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EDMONTON - The Edmonton Rush hadn't seen Mike Accursi since they dealt him to the Buffalo Bandits. After his performance Thursday, they won't be in a hurry to see him again.

Accursi led the way with five goals and two assists as the defending National Lacrosse League champion Bandits remained perfect to start the season with a 13-8 victory over Edmonton.

The native of St. Catherines, Ont., admitted it was fun to have such a successful evening against his old team in his first appearance against them since being dealt to Buffalo for Dan Teat.

"There was nothing personal but obviously when your are up against the team that traded you, you want play your best. So it was nice to have a good game like that."

"It seems like every week we have somebody different step up for us," added Bandits head coach Darris Kilgour. "It was Mike this week and we needed every one of his goals."

Mark Steenhuis also had a hot hand for the Bandits with three goals and seven points. John Tavares added a hat trick and Clay Hill and Roger Vyse rounded out the scoring for the Bandits, who are 5-0 out of the gate and now a game and a half ahead of New York in the NLL's East Division.

The turning point of the contest came late in the third, when the Rush were hit with a five-minute major that led to two Bandits goals and changed the complexion of the match.

"That penalty really hurt them," Kilgour said. "It gave us some momentum and they just couldn't get the momentum back. It was a very well played game and it if wasn't for a couple of mistakes there might have been a different outcome."

Rush head coach Bob Hamley viewed the game and the cost of the penalty the same way.

"You can't be making mistakes at a time like that and that was a huge one," he said. "You can't let there power play get out there like that and we never really recovered. We'll learn form it and hopefully be a better team for it."

Teat scored three goals for the Rush with Edmonton's other goals coming from Ryan Benesch, Jason Wulder, Ryan Campbell, Chris McKay and Chris Seller.

Edmonton dropped to 2-3 on the season and slipped to a third place tie with Portland in the West, two and a half games back of Calgary.

The Bandits got off to a quick start as Accursi snuck one past Rush starter Steve Dietrich just 1:03 into the contest.

It took 10 minutes before the second goal of the match as Accursi got his second on the night on the power play after a nifty behind the back pass from Steenhuis.

The Bandits went up 3-0 after the first but Edmonton came back with a pair of goals to start the second as Benesch struck with a goal just 54 seconds in and moved to within one on the power play when Wulder's long shot got past Bandits starter Ken Montour.

Edmonton tied the game with six minutes to go as Campbell, a native of Brampton, Ont., scored his first career NLL goal.

Steenhuis notched his 15th goal of the season to put the Bandits up 4-3 at the half.

Accursi earned the hat trick to put his team up by two three minutes into the third but Edmonton responded just 18 seconds later on a rare goal from the defence by Seller. The Rush tied the game 5-5 soon after as Teat scored his 13th of the season on a goal awarded after a video review.

Buffalo regained the lead on the power play as Tavares finished off a nice three-way passing play but Edmonton knotted it up once more with five minutes to play in the third frame on Teat's second of the match .

The Rush got themselves in trouble with three minute to play in the third as Ryan McNish took a five minute major for checking from behind, leading to a pair of power play markers from Tavares and an 8-6 Bandits lead heading into the fourth.

"Goals were few and far between to that point so when you have a chance like that you have to make the most of it," Accursi said. "We wanted to make them chase us for the rest of the game and that's what happened."

Steenhuis gave Buffalo a three-goal edge early in the final frame moments before Accursi basically sealed the deal with his fourth as the Bandits took off from there and never looked back.

The Rush next play on Saturday in San Jose while Buffalo is off until next Friday when they travel to Philadelphia.

Notes: It was the first ever meeting between the two teams with the Rush now in their fourth season The game was the only match scheduled to be played on a Thursday this season It was Rush leading scorer Dan Teat's first game against his former team. Teat, who was traded from Buffalo to Edmonton in a 2008 midseason deal for Mike Accursi, was named last week's NLL Overall Player of the Week with five goals and seven assists in two games in Week 4 The Bandits also factored in on the weekly awards as goaltender Mike Thompson was selected the top defensive player. Fellow Bandits goalie Ken Montour won it the two previous weeks Buffalo forward John Tavares, the NLL's all-time leading scorer, is the uncle of projected NHL number one draft pick John Tavares, a standout on the Canadian team at the World Junior Hockey Championships.