Going on the road for the first time in a month, the Buffalo Bandits will cross the border Friday to take on the Toronto Rock in Mississauga at Paramount Fine Foods Centre at 7 p.m.
The game will be broadcast on CW23 as well as ESPN+, while Canadian viewers can watch live on either TSN or the new NLL+ streaming platform. You can listen to the game on the radio locally on 1520 AM.
Here’s everything you need to know before the second game this season in the cross-border rivalry.
Last Time Out
The Bandits last played Feb. 1, beating the Albany FireWolves 16-10 in their first game of the Tucker Out Lymphoma Cup. Buffalo led 6-3 thanks to a late first-quarter surge and controlled the rest of the game,.
Coming out of the first quarter up three goals, the Bandits extended their lead in the second, outscoring Albany 4-1 and going into halftime up 10-4. Albany would pull the game back to within three goals, reversing the momentum the Bandits had built in the second quarter and outscoring Buffalo 4-1 in the third frame to make it 11-8.
Short bursts of goals in the fourth quarter ultimately made the difference for Buffalo, which scored two goals in 17 seconds at the 12:29 and 12:12 marks, then three goals in three minutes from 5:33 to 2:15 to hold off Albany.
Dhane Smith (3+7) and Josh Byrne (5+5) both had 10 points in the win, with at least one of them factoring into all but two of Buffalo’s 16 goals.
Roadkill
The Bandits have decimated their opponents on the road this season, outscoring them a combined 33-14 in two games.
A 15-7 win against the Rochester Knighthawks in the Bandits’ season opener set the tone for the rest of Buffalo’s 6-0 start to the season. Six days later, they followed it up by beating the Black Bears 18-7 in Ottawa.
While the rest of NLL teams have each played four or more road games, Buffalo remains the only team with an undefeated road record. Calgary is 4-1 on the road while Georgia and Saskatchewan are 3-1.
Double Duty
After playing Toronto on Friday, the Bandits will return home for a Saturday matchup against the San Diego Seals.
This will be the first of two times the Bandits will play games on back-to-back days, with the next time being March 21-22 when they’ll face Las Vegas at home and travel east to Albany the next day.
Last season, the only time Buffalo played games on back-to-back days was in the NLL Finals against Albany when they played on May 17 and 18.
“We’re going to rely on our depth a lot and make sure we’re doing extra and staying healthy and try as best as we can,” Byrne said.
Players to Watch: Mitch de Snoo vs. Paul Dawson
Friday’s goalies – Buffalo’s Matt Vinc, Toronto’s Nick Rose – are talented, but they’ve both benefited from strong defensive play and shot blocking this season
Both the former Bandit de Snoo and Dawson are top three in blocked shots with 17 and 16, respectively. Earlier this season, Vinc credited his defenders’ shot blocking as a reason for his effective play between the pipes.
Buffalo has a top offense, but if de Snoo and the Rock can stop the Bandits from getting shots from multiple yards away, it’ll force Buffalo to try and score closer to goal.
Scouting the Rock
In the first game between the two teams this season, the Bandits beat the Rock 15-13 thanks to three goals in the final 1:13.
It had been commonplace in the 2024-25 season for the Bandits to lead the entire game, leading for 174 of 180 minutes in the games they’d played leading up to their matchup against Toronto. However, it took the Bandits until the 5:37 mark in the third quarter to get their first lead of the game. That remains the only of the Bandits’ six games in which they’ve trailed.
With 22 penalties called in the first matchup, look for tensions to be high from the opening faceoff.