defensive numbers that rank amongst the best all-time too.
Below are the only playoff games in NLL history where a team has allowed five or fewer goals, plus the goalie that got them that low score. Only six goalies since the league’s founding season in 1987 have pulled off such a small score during the playoffs, Vinc doing it for a third time last night.
1999: Philadelphia 2 at Toronto 13 (Bob Watson)
2009: Buffalo 3 at New York 9 (Matt Vinc)
2012: Edmonton 15 at Minnesota 3 (Aaron Bold)
2019: Colorado 4 at Calgary 8 (Christian Del Bianco)
1993: Detroit 5 at Boston 18 (Marty O’Neill)
2009: San Jose 5 at Calgary 17 (Matt King)
2022: Albany 5 at Buffalo 10 (Matt Vinc)
2023: Toronto 5 at Buffalo 14 (Matt Vinc)
Matt Vinc, New York/Orlando Titans 2007-2010
A troubling trend mentioned in yesterday’s links from Denver which continued a night later in Buffalo were the incredibly high amount of penalties called during this year’s playoffs, a time of season you’d kind of expect (and hope!) fewer iffy infractions whistled. Both teams were given 18 minutes in penalties. Toronto went 0/5 on the PP, Buffalo 2/5. In total, 13 players served time in the sin bin last night, the Rock’s Brandon Slade leading the game with six minutes. More than half of the penalties called last night were either for body checking or roughing.
Yesterday, we asked our over 34K Instagram followers what they’ve thought of this year’s reffing during the playoffs. As of publishing today’s links, 58% gave them a rating of 💩. The poll is available in our IG Story until about 2pm ET today if you’re interested to seeing its status. Follow us @TheLaxMag.com.
Stephen Keogh 2 minute body checking penalty on Josh Byrne (Photo: Michael Hetzel)
In last year’s East Conference Finals opener between these same two teams, a total of two penalty minutes were called. After this year’s NLL Quarterfinals and Conference Finals Game 1s, 144 PIMs have been handed out by officials. Last year? Exactly half of this year’s alarmingly high count: 72 PIMs.
Toronto Head Coach Matt Sawyer and the team’s defensive leader Brad Kri made no excuses when it came to last night’s performance, Sawyer saying, “We weren’t good in any area.” See their full post-game interviews below.
Just two players total scored for Toronto: captain Challen Rogers (3) and a returning Tom Schreiber (2).
At 1pm ET on Saturday, just seven hours ahead of Game 2, the Rock announced that Schreiber had been moved back to their injured-reserve list, although no specific reason was given. Last week he was sidelined with what the team confirmed was an upper-body injury. Rookie forward Josh Dawick was placed on Toronto’s active roster to take Schreiber’s spot.
Rogers’ hat-trick last night was his second ever during the playoffs, his sixth total if you include the regular season. Believe it or not, five out of those six hat-tricks have been against the Bandits.
WKBW Sports Director Matthew Bové was in Banditland for the game, live tweeting a bit and later posting a quick game recap too.
Digital Sports Reporter Jonah Bronstein of News 4 Buffalo was also in attendance…
Unlike the Rock, Buffalo were scoring with relative ease. Josh Byrne led the game in goals (5) and Dhane Smith in assists (8). Byrne scored just 30 seconds into the first quarter, and also netted one of the earliest postseason game-winning goals ever midway through the second. Byrne also got the belt.
As is often the case, a bunch of Buffalo Bills were in Banditland to witness their side take a 1-0 series lead. Dion Dawkins got so fired up he lost some of his suds, which that blonde in the Kri jersey mighta gotten some of.
There were 11,510 at the KeyBank Center last night, the Rock expecting a big crowd for Game 2 at the FirstOntario Centre tonight in Hamilton. Last night’s total was 1,252 more than last year’s East Conference Finals held in the same building & between the same two teams. The Bandits would later sell our their home arena for Game 3 of the 2023 NLL Cup Finals against the Colorado Mammoth, over 19K filling Banditland to capacity that night.
In addition to tonight’s second game of the series between the Rock & Bandits, the West Conference Finals will also get Game 2 in on Saturday night when the Calgary Roughnecks host the Colorado Mammoth (Scotiabank Saddledome, 9:30pm ET). The Mammoth are up 1-0 in that series after squeezing out a super-tight win over the Roughnecks this past Thursday in Denver. Both of tonight’s games will be live on television screens across Canada courtesy of TSN, plus streamed by both TSN & ESPN on their digital platforms.