After the day-long headache the Portland Pirates endured in getting to Newfoundland, maybe it’s no surprise that the offense struggled to make connections or that the defense ran out of gas Sunday afternoon.
St. John’s scored two goals in the third period to seal a 3-1 win in front of 6,287 at Mile One Centre.
Storm-related travel delays kept the Pirates from arriving in time for what had been scheduled as the first in a three-games-in-four-days grind.
Now, the Pirates will face the IceCaps both Monday and Tuesday at 6 p.m.
“It’s like a playoff series, right? We have to snap out of this and get one,” Pirates coach Ray Edwards said.
Andy Miele scored his team-leading 15th goal for Portland (13-11-1-4). Mark Visentin made 37 saves.
That wasn’t enough to overcome an 0-for-6 performance on the power play, 30 stops by St. John’s netminder Eddie Pasquale, or a pair of lapses in the defensive end.
“Those two goals, one was just a defensive assignment that was a little bit late and another was a turnover,” Edwards said. “You’ve got to feel bad for Mark. We came up big for us again, and we haven’t given him a lot of support lately.”
Brendon Kichton scored his seventh goal of the season from J.C. Lipon at 2:57 of the third period.
Miele scored at 12:40 of the third, Brandon McMillan and Brett Hextall assisting, to get the Pirates within one.
Jerome Samson scored his ninth of the campaign on a breakaway less than two minutes later to put it away for St. John’s.
“We didn’t have enough guys playing,” Edwards said. “We had some guys who were very good and some guys who were just average. It’s tough to win if you’re only getting it from a few guys.”
The Pirates’ most productive period was the first, but Pasquale was up to the task and stopped all 13 shots to keep it scoreless.
“I thought after all we went through to get here that we played a pretty good first period,” Edwards said. “Then we lost one early in the second, but we kept fighting.”
Adam Lowry put St. John’s (16-13-1-2) on the board at 1:03 of the second. Lipon and Carl Klingberg had the assists.
The IceCaps outshot the Pirates 15-9 in both the second and third periods.
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