Thursday, March 22, 2007
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The road woes continued Wednesday night for the Portland Pirates.
The Providence Bruins scored twice in the first five minutes of the third period to skate to a 5-3 victory at the Dunkin' Donuts Center.
It was the third consecutive road loss for the Pirates, who are trying to stay in the race for the fourth and final playoff berth in the Atlantic Division.
It was the eighth win in 11 games for the Bruins, who slipped past Hartford into second place in the division.
With 13 games left, the Pirates remain eight points behind fourth-place Lowell, which was idle Wednesday.
Worcester, a 3-2 winner against Albany on Wednesday night, is in fifth place, seven points ahead of the Pirates.
Providence, which won 8 of 12 games against the Pirates this season, took the lead for good when David Krejci deflected Jay Leach's shot past Sebastien Caron at 1:07 of the third period to snap a 3-3 tie.
"Any time you give up a goal in the first minute (of a period) it's disheartening," Portland Coach Kevin Dineen said.
Krejci's winning goal came after the Pirates rallied in the second period to tie it.
"Again, it was a preventable mistake which caused us to play catch-up from then on," Dineen said.
Less three minutes later, Nate DiCasmiro put the game of reach when he finished off a two-on-one break.
The Pirates, who return home to play Lowell in a key matchup Friday night, had to chase the Bruins nearly from the outset.
Providence opened the scoring after 3:24 on Krejci's shot from the middle of the left circle.
At 10:13, Matt Keith made it 1-1 when he deflected Bjorn Melin's blast from above the left dot on a power-play goal.
It took the Bruins 11 seconds to regain the lead. Petr Kalus scored his 13th goal of the season.
With less than five minutes left, T.J. Trevalyan put in a change-of-pace shot from the top of the slot for his 22nd goal.
At the start of the second period, goalie Gerald Coleman, who joined the Pirates about three weeks ago as part of a trade with Tampa Bay, was replaced by Caron.
"(Coleman) is a goalie in the organization, and the game plan is to try to get the most out of every player we have right now," Dineen said. "We're going with 17 (skaters) and two (goalies) and we need everybody on board."
In the second period, the Pirates came to life to tie it.
At 4:17, Drew Miller put in a backhanded shot from just inside the right circle for his 11th goal of the season.
At 6:45, Geoff Peters finished off a breakaway with a back-handed shot from the right for his seventh goal.
Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 725-8795 or at:
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It's maddening to hear them take a lead, or a tie, into the third period and walk away without the win. And the reality is that the Pirates are fighting for the fourth playoff spot, and as the fourth seed we would be playing against Manchester of Providence, teams who have beat us in the third period.
However...
It is not all doom and gloom though. We managed to rally in the second period to tie the game. Our boys found a way to even things out, so that means that we aren't completely hopeless. In fact things have been pretty even recently in the first and second period. It is just the last tri of the game that we stumble and fall.
Plus, at least three or four Pirates shots found the post or crossbar throughout the game, shots that could have been potential goals. As I've said several times during the Pirates season there are moments where it is better to be lucky than skilled, and had the luck been on our side the outcome could have been quite different.
Keep plugging away guys!
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