Special Night on Special Teams leads Pirates past Senators 5-1

Binghamton, NY— The Portland Pirates scored on their first 4 power play attempts and were a perfect 6 for 6 on the penalty kill as they defeated the Binghamton Senators 5-1 on Wednesday. The win snaps the Pirates’ three game losing streak as the team wins their second straight road game.

It didn’t take long for the Pirates and Senators to get reacquainted, as the first period featured 2 fights and an additional post whistle scrum. Jim O'Brien, Saturday’s hero for Binghamton, opened the scoring for the Senators with 15:07 remaining in the first, and the Pirates trailed1-0. Just over 10 minutes later, Chris Brown put Rostislav Klesla’s shot past Senators’ starter Andrew Hammond to tie the game with 4:51 left in the first. After a tripping call on O’Brien, the Pirates took the lead, with Brown scoring again with 2:16 left in the first. Andy Miele and Brandon Gormley tallied assists on Brown’s power play tally, the 10th straight game that the Pirates scored a goal on the man advantage.

The Pirates power play kept going in the second. Brandon McMillan extended the lead to 3-1 at just 1:49 in to second to give the Pirates a 3-1 lead. Lucas Lessio and Randy Jones picked up assists on McMillan’s 8th of the year. Brandon Gormley struck for the Pirates at the 16:34 mark of the second, to give the Pirates a 4-1 lead. Gormley’s career high 6th of the year was also on the power play, with Andy Miele and Daine Todd picking up assists. Tobias Rieder extended the Pirates lead with the 3rd power play tally of the period and 4th of the game with 43 seconds remaining in the period to give the Pirates a 5-1 lead. Brandon Yip picked up the lone assist on Rieder’s 16th goal of the season. The game became testy towards the end of the second, but the Pirates entered the intermission with a 5-1 lead. The Pirates had 4 shots on goal to the Senators’ 10 during the second period, but scored 3 times.

Nathan Lawson takes over for the Senators in net in the third period, and the scoring settled down, with Binghamton managing to kill all 5 Pirates power plays in the period. Mark Visentin remained strong in the Pirates net, making 11 saves over the final two periods to keep the Pirates’ lead at 4. The game remained relatively quiet, with only 82 combined penalty minutes compared to the 220 minute affair on Saturday. In the end, the Pirates kept the Senators at bay, taking the 5-1 victory.

The Pirates get back to action on Friday when they visit the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Puck drops at 7 PM. and the game can be heard on the Pirates flagship stations WPEI 95.5/95.9 FM as well as WEZR AM 1240 in the Lewiston/Auburn area and WTME AM 780/1450 in Oxford County. The game can also be heard online at portlandpirates.com by clicking “Listen Live” and can be seen live on AHL Live at ahllive.com. The pregame show starts at 6:45 with Jeff Mannix. Follow all the action on the Pirates official Facebook page and Twitter account (@PortlandPirates) with the hashtag #PiratesAway.