Despite jumping out to a 6-0 lead, the Buffalo Bandits found themselves on the losing side of a 13-11 contest against the Toronto Rock on Saturday night at the Air Canada Center.
Mike Accursi finished the night with six goals and nine points, while the Bandits peppered the Rock with 37 shots on goal – but it wasn’t enough as Toronto staged a late comeback to advance to the Eastern Division Finals.
The Bandits drew first blood after Roger Vyse accepted a pass from Accursi in the slot and slammed it through traffic to beat Bob Watson. Brett Bucktooth extended the lead late in the quarter after digging down the middle and firing a laser past the netminder to make it 2-0.
The Bandits did not allow a goal in the initial frame, with Mike Thompson stopping all seven shots he faced.
In fact, Toronto would not get on the board until midway through the second frame after Stephan LeBlanc finally found a hole. Unfortunately for the Bandits, it wouldn’t be his last.
By that time, however, Buffalo had established a convincing lead as a trio of players combined to make it 6-0. Bucktooth added his second of the night and Mark Steenhuis crashed the crease to put the Bandits up 4-0. A goal from Accursi caused a 5-0 deficit, as well as a goaltending change from the Rock as Watson was pulled and Steve Dietrich took his place.
Accursi would score once more before the Rock retaliated. After LeBlanc gave Toronto their first goal of the night with 9:17 left in the second quarter, Blaine Manning made it 6-2 just seven seconds later.
Accursi briefly stopped the momentum, completing the hat trick and beating Dietrich. However, after allowing just two goals, Toronto Head Coach Troy Cordingly made his second goalie change of the night, and put Watson back between the pipes.
The move seemed to provide some life for the Rock as LeBlanc net his second of the night to make it 7-3. With 2:23 remaining, captain Colin Doyle cut the Bandits’ lead to 7-4 and close out the first half.
“I definitely felt that they had the momentum,” Head Coach Darris Kilgour said. “But at the same time I knew that if we could ever just get our heads straight, settle down and regain our composure we could pull that one out; but we never did … that’s tough to end the season on.”
Opening the second half was Accursi with his fourth goal of the evening, beating Watson stick-side just 51 seconds into the third quarter.
Doyle quickly answered the call, with his second of the night, beating Thompson with a shot from the point
The teams continued to trade scores and ended the third quarter with the Bandits leading 10-8.
From there, Toronto took over.
The Rock dominated the fourth quarter against a struggling Bandits’ squad. Manning added his second of the night to again put the Rock within one goal. With 8:45 remaining, Garrett Billings finally tied it up at 11-11, with a hard shot from the point.
The frustration of dropping the lead began to show as a scrum near the Bandits’ net erupted with 6:27 left in the fourth quarter, ending in a power play for the Rock with Billy Dee Smith in the box for cross checking.
“That’s just stupid,” Kilgour said. “One-goal game… we gave them the momentum, they came back and scored one right away.”
LeBlanc capitalized with the man-advantage to give Toronto it’s first lead of the night with 5:27 remaining in the game, netting his fifth score. Doyle extended it just seconds later, giving the Rock a 13-11 edge.
“This game was a micro-cosmo of our season,” Kilgour said. “We played real good at times, played real bad at times, we had good goaltending at time and we had bad goaltending at times. That’s exactly how our season went.”
(Source: Buffalo Bandits/Bandits.com)
