Veteran defenseman Evan Oberg scored 2:36 into overtime to propel the Portland Pirates to a 3-2 win against the Providence Bruins in an AHL game played before 3,791 people at the Cross Insurance Arena on Friday night.
The Pirates had to go to overtime to pull out their third consecutive win despite holding a 39-23 edge in shots.
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WHO: Worcester Sharks at Pirates
WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday
“I really like our game five-on-five. We controlled the puck and possession time was really good,” Portland Coach Ray Edwards said. “We’re pretty good in the offensive zone. We’ve just got to score.”
Oberg’s winning goal came on a rising shot from center point while the teams were skating four-on-four.
“There was a lot of people in front of the net, and I thought I saw an opening and let it go,” he said.
It was the fourth goal of the season for Oberg, who is playing for his sixth team in four AHL seasons.
The score was 1-1 at the end of the first period in which the Pirates held a 20-3 edge in shots on goal.
The Bruins struck first. A minute into their first power play of the game, Craig Cunningham lifted a shot past goalie Mike McKenna’s glove side to score his fourth goal of the season with less than six minutes left in the period.
With exactly one minute left, Alexandre Bolduc made it 1-1 when his shot from the right circle went in between goalie Jeremy Smith’s pads for his team-high seventh goal.
The score was 2-2 at the end of the second period.
Rookie Henrik Samuelsson sent the Pirates into the lead less than six minutes into the period when he turned a nifty feed from Bolduc into his fourth goal. Bolduc, after holding the puck just beyond the left post, sent a pass through the slot to set up Samuelsson’s shot into an open net.
“We were working pretty good for most of the game and luckily I was in the right spot at the right time,” Samuelsson said.
Defenseman Ian White, a veteran of eight NHL seasons, scored the equalizer with less than four minutes left in the period by putting in a shot from the left circle on Providence’s second power play of the game. It was his first goal since joining the team two weeks ago.
The Pirates had to overcome Smith’s 36-save performance to pull out the win.
“Their goalie was pretty good today, and he kept them in the game for the first 30 minutes, but we battled throughout the whole game,” Samuelsson said. “We never got down on ourselves.
It was the fifth consecutive start for McKenna, who has been carrying the full goaltending load for the Pirates since they lost Louis Dominque to an injury during a Nov. 15 game against the Albany Devils. He made 13 of his 27 saves in the third period to notch his third straight win.
NOTES: The parent Arizona Coyotes called up center Brendan Shinnimin. In 19 games with the Pirates, the third-year pro had four goals and a team-high 10 assists. It was the first NHL call-up for the 23-year-old Shinnimin, who was signed as a free agent on March 2, 2012. … An upper-body injury kept left wing Lucas Lessio, who returned to the Pirates after playing three games in Arizona, out of the lineup.
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