Sunday, April 22, 2007
THE MISSING PIECES
Portland Pirates who were unavailable to play for the team for a minimum of one month due to injury, trades, call-ups or waiver claims:
INJURED: Geoff Peters, Petteri Wirtanen
TRADED AWAY: Colby Genoway, Curtis Glencross, Zenon Konopka, Pierre Parenteau, Brett Skinner, Mike Wall
CALLED UP: Tim Brent, Kent Huskins, Shawn Thornton
LOST ON WAIVERS: Mike Leighton, Karl Stewart
When the Portland Pirates sat down last month to have their team picture taken, someone dragged out the 2005-06 photo.
One look revealed an extremely revelant fact.
Only four players who sat down for this season's photo posed for the old one.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of the Pirates' sixth-place finish in the American Hockey League's Atlantic Division.
This wasn't the same team that came within a goal of playing in the Calder Cup finals last May.
Lack of offense, lack of veteran depth, an inability to consistently win on the road and an unsettled goalie situation combined to keep the Pirates, the chief minor league affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks, out of the division's upper echelon for the final 312 months.
While compiling last season's 48-18-5-3 record, Portland scored 281 goals, tops in the East, and allowed 225.
While going 37-31-3-9 this season, the Pirates scored 225 goals and allowed 232.
Portland scored a little more than half-a-goal less per game than last season, enough to slide from the top to sixth in the seven-team division.
"The margin for error is very, very slight in this league," said Portland center Geoff Peters, who was sidelined more than half of this season with injuries after scoring a career-high 23 goals last season.
Last year, current Anaheim regulars Ryan Getzlaf, Dustin Penner, Corey Perry and Ryan Shannon were big contributors to Portland's scoring.
This season, Shannon was the only one of those players to spend any time with the Pirates, and then it was only for a month.
"You're not often going to be fortunate to have the offensive guys we had in our lineup last year," Peters said.
Early in the season, Portland lost three veteran players -- forwards Karl Stewart and Shawn Thornton, and goalkeeper Mike Leighton.
"When the season started, all three of those players were penciled in for Portland," Portland Coach Kevin Dineen said. "We didn't think they all would end up in the NHL. These moves hurt us."
In late September, Stewart, a speedy center, was claimed off the waiver wire by Pittsburgh when Anaheim tried to send him to Portland from its training camp in California. He ended up playing 47 NHL games with Pittsburgh, Chicago and Tampa Bay.
In late November, Leighton was claimed off waivers by Nashville when the Ducks tried to recall him from Portland to serve as a backup.
He spent the rest of the season in the NHL playing for the Predators as well as for Philadelphia and Toronto.
Not long after Leighton's departure, the Ducks started a series of trades in an effort to solve the goaltending problems of their AHL affiliate.
Before the season ended, a league-high seven different goalies played in games for the Pirates.
Additionally, three other goalies suited up as backups but never appeared in a game.
In early December, Thornton, a big physical forward with solid puck skills, was called up by Anaheim.
He never returned to the AHL team.
Just before Thornton's recall, the Pirates began a string of road losses.
Ultimately totaling a franchise-record 11 consecutive defeats, the team went more than two months without winning a game away from the Cumberland County Civic Center.
Another call-up came about a week before the team's January swoon began. Just before Christmas, Anaheim called up defenseman Kent Huskins, one of Portland's most consistent players.
At the time of that move, the Pirates were in first place in the Atlantic Division.
By the end of January, Portland had slid into sixth place in the division.
During January, Portland went 3-7-1-1, earning only eight out of a possible 24 standings points to fall behind most of the Atlantic Division teams.
Trades continued into late February before the team settled on a lineup.
By the time the dust had settled, it was too late for the Pirates to make up all of the lost ground.
In the last 212 months, Portland went 17-14-1-5, earning standings points in 23 of its final 37 games.
But it was not enough to catch up and pass the teams that were in front.
It took nearly three months after Leighton's departure before the goalkeeper situation was finally resolved.
After arriving in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks' organization, Sebastien Caron, a veteran of 92 NHL appearances, went 7-6-4 before he was called up to Anaheim earlier this month.
Gerald Coleman, a former member of the U.S. national under-18 team who spent most of the season with the ECHL's Johnston Chiefs, won four of his nine starts after reporting to Portland following a February trade with Tampa Bay.
After spending most of the season in the ECHL with the Augusta Lynx, David McKee, who broke numerous records held by NHL Hall of Famer Ken Dryden at Cornell, won five of his seven starts with Portland.
As a result of trades, call-ups from the ECHL and junior hockey teams, and brief looks at former college players through the use of professional tryout contracts, a total of 52 players appeared in games for the Pirates during the course of the season.
"It was kind of a revolving door around here, 50-odd faces in and out," rookie forward Ryan Carter said. "We lost some good guys, but we got some good guys."
In the end, Dineen described it as a season in transition.
"We like to think of it as short-term pain for long-term gain," he said.
Dineen is convinced the organization is moving in the right direction.
"We're getting guys we feel can play Anaheim's style of hockey, who are going to fit into roles, maybe not next year, but two years down the road," he said. "We're developing players who have the intelligence and the skill set we're looking for."
As it was, the revamped Pirates went down to the final week of the season before they were eliminated from the playoffs.
"We came together the last couple of games," Carter said. "We didn't pack it in, which is easy to do, and that says a lot."
In the final game of the season, a 5-2 pasting of playoff-bound Hartford, only four players who wore a Pirates uniform at the start of the season saw action.
"There are positives you can walk away with after this season," Carter said. "We're still hungry, and that's the good thing about the group of guys we have here now.
"And we've got something to prove next year."
Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 725-8795 or at:
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