Ravens fly high, glide to 16-11 win over Express
Denver product lays down the Law with four goals
Loonie (Outsider's Guide Game Correspondent)

The Ravens streteched their winning streak to five games Saturday, handily defeating the Montreal Express, 16-11, at GM Place, in front of 9,084 fans.

Vancouver’s 8-6 record now bumps the Ravens ahead of Montreal, 6-6, in the fight for a wild card playoff spot.

The game was close for only the first five minutes of the first quarter, when the Ravens went ahead 2-1. They never looked back after that, stretching their lead to 11-6 at the half, and coasting in the second half for the win.

Travis Kilgour, recently aquired from the New Jersey Storm, put the Express on the scoreboard at the two-minute mark of the first period. That would be the only lead for Montreal the entire game, as Chris Prat tied the game a minute later, and rookie import sensation Mike ("The Law") Law scored his first of four to put the high-flying Ravens ahead for good. He would score three more before the final whistle and assist on another to earn Game MVP honors. Not bad for an American field lax player who is "foreign" to the indoor game!

Supporting Law’s superlative effort were Jamie Bowen (six assists), Prat (three goals, five assists), Chris Gill (four goals, three assists), and Peter Morgan (two goals, four assists). Morgan sat out last week’s game due to a minor hamstring pull, but appeared in good health today.

Ted Dowling was the top point-getter for the Express, with three goals and four assists, including a natural hat trick in the middle of the second quarter that improved Montreal’s 9-2 deficit to 9-5. Kilgour added his second goal shortly after that, but that’s as close as the Express came to a come-back. Tracey Kelusky scored once and assisted on three others, one a nifty double-backhand setup to Dean Harrison, but was otherwise ineffective, compared to his early-season scoring spree.

The play of the game came from The Law, who must have prepped for the game by watching the Rock-Roughneck matinee on TV, as he did a great imitation of the Toronto Rock's Kim Squire whirly-wind sub-shot. Either that, or he was trying to duplicate Tim Goebel’s bronze-medal Olympic quadruple-twisting ice-skating performance. The shot is rather difficult to describe, but it’s the shot where you twist your body in a 360-degree circle, and then, after the goalie is totally confused, you fire a submarine shot into the net. A minute after Law’s phenomenal move, Kevin Brunsch scored another nifty underhand twister (assisted by Law), but was called back for crease play.

Despite the rather lop-sided score, the Express never gave up, scoring the last four goals of the game, as the Ravens coasted to their easy win.

Game Report reprinted with permission from The Outsider's Guide to the NLL. (Original text is here.)