PORTLAND — The American Hockey League’s playoff chase is starting to look a little like the National Football League’s scramble of last fall.

As the AHL enters its second-to-last weekend of the regular season, a number of teams are still jockeying for positioning and berths.

The Portland Pirates are one of those clubs. It received a much needed victory Saturday night to bolster its cause.

“It was nice to get a win after going almost three weeks without winning,” said Pirates coach Tim Army, whose club has clinched a playoff berth but is still chasing a possible bye of the opening round.

The Pirates jumped from an eighth-place seeding in the Eastern Conference to the sixth spot with a 3-0 victory over Worcester in front of 6,974 at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

Portland now has 81 points and currently edges Worcester and Hartford for the final first-round bye thanks to the goal differential tie-breaker.

“We still have five games left and next weekend we still have Worcester again, but this is the first step,” said goaltender Rastislav Stana, who earned his second shutout of the year with 28 saves.

After a dismal 4-2 loss Thursday in Lowell and not having won since the first week of March, the Pirates desperately needed a spark.

“That last game, we didn’t have the jump we had tonight,” said Stana. “We were hungry tonight right from the beginning.”

After a strong opening period, Portland played an especially solid defensive second and got a Chris Ferraro power play goal midway. Then Mike Farrell scored a quickie to start the third. Matt Pettinger added another at 7:01, and Stana barred the door to preserve Portland’s first win in its last eight games (1-3-4).

“We’re trying to find our playoff tempo – how we’re going to play in the playoffs,” said Farrell. “Tonight was a good test for us. Worcester’s a team that’s battling with us. It was a good test to see how things are going to work – how do we need to play in the playoffs to take that next step? I thought tonight we proved that.”

Portland came out strong, outshooting Worcester 9-1 in the first seven-plus minutes. A strong second period only continued that trend. Worcester was held to two shots for the first 14 minutes of the second.

Portland took the lead on a power-play. Midway through the second, Worcester’s top goal scorer Sergei Varlamov drew a pair of minors, including an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Portland turned that into a 1-0 lead.

As Varlamov’s first penalty wound down, Ferraro converted a Mark Murphy drop pass. Ferraro one-timed it from the point that beat Reinhard Divis, who was screened by Farrell in front.

Portland upped the lead just 11 seconds into the third thanks to some fine forechecking. Farrell won possession of the puck and moved it along to Murphy. Farrell went to the net and popped a Murphy pass upstairs.

“That was a huge goal,” said Stana. “From that point, we really felt confident that we could win the game and it showed.”

Then at 7:01, Glen Metropolit tipped a loose puck ahead for Pettinger. The Pirate forward outraced a Worcester defender for a backhander.

“It was really a complete game against, obviously, a quality opponent,” said Army, whose team hopes to build on Saturday’s strong outing at home against Saint John at 5:05 this afternoon. “They’ve got all their guys in the lineup. There was a lot at stake.”

PIRATES NOTES: Defenseman Jonathan Zion was called up from Richmond of the ECHL. Zion had played 58 games with the Renegades in his first year as a pro. He had 14 goals and 38 assists, putting him fifth on the team in scoring. He had also played 12 games with Cincinnati of the AHL, scoring two goals.