PORTLAND — The Portland Pirates have been a Jekyll-andHyde team all season, looking good one game and terrible the next. They managed to play both roles Monday in a 5-3 loss to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

For the first 30 minutes, the Pirates were pretty good. They didn’t take a single penalty, outshot the Penguins and took a 2-1 lead. Then the Penguins (31-16-2-5) rallied on the strength of Portland (24-23-3-3) penalties that had Portland Coach Ray Edwards shaking his head.

“We keep shootin’ ourselves in the foot with penalties,” Edwards said. “Our goals against, we continue to give up four or five goals a night. It puts a lot of stress on our offense when you have to score that much. And I’m not blaming the goalies. The point is, we’re finding ways to lose. We have a mentality right now that isn’t right. Until that changes, we’re gonna struggle.”

Patrick O’Sullivan was the sixth man on the ice when Portland picked up a bench minor midway through the second period. That led to Geoff Walker’s goal with 6:50 remaining that tied the score at 2.

But the worst sequence for Portland came a few minutes later. A delayed penalty was called on Nathan Oystrick for hooking. With the officials waiting to call the penalty when the Penguins gave up the puck, Portland’s David Rundblad also picked up a hooking penalty while trying to prevent a breakaway.

Bryan Lerg scored during the ensuing five-on-three advantage to give the Penguins a 3-2 lead with 1:25 remaining in the second period.

“Tonight, for the first 30 minutes we were great about not taking penalties, all of a sudden we take a couple quick ones and they took advantage of it,” Portland’s Brett MacLean said. “We had all the momentum before that. Then they scored a couple quick goals. … It was a struggle after that to get back in it.”

Penalty problems are nothing new. Portland is tied for the AHL lead in penalties with 259 and the Pirates entered Monday’s game with the ninth-worst penalty kill in the AHL. That’s a bad combination.

Though the penalties killed Portland’s momentum, the Pirates still tied the game at 3-3 on a power play 3:07 into the third period as MacLean finished a pretty pass from O’Sullivan to beat Penguins goaltender Scott Munroe.

But the Penguins’ Brian Strait snuck a shot from the point through a crowd to give Wilkes-Barre a 4-3 lead with 7:43 left.

With momentum gone, Portland struggled to answer. On a power play in the final two minutes, the Pirates didn’t take a shot on goal in the first minute. Instead, it was the Penguins icing the game when Alexandre Picard banked a long-distance shot off the boards for a short-handed, empty-net goal.

“We’re trying to make plays,” MacLean said. “Sometimes we’re a little too fancy, but we try and take the right shot and make the right play. They tightened up on us.”

 

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