Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

Effort pleases coach, but Pirates still lose

Portland ends an 0-for-3 weekend on the road with a 5-2 loss to the Worcester Sharks.

By MIKE SCANDURA Special to the Press Herald

WORCESTER, Mass. - Even though the Portland Pirates lost a third road game in 48 hours on Sunday, the last thing Coach Ray Edwards was inclined to do was criticize his team.

And he even was less inclined to use the brutal schedule as an excuse for a 5-2 loss to the Worcester Sharks.

"I'm not going down that road," Edwards said regarding Portland's schedule. "I thought we played well today. We out-chanced them (Portland outshot Worcester, 34-22). We worked hard. We competed hard.

"I would have liked to have scored on a couple more opportunities. I don't have a lot of negative to say about the game. Even our power play had chances."

Despite Portland going 0 for 4 on the power play, Edwards didn't throw his team under the bus.

"We had chances on the power play," he said. "On the penalty kill (Worcester was 2 of 3 on the power play) we gave up outside shots. You have to keep the puck on the outside and I thought we did a good job of that.

"I don't have a lot of negative to say about our game. We worked. We competed hard. We didn't lose one-on-one battles. I guess the one thing would be (when) we get opportunities to score we've got to bury the puck."

Except for a couple hiccups in the second period, when Worcester outscored Portland 3-1, the Pirates didn't looked tired.

"I think we played pretty good today," defenseman David Rundblad said. "We outshot them and created a lot of chances. But sometimes that's not enough.

"We played three games in less than three days and we had to make the best of the situation and go hard."

Worcester took a 1-0 lead at 6:29 during a power play when Jack Combs, who was stationed next to the right post, whipped the puck across the crease and inside the far post.

Portland tied it at 7:29 of the second when Patrick Sullivan skated in from the left circle and stuffed the puck under Harri Sateri (32 saves).

Then, Worcester reeled off three goals.

Tim Kennedy beat Justin Pogge (17 saves) during a power play at 7:29, Brandon Mashinter converted James Livingston's cross-ice pass at 16:15 and Ryan Del Monte snapped home a shot from the left circle at 19:36.

Brock Trotter's goal at 5:16 of the third pulled Portland within 4-2.

But when Edwards pulled Pogge for an extra skater, Andrew Murray scored into an empty net.

The Pirates fell three points behind Worcester and Bridgeport for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

"You have to stay within the pack," Edwards said. "You can't start to drift five, six or seven points out because it's so hard to make up those points. Everybody gets points because of overtime and shootouts.

"We're going to have to find a winning streak somewhere and roll off five, six or seven in a row. We're going to have to do that at some point to put us in a position where we get up in the standings."