The Portland Pirates’ up-and-down start to 2014 continued Tuesday in the team’s third game in three days.

Ben Chiarot, Carl Klingberg and Andrew Gordon scored goals for St. John’s and Eddie Pasquale stopped 28 shots to lead the IceCaps to a 4-2 win over the Pirates at Mile One Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Despite the loss, the Pirates’ staff was all positives after the game.

“That was probably our best game of the three here,” Pirates coach Ray Edwards said. “We played a much better team game, we had better team structure, and it’s tough to lose a game when you play so well.”

The loss is the Pirates’ second of the new year in three games. Despite climbing above .500, the team has yet to string more than two wins together since a three-game streak in early November, making it difficult for the team to climb the standings. But it’s progressing.

“We divide the season into segments,” Edwards said. “And this segment of games, we’ve played I think seven of the 11 games on the road, and we won the segment. If you’d told me we would do that, I’d have taken it all day.”

Lucas Lessio and Tobias Rieder scored goals for the Pirates (14-13-1-4), who will next skate in another three-in-three beginning Friday at home against Norfolk — if the team can get home. According to Edwards, due to weather in Newfoundland, the team is stuck there for the near future.

“They’re telling us 48 hours right now,” Edwards said Tuesday night.

It was Lessio that got things started for the Pirates, who played a solid first period, outshooting the IceCaps 16-9. Lessio’s 10th of the season at 14:25 of the first put the visitors on top, 1-0.

The IceCaps stunned Portland keeper Louis Domingue with a goal in the waning seconds of the first as Chiarot took a feed from Brenden Kichton and beat the Pirates’s rookie with six seconds remaining in the period to even the game at 1-1.

“That was tough but it’s one of those things, as a team, you have to handle it properly,” Edwards said. “We went into the locker room, and we talked about having to move on from that.

Klingberg gave St. John’s its first lead at 9:32 of the second, and Gordon added a much-needed insurance tally for the home team 3:45 into the third for a 3-1 advantage.

“In the second, it was really kind of a boring period to be honest,” Edwards said. “They got one there, and another in the third but we battled right back and got that one back.”

Rieder netted his 11th of the season for Portland at 6:24 of the final frame to draw the Pirates within striking distance at 3-2, but after Pasquale stuffed Brandon McMillan on a great chance late in regulation, Klingberg found an empty net to cap the scoring and finish off the 4-2 win and 2-1 series victory over the Pirates.

The Admirals will make their first of two visits to the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston on Friday. The Pirates then hit the road for games in Bridgeport on Saturday and in Worcester on Sunday.

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