PORTLAND – Normally, Portland Pirates Coach Kevin Dineen doesn’t criticize his team publicly after a win.
But he didn’t have many positive things to say after the Pirates eked out a 2-1 win against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before a season-high 5,505 fans at the Cumberland County Civic Center Saturday night.
“Our decision-making was lacking,” he said. “I just find our level of riverboat gambling is going to bite (us) right in the tail, and we got away with one tonight.”
The Pirates have won all six of their game on home ice, but they needed a fantastic performance from goalie David Leggio to preserve the streak.
Leggio, who made 35 saves in Tuesday night’s 3-2 shootout win against Manchester in his first start of the season, made 30 of his 36 saves in the last two periods Saturday to keep the Pirates from blowing a 2-0 lead.
Friday night, Portland built a 2-0 lead during the first 30 minutes, only to have the Springfield Falcons score five goals in the third period for a 6-2 win.
“You’re up 2-0 in a hockey game, and you’re getting sloppy,” Dineen said. “You’re getting sloppy, and you’re giving up chances. I told them it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in the NHL. It doesn’t work in Europe. It doesn’t work at Cape Elizabeth High School.”
So far this season, the Pirates have allowed 22 goals, and 12 of them have come during the third period.
“Obviously, it’s great to win games, but that wasn’t a great third period,” Portland forward Mark Mancari said. “We’ve got to be a smarter hockey team. We can’t take a lead and try to sit on it, not in this league. Every team is going to push even harder in the third period. We won a game, but it could have been a bad situation.”
Portland defenseman T.J. Brennan opened scoring 22 seconds into the game by putting in a hard shot from the left point for his first goal of the season.
Forward Matt Ellis made 2-0 eight minutes into the second period when he scored his second goal of the season on Portland’s fourth power play of the game. It was the fourth power-play goal in three games for the Pirates, who started the season 0 for 32 in man-up situations.
With less than 10 minutes left in the game, left wing Jesse Joensuu stole the puck and skated in from the right circle to score the Bridgeport goal.
“Give (Bridgeport) credit, they pushed extremely hard against us, (but) I wasn’t happy with the way we responded,” Dineen said. “I think my goaltender was the real deal tonight.”
NOTES: Fans who want to bid on a select number of pink game-worn jerseys from Saturday night’s Breast Cancer Awareness Game are encourage to visit eBay on Monday. Complete details are available at portlandpirates.com. … The AHL on Saturday credited Portland defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani with an assist on Mark Parrish’s goal in Friday night’s game at Springfield. In his three seasons with the Pirates, Gragnani has 75 assists to tie for 15th place with Colin Forbes on the team’s all-time list.
Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at: pbetit@pressherald.com
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