Express train rolls throughBuffalo in 18-17 OT win
Montreal goes to 3-0; Kelusky nets 3rd game-winner of season
Deb McAllister (Outsider's Guide Game Correspondent)

Tracey Kelusky scored late in the first overtime period, sending the Montreal Express to an 18-17 victory over the Buffalo Bandits before 6,118 fans Saturday night at HSBC Arena.

After the expansion Express shot out to a 6-3 lead early in the second quarter, Bandits coach Ted Sawicki replaced starting goaltender Steve Dietrich with backup Chris Levis. The move stanched the bleeding, as Buffalo managed to stay within three goals for the remainder of the first half despite their sluggish play. At intermission, Montreal carried only a 9-6 lead into the locker room.

The Express began pulling away early in the third quarter when Ted Dowling gave them a 13-7 lead. Buffalo soon launched a comeback, scoring five consecutive goals to cut Montreal's lead to 15-14.

Six-and-a-half minutes into the fourth quarter, John Tavares tied the game at fifteen, but Joe Hiltz and Kelusky each scored for the Express, returning to a two-goal cushion. It didn't hold, though, as Chris Driscoll beat Express netminder Curtis Palidwor to cut the deficit to one, then Ryan Powell sent the game to overtime on his fifth goal goal of the night, with just twenty-one seconds remaining on the clock.

Three minutes and thirty-two seconds into the extra stanza, Kelusky beat defenseman Jamie Hackel and flipped the ball past Levis to secure another win for Montreal. The Express has now won its first three games, and Kelusky has been credited with the game-winner in all of them.

"That was the only real chance I had against them," Kelusky said after a two-goal, six-assist night that made the league's leading scorer look mortal. "I couldn't do anything against the other guys."

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