The Portland Pirates’ late-season slide continued Sunday afternoon.
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins completed a sweep of their weekend series, skating to a 3-1 win before 3,072 at Cross Insurance Arena to hand the Pirates their seventh consecutive loss.
THREE REGULAR SEASON GAMES LEFT
FRIDAY: Pirates at Manchester Monarchs, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY: Providence Bruins at Pirates, 7 p.m.
SUNDAY: Pirates at Worcester Sharks, 3 p.m.
The Pirates remain in a tie with Springfield in the race for the eighth and final playoff spot in the AHL’s Eastern Conference. Portland will finish the season with games at Manchester on Friday night, at home against Providence on Saturday night and at Worcester on Sunday afternoon. Springfield has two games remaining, both at St. John’s.
“We’ve been playing really good teams, and you can see our margin for error against the best teams isn’t very big,” Portland Coach Ray Edwards said. “We’ve got three good teams again next weekend, and we’re going to have to flip that margin of error onto the other side to find a way to get (into the playoffs).”
The Pirates hold the tiebreaker against Springfield and would be assured of a playoff berth if they get at least four points in their last three games.
“We just need to win a couple of games,” Edwards said.
Turnovers enabled the Penguins to take a 2-0 lead in the first period.
Andrew Ebbett scored his 17th goal of the season at 15:16 while the Penguins were short-handed. The goal came after Josh Archibald took the puck away from Portland defenseman Dylan Reese near the right boards to start a two-on-one break.
Less than two minutes later, Tom Kostopoulos finished a counterattack following another turnover by putting in a shot from the right circle for a power-play goal.
“A couple of bad mistakes got us chasing the game,” Edwards said. “You’ve got to manage the game and we made two poor mistakes to give them a 2-0 lead.
“It’s hard to come back against a good team like that when you’re down 2-0.”
Carter Rowney made it 3-0 about midway through the third period.
The Pirates then failed to convert a two-man advantage but finally got on the board with 7:28 remaining when Brendan Shinnimin scored off a centering pass from Justin Hodgman. It was his 21st goal of the season, tying Alexandre Bolduc for the team lead. Lucas Lessio also had an assist.
NOTES: According to Edwards, defenseman Klas Dahlbeck, who joined the Arizona Coyotes in a midseason trade with the Chicago Blackhawks, is expected to be assigned to the Pirates. The coach said right wing Jordan Szwarz, center Henrik Samuelsson and goalie Louis Domingue will rejoin the Pirates. … Laurent Dauphin, a center who was added to the Pirates’ roster after the Chicoutimi Sagueneens completed their Quebec Major Junior Hockey League season, played in his second game. Arizona selected Dauphin during the second round of the 2013 draft.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.