The Falcons rallied from an early 1-0 deficit only to see the Pirates score twice in 26 seconds late in the third period.
The Springfield Falcons' Nick Holden, 5, said he thought his team played well despite being tired, but just came up short.
By GREG REID
PORTLAND, Maine – The Springfield Falcons didn’t get the start they wanted Wednesday night. And they certainly didn’t get the finish.
Springfield rallied from an early 1-0 deficit only to see Portland score twice in 26 seconds late in the third as the Pirates edged the Falcons 3-2 before a crowd of 2,543 at the Cumberland County Civic Center.
“It’s just frustrating to lead most of the game and lose in the last five minutes,” Springfield defenseman Nick Holden said. “We’ve been playing pretty good on the road. Guys were tired but still playing well. Tonight we just broke down. They scored two goals and we couldn’t recover.”
Trailing 2-1 late in the third, Portland turned the game around in 26 seconds. At 14:29, Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s shot from the left circle beat Allen York (20 saves) to tie it at 2. Then Brett Hextall put Portland ahead with a rising wrist shot from the right circle at 14:55.
“Even though we had the lead for most of the night, I don’t think we were as good as we needed to be,” Falcons coach Brad Larsen said. “We got passive, we allowed them to get into our zone and make some plays and that shouldn’t happen.”
It was a second straight loss for York, who made his season debut Saturday against St. John’s, a 3-2 loss in overtime.
“It was his turn to play,” Larsen said. “We’re trying to get him more involved. He’s coming back from injury, obviously. For the most part, he played pretty well. I think he’d have liked to have that third one back.”
While the Falcons killed off five Portland power plays, they went 0 for 5 with the man advantage.
“We need to bury at least one of those,” Holden said.
It was Portland’s sixth straight win, the longest active win streak in the American Hockey League.
“We know they’re good on the rush,” Larsen said, “and we had poor rush coverage.”
The Pirates got to York early, when Andy Miele took a pass David Rundblad in the slot and slipped the puck into the top right corner 1:58 into the first period.
The Falcons tied it at 7:26 when David Savard knocked a rebound of Nick Drazenovic’s shot past Portland goalie Mark Visentin (29 saves). Holden also assisted. Andrew Joudrey nearly gave Springfield the lead at 7:48 with a shot from in close, but Visentin made the save.
Springfield took a 2-1 lead while skating four-on-four. With Portland’s Maxim Goncharov and Springfield’s Ryan Craig off for matching minors, Ryan Johansen finished off a pretty passing sequence through the Portland zone at 12:31. Cam Atkinson started the play, and Tim Erixon fed Johansen in the slot.
With the assist, Atkinson kept the longest point streak alive by scoring in a ninth straight game. He has seven goals and seven assists in that span. He also passed Savard as the holder of the longest point streak by a Falcon this year.
“I just don’t think we had our legs tonight,” Larsen said. “It seemed we were chasing the puck the whole game.”