BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – The Binghamton Senators got on an early roll Monday night, and the Portland Pirates couldn’t do much about it.
Kaspars Daugavins and Ryan Potulny each scored two goals to lead the Senators to a 6-1 win in the AHL Atlantic Division championship series before 3,180 fans at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.
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The Senators now hold a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. Binghamton, which has won six of its last seven playoff games, can wrap up the series with a win at home tonight.
“There’s no time to sit around and think about (Monday night’s) game,” Portland captain Tim Ellis said. “We need to come out (tonight) and do what we need to do. We need to get back to our structure.”
Execution was a problem for the Pirates on Monday night.
“When your execution isn’t high, you’re always on defense,” Portland Coach Kevin Dineen said. “If you’re on defense all the time, it’s tough to get into the mode of your game.”
Clicking on their first two power plays, the Senators, who have a 23.1 percent conversion rate in those situations in their 10 playoff games, opened up a 3-1 lead during the first period.
Less than three minutes into the game, rookie defenseman Mike Hoffman scored his first playoff goal on a shot from the top of the slot on Binghamton’s first power play.
At 8:17, Luke Adam, the AHL’s Rookie of the Year, tied the score when he finished an end-to-end rush with his third playoff goal.
Just 10 seconds later, Daugavins finished off a rush down the right side following the ensuing faceoff to send the Senators back into the lead.
“It’s a different game when you play with the lead,” Binghamton Coach Kurt Kleinendorst said. “For us to come right back and score after they tied it up, that was probably the turning point in the game.”
With less than four minutes left in the period, Ryan Keller tipped in Bobby Butler’s shot from the left dot inside the far post for the second of Binghamton’s three power-play goals.
During the second period, the Senators turned the game into a rout.
Less than two minutes in, Daugavin took the puck away from Mark Parrish inside the blue line and broke in alone for his second goal of the game to make it 4-1.
At that point, Dineen made a goalie change. Jhonas Enroth, who spent more than six weeks in the NHL with the parent Buffalo Sabres before rejoining the Pirates last week, took over for David Leggio, who stopped 16 shots in less than 22 minutes of action while making his ninth start of the playoffs.
“Sometimes, you’re trying to change the emotion of the game a little bit and give your team an opportunity to regroup,” said Dineen.
“You don’t like doing that at the beginning of the period when your goalie was not a huge part of the issue, but that’s one of the options you have in your arsenal and you’ve got to take advantage of everything.”
Enroth stopped 17 of 19 shots, but the move really didn’t slow down the Senators, who held a 39-23 edge in shots.
Less than 10 minutes after the goalie change, Potulny flipped in a rebound for a goal.
With 47 seconds left in the game, while the Senators skated with a two-man advantage, Potulny stuck puck inside the left post to complete the scoring.
Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:
pbetit@pressherald.com
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