The start of week two action came to us from Lee’s Family Forum in Henderson, Nevada late Friday night. If you reside on the East Coast, it was time for some NLL After Dark. The hometown Las Vegas Desert Dogs welcome in the Colorado Mammoth for quite the showdown, with Colorado knocking off the Desert Dogs, 15-9. That may seem like a bit of a whooping, but through the first three quarters of the game, it was pretty neck-and-neck. Big shoutout to Ryan Lee in his return to form for the Mammoth, as he had quite the showing. Grab your coffee, let’s do it.
Las Vegas jumped out to the early lead, not even two minutes into the game, as Casey Jackson buried his first on the power play. The next six goals of the quarter were scored in increments of two. Colorado answered Vegas with the first two, one from Lee and the other from Connor Kelly. The Desert Dogs had the answer, one from Jack Hannah and the other from Kyle Killen on the power play. To close the quarter, Thomas Vela and Eli McLaughlin went back-to-back for the Mammoth. 4-3 Colorado after one.
The scoring calmed down significantly in the second quarter, as there were two goals scored, one for either side. Shane Simpson buried the first for Vegas at the 12:40 mark of the frame, and there was quite the lull until McLaughlin got his second at the 2:49 mark. There was no shortage of good defense and better goaltending in between those two goals. 5-4 Mammoth at the break.
“I think we’re just moving our feet and causing a little confusion in the middle”, said McLaughlin. “We had a bad start last week, we wanted to bring the energy from the fourth quarter, I think we started really well tonight.”
Eli may have been right about the start, but games are 60 minutes, and Colorado put a full one together in this one. Las Vegas came out of the gates in the third hot, with two-straight one from Hannah and the other from Jackson on the power play. That would be where the scoring would stop for the Desert Dogs for quite some time. Colorado completely shut down Las Vegas, all the while scoring seven-straight goals spanning from the middle of the third quarter all the way through the middle of the fourth. Three of those seven closed out the third quarter, and they were courtesy of Kelly, Zed Williams, and Lee. 8-6 Mammoth after three.
The next four for the Mammoth stretched all the way until the 5:50 mark of the fourth quarter. Those four were scored by Lee, Connor Robinson, McLaughlin, and Will Malcom. Seemingly, in the blink of an eye, the doors were blown off of this game. Las Vegas finally stopped the bleeding with two-straight, one from Adam Poitras and the other from Hannah. Malcolm and Hannah traded two more, and Williams notched numbers two and three for him to close this one out. Your final from Sin City, 15-9 Mammoth.
Players of the game for Colorado were Lee (3+4), Williams (3+3), and McLaughlin (3+3). Dillon Ward was a brick wall all game, stopping 46 of 55 in total. For Las Vegas, Hannah (4+3), Jackson (2+1), and Poitras (1+2) led the way. Landon Kells started strong, but obviously faltered a bit in the third quarter. He stopped 33 of 46 in 56:32 of game play. Nate Faccin gave up two goals in relief of Kells.
“It feels good to come out here and put up some numbers”, said Lee after the game. “We played as a group and it came together.” Lee also commented on his reaching 100 career goals by saying, “It feels great, but it’s a personal achievement and all we care about is coming out and winning as a team.”
Colorado (2-0) looks as sharp as can be to start the year off. Their next crack at continuing it is this Friday as they travel to San Diego to take on the Seals (1-1). Las Vegas (0-2) is sputtering a bit, but there is plenty of season left. Their next contest is also on the road, this Saturday against the Philadelphia Wings (0-1).
