Bandits stars Dhane Smith, Matt Vinc and Kyle Buchanan were named finalists for the National Lacrosse League’s major end-of-season awards.
Smith, a two-time Most Valuable Player in 2016 and last season, could win the league’s top honor for the third time. Smith was second in the league with 36 goals and 132 points and he broke his own NLL single-season assists record with 96.
New York’s Jeff Teat, who led the league in goals, and Calgary goaltender Christian Del Bianco also were named MVP finalists.
Winners for all the league awards will be announced next week.
Smith has 20 assists and six goals in three playoff games as the Eastern champion Bandits await their opponent – either Colorado or Calgary – in the NLL Finals.
At this point, the league should just name the Goaltender of the Year award after Vinc.
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An eight-time winner, he is a finalist with Del Bianco and Toronto’s Nick Rose.
Vinc led the NLL with 14 wins and 742 saves in the regular season. He has upped his game in the playoffs with a 7.07 goals against and .870 save percentage. He made 52 saves in Game 1 of the East final series against Toronto.
Buchanan has been named a finalist for two honors – the Sportsmanship Award and Teammate of the Year. Buchanan was third on the Bandits with 58 points on 21 goals and 37 assists in 18 games.
Tom Schreiber (Toronto) and Lyle Thompson (Georgia) have also been nominated for the Sportsmanship Award. Dan Dawson (Toronto) and John LaFontaine (Albany) are the other finalists for Teammate of the Year.
Each team’s player representative nominated a player for Teammate of the Year and the winner was selected in a vote of the players union and the 15 player reps.
Three members of each organization voted for all the other awards after the nominations were finalized and each voter was asked for a top five. Select media also were eligible to vote for awards except Executive of the Year.
