The Portland Pirates’ late-season drive for a playoff berth continued to stall Saturday night.

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins skated to a 5-2 win before a crowd of 3,441 at Cross Insurance Arena, handing the Pirates their sixth consecutive loss.

Portland fell into a tie with Springfield for the eighth and final playoff spot in the AHL’s Eastern Conference.

The Pirates, who play the Penguins again Sunday, have four games remaining, while Springfield has two games remaining next weekend against the St. John’s IceCaps in Newfoundland.

“We know what’s in front of us,” Portland Coach Ray Edwards said. “It’s in our hands. If we win enough games, we’re in. We’ve just got to win a couple of games.”

The Pirates held a 42-23 edge in shots, but they were frustrated by rookie Matt Murray, the AHL’s top-ranked goalie.

“I’d like to see us get more traffic,” Edwards said. “We got a lot of pucks (on goal) but we didn’t get a lot of people around them.”

The Pirates opened the scoring 12 minutes into the game when Erik Selleck finished off a rush with his eighth goal of the season. After getting a step on a defender in the right circle, Selleck swung in front of the crease and slid a backhander beneath Murray’s pads.

Tom Kunhackl, a right wing from Germany, made it 1-1 when he swatted a rebound inside the left post after goalie David Leggio stopped Carter Rowney’s shot from the slot. The goal extended Kunhackl’s points streak to five games.

Kunhackl then put the Penguins ahead midway through the second period, converting a two-on-one break by putting in a shot from the lower edge of the left circle. Brian Dumoulin, a defenseman from Biddeford, recorded his team-high 29th assist.

Two minutes into the third period, Bobby Farnham made it 3-1 when he turned a nifty feed from Conor Sheary into his sixth goal of the season.

Alex Bolduc sliced the deficit to 3-2 with about eight minutes remaining, finishing off a two-on-one break with a shot from the left circle for his team-high 21st goal.

But Jayson Megna and Dominick Uber turned turnovers into goals less than two minutes apart to nail down the win for the Penguins, who have already clinched a playoff berth and now trail East Division leader Hershey by five points.

“They’re a good team, and that’s the way they play,” Edwards said. “They suffocate you and keeps things on the perimeter. They defend well, and when they get opportunities they find ways to score.”

NOTES: The Pirates played without forwards Jordan Martinook, who was injured during Friday night’s 2-1 shootout loss in Manchester, and Henrik Samuelsson, who was called up by the Arizona Coyotes. … Dumoulin leads the Penguins with a plus-24 rating. … Portland defenseman Dylan Reese spent the 2012-13 season with the Penguins. … Wilkes-Barre/Scranton center Andrew Ebbett averaged nearly a point per game while spending the 2007-08 season with the Pirates. … Kuhnhackl’s father, Erich, played in five Winter Olympics for West Germany and won a bronze medal in 1976.

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