Five consecutive seasons with a playoff appearance, Tucker Out Lymphoma Cup champions and top of the NLL standings — but the Buffalo Bandits aren’t satisfied.
With four games left, all of which are against current playoff teams, head coach John Tavares and the Bandits aren’t going to mail it in to finish the season, especially with a home playoff game and the NLL regular-season crown on the line.
“It was nice to be in a clinching position,” Tavares said. “It’s a bit of a relief and satisfying to be sure but obviously we’re not satisfied with that. We want to make sure we get a home game. That’s big, especially with our one-game elimination first round.”
The defending champs are on the road to another title win. In front of 18,474 fans at KeyBank Center, @NLLBandits clinch a playoff berth. pic.twitter.com/XxBTR4Mboo
— NLL (@NLL) March 22, 2025
The Bandits opened Week 17 of the NLL season with a 13-10 win over the Las Vegas Desert Dogs on Friday at KeyBank Center to clinch their playoff spot. They then lost 11-10 in overtime to the Albany FireWolves on Saturday at MVP Arena, which took a career-best 57 save performance from goaltender Doug Jamieson for Albany to pull off.
The Bandits could have clinched a home playoff game in Week 17 with a win over Albany and losses by both the Georgia Swarm and San Diego Seals. The Seals beat Calgary, however, pushing the Bandits’ home hopes back another week even if they had beaten the FireWolves.
Now, they’re 11-3 with games ahead against the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th-place teams in the NLL while sitting a game ahead of the second-place Saskatchewan Rush.
However, Tavares isn’t focused on the standings, just going game by game and not over or underestimating anybody.
“We don’t look past the next game, and we don’t look beyond, and we don’t look in the past either,” Tavares said on Saturday. “Tonight, we had the first-place team play the last-place team. We’re not looking at that situation, we’re trying not to.”
General manager Steve Dietrich decided to change things up for their push to the playoffs, trading for two transition players on March 10 in Ron John and Kiel Matisz from Ottawa and Vancouver, respectively, to infuse some energy into the team and reinforce the defense.
Going into the deadline, the Bandits were 9-2 but had gone 2-2 in their last four games, including a 17-11 loss to Calgary in which they allowed seven fourth-quarter goals.
“Anytime (the front office) make moves like that towards the deadline, obviously you love the group that you have, but it shows that they have a belief that we’re going to make a push at it,” Dhane Smith said. “We have great depth on our team but sometimes you need a wakeup call and it makes you work a little harder because your spot can be taken at any time.”
Dietrich followed a similar game plan last season on the Bandits’ run to their fifth championship in team history when he acquired Paul Dawson from Colorado and signed Connor Farrell to help the team at the faceoff dot.
A year later, Farrell has been one of the better faceoff specialists in the NLL and Dawson set the league record this season with 39 blocked shots through 14 games and counting.
So far, John and Matisz have been just as effective in orange and black, helping to facilitate some of the best defensive games this season for the Bandits while also helping contribute offensively.
Kiel Matisz wasted no time getting his first goal as a Bandit! 🚨#LetsGoBandits pic.twitter.com/vop2S4yHvV
— Buffalo Bandits (@NLLBandits) March 16, 2025
Opponents have averaged just nine goals per game through three contests with John and Matisz in the lineup, the lowest three-game stretch this season since the Bandits held Rochester, Ottawa and Rochester to an average of 6.67 goals per game to begin the year.
“We’re not a hard team to fit in with,” Tavares said. “We don’t do anything out of the ordinary, we just try to do it well and do it together, collectively.”
The cohesiveness from the Bandits has allowed them to be the top-scoring offensive team and have two of the top passers in the NLL with Smith and Josh Byrne. Smith leads NLL with 78 assists while Byrne ranks fourth with 68. Both players are again in the heat of the NLL MVP race after both crossing the 100-point threshold against Albany.
However, neither of them is focused on winning the award, keeping the forward-thinking mindset of winning the next game at hand with the goal in mind of making sure Buffalo and Banditland get to see a playoff game or more.
“It’s not going to get any easier, but we’re excited about the challenge,” Smith said. “We’re not done, and we’re not just satisfied with clinching playoffs, we want to host a playoff game.”