With the 2012 NLL season fast approaching, Darris Kilgour made the final cuts to the Buffalo Bandits roster. The 23-man roster has 17 holdovers from last year and a few surprising omissions. Bandits.com has the official release.
Kevin Buchanan, Mat Giles and Luke Wiles are the new faces up front for Buffalo. They will replace a prominent name from the last few seasons, Brett Bucktooth (a 2011 All-Star). Jay Thorimbert was also cut from the final roster; however his release is slightly less surprising.
Bucktooth was a highly touted prospect and had tons of potential when he broke into the league. He had a few solid seasons, but never seemed capable of taking the next step in his development. His disappointing play compounded those issues in recent seasons. He went from a player who could be counted on to one that was passed over in clutch situations.
Wiles will be counted on to replace the scoring once provided by Bucktooth. There is a very real possibility that Kilgour saw far more firepower when he acquired Wiles and had planned on cutting Bucktooth upon completing the trade. Wiles put up 26 goals and 31 assists in a secondary scoring role with Washington last season. He has surpassed 50 points and 20 goals in each of the past five seasons.
Wiles may be the perfect complimentary player in Buffalo’s system. For a few years the Bandtis have been a very one-dimensional team. If John Tavares and Mark Steenhuis were stifled, the team struggled. The same went for locking off the secondary scorers. When Tavares and Steenhuis were the only ones providing scoring, the Bandits often lost. Wiles should give a bit more firepower to the second set of players coming out the front door for Buffalo.
Buchanan is a young player with seemingly high potential. He put up 24 goals and 33 assists in his first full season (15 games) with Boston in 2011. How he factors into the Buffalo lineup is unknown, but he will be counted on as a secondary scorer. Giles will offer some veteran leadership and some offensive consistency. In 13 seasons Giles has 209 career goals and 463 points. Again, both should give the Bandits more punch in terms of depth scoring.
The rest of the forwards remain the same. Tavares leads the unit along with Tracy Kelusky and newly extended Roger Vyse. Brandon Francis will likely fulfill faceoff duties full-time, as Kilgour surely saw little need to retain Thoirmbert. As a coach who didn’t hold faceoffs in too high a regard, Kilgour likely wanted to take advantage of the roster spot for an additional skill player.
Another interesting development is seeing Jeremy Thompson and Jeff Cornwall on the final roster. The two rookies made the final cut for a team that usually relies on veteran talent to fill out their roster. It does remain to be seen how much time the rookies will see this season.
There are plenty of familiar faces listed as transition players. Steenhuis plays a much larger role than just transition, although listing him at this position does showcase his two-way talents. Tom Montour will remain the top transition talent on the roster while Jon Harasyn and Kyle Sweeney will see time at both ends of the floor this season.
Clay Hill was the other surprise left off the roster for this season. The return of Billy Dee Smith likely complicated matters in terms of numbers out of the back door. The former NLL Defender of the Year, Smith was a lock to make the team this season. Much like the holdovers at forward, the defensive roster will be largely the same as last season.
Angus Goodleaf and Mike Thompson return in net for the Bandits. They remain the only NLL goaltending tandem to sport Cascade helmets.
The Bandits went out this season and took a big step towards securing much needed scoring depth and potentially building a future once John Tavares decides to retire. Wiles and Buchanan should be viable secondary threats while Steenhuis, Tavares and Vyse are looked to as primary scorers.
Kilgour’s philosophy has long been to focus on the defensive zone and his will get his top talent back after a lost season in 2011. The goaltending remains strong and it certainly seems as if this team may be constructed for a title run.
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