The Colorado Mammoth’s path to the NLL championship will end in Buffalo — again.
For the second straight year, the Mammoth forced a decisive Game 3 in the NLL Finals after manhandling the top-seeded Buffalo Bandits in a 16-10 victory Monday afternoon inside Ball Arena.
And, for the second straight year, the defending NLL champion Mammoth will have to finish the best-of-three series off in hostile territory. Game 3 is 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Buffalo on ESPN+.
Ryan Lee scored a hat trick before halftime, and the Mammoth netted 10 goals between the second and third quarters to claim a decisive Game 2 victory before a rowdy, towel-waving crowd in downtown Denver.
Lee finished with the game with four goals and three assists, while Eli McLaughlin (three goals, four assists) and Connor Robinson (three goals, two assists) produced hat tricks of their own against an outgunned Buffalo defense.
The Mammoth outshot the Bandits 59-48, finished 6 of 12 on the power play, and gave Buffalo a man advantage just four times all game.
In a start reminiscent of Buffalo’s Game 1 win, the Bandits jumped ahead early, taking a 3-1 lead on a pair of power play goals. The Bandits got a man advantage just two more times the rest of the game, however, as the Mammoth defense tightened up and the offense stepped on the gas.
Colorado scored seven of the next nine goals to take control of the game. That included three goals from Lee in the first seven minutes of the second quarter, as Colorado took an 8-5 lead into the break.
After trading goals to start the third quarter, Lee struck again at the 10:12 mark and the rout was on.
The Mammoth finished the quarter on a 4-1 run punctuated by a McLaughlin power play goal, then stretched the lead to 14-7 on Tyson Gibson’s tally with a man advantage just 84 seconds into the final frame.
Buffalo didn’t get closer than five goals the rest of the way, as Colorado goaltender Dillon Ward finished with 38 saves.
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