PORTLAND – The Springfield Falcons took a 4-1 lead against the Pirates for the second consecutive game Saturday night, but this time is was no different.
This time, there was no comeback by the Pirates, who rallied to eke out a 5-4 win in a shootout at the MassMutual Center Friday night.
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This time, the Falcons, who turned turnovers into three goals, held on for a 4-2 win at the Cumberland County Civic Center.
“It’s a team game, and we’ve got to play the team game that we’ve put in place,” said Portland Coach Ray Edwards. “Some nights, we get it. Some nights, we don’t. Until we can get that one going, it’s going to be win one, lose one.”
It was the 38th game of the season for the Pirates, the halfway mark, and the team’s performances remain uneven, inconsistent.
“Every time we win two or three games, you sort of think we’re on the way, and then we fall back,” Edwards said. “What kind of team are we? Are we a team that can be consistent? I don’t think we know that yet.”
The Falcons held a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period.
Springfield turned a couple of Portland turnovers into a 2-0 lead in the first 15 minutes.
Less than six minutes in, Cam Atkinson finished off a two-on-one break with his team-high 21st goal after Matt Calvert got his stick on an errant pass in his defensive zone during a Portland power play. The short-handed goal came on the Falcons’ first shot of the game.
With five minutes left, defenseman David Rundblad, in his first game with the Pirates after spending the first half of the season in the NHL with the Ottawa Senators and the Phoenix Coyotes, coughed up the puck, and Martin St. Pierre scored his eighth goal of the season on a shot from the right circle.
With less than three minutes left, Rundblad made up for his mistake by scoring his first AHL goal on a blast from the top of the left circle.
The Pirates continued to play loose with the puck during the second period, and the Falcons made them pay.
Less than four minutes in, Alexandre Giroux scored a short-handed goal on a breakaway after picking off a pass in the neutral zone during another Portland power play.
“The guys on the power play sucked the momentum out of us,” Edwards said.
It was the fourth short-handed goal scored by the Falcons against the Pirates during their two games this weekend. Springfield leads the AHL with 11 short-handed goals.
With 11 minutes left in the second period, Wade MacLeod tipped in defenseman Dalton Prout’s blast from center point for his third goal 1 second after the Pirates had killed off a power play to make it 4-1.
Portland rookie Jordan Szwarz completed the scoring when he slammed a rebound into the left side for his third goal with less than four minutes left to play.
NOTES: A lower-body injury kept defenseman Nathan Oystrick out of Portland’s lineup for the second consecutive game The Pirates also played without defenseman Chris Summer, who was called up by NHL parent Phoenix Coyotes for the fourth time this season Brad Larsen, captain of the Pirates during the 2009-10 season, is spending his second season as an assistant coach for the Falcons.
Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:
pbetit@pressherald.com
Twitter: PaulBetitPPH
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