The Portland Pirates entered the five-day American Hockey League All-Star break on a sour note, losing by four goals in Springfield.

They returned from the break Friday night, and looked even worse.

Portland’s Mike Matheson and Hartford’s Brian Gibbons both fall onto the ice as they scramble for the puck. Photo by Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer

For only the second time this season, the Pirates failed to score and lost 5-0 to the visiting Hartford Wolf Pack before a crowd announced as 2,769 at Cross Insurance Arena.

“Not good,” said Coach Scott Allen. “It was like we were still on the break.”

Hartford won for the 10th time in 11 games. Saturday night’s guests, the Providence Bruins, have yet to lose in regulation in 12 games of the new year.

And then the Pirates board a bus for a seven-game trip, their longest of the season.

“Toughest month of the year,” Allen said. “This month is going to tell us a lot about our team.”

Wolf Pack goaltender Magnus Hellberg made 35 saves for his third shutout of the season. One of those came on a slap shot from the left dot by Rob Schremp that caught Hellberg flush in the facemask, just above his eyes.

“He’s got a pretty hard shot so I’m aware of that,” Hellberg said. “Luckily I saved it, even though it was with my head.”

The Pirates were 0 of 4 on the power play. They trailed 1-0 after the first period on a slap shot from Tommy Hughes that was tipped by Nicklas Jensen 13 seconds after the expiration of a high-sticking penalty on MacKenzie Weegar.

The game unraveled for Portland in the second, when Ryan Graves scored short-handed to spark a three-goal outburst. Pirates goalie Mike McKenna went prone to stop a breakaway by Brian Gibbons but Graves outskated the nearest Portland defender in the race for the rebound.

McKenna later stopped a penalty shot by Shawn O’Donnell but was pulled midway through the period with Hartford ahead 4-0.

“I thought our (defense) as a whole played their worst game of the year,” Allen said. “We had too many guys who weren’t prepared to dig in up front.”

McKenna, who lost for only the second time in 17 starts, departed with 21 saves. Sam Brittain relieved and stopped all 14 shots he faced. The only goal of the third period was an empty-netter with 6:35 remaining.

“He didn’t get pulled because he was playing bad,” Allen said of McKenna. “We just needed a wake-up call and there’s only so many things you can do as a coach.”

The loss was the second straight and fourth in six games for the Pirates, who had won 14 of their previous 16.

Hughes, Ryan Bourque and Adam Tambellini also scored for Hartford.

“It disappoints me more than it surprises me,” Allen said. “In the course of a 76-game season, you do have some bad games.”

This one hurt more, Allen said, because the Pirates’ undoing was largely of their own making.

“We forced turnovers,” he said. “We threw pucks into coverage and they capitalized. They had opportunities because of it and then we were playing from behind. We were chasing them.”

The Pirates return Saturday night against a team that’s playing even better than Hartford. As Allen said, it’s a tough month.

NOTES: The Florida Panthers promoted defenseman Brent Regner to the NHL. Regner, the Pirates’ captain, played all 43 games with Portland prior to Friday night and scored two goals to go with 10 assists. He’s expected to make his NHL debut Saturday night in Sunrise, Florida, where the Panthers host the Pittsburgh Penguins. … Replacing Regner on the Portland roster is Josh Brown, called up from Manchester of the ECHL for the third time this season. … Friday night marked the Portland debut for new Pirates assistant coach Nick Vitucci, who formerly served seven seasons as director of hockey operations for the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL, including five as head coach. His 13-year playing career as a goalie included one game for the Maine Mariners and four ECHL championships, playing with four teams.

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