Maine Hockey Journal

Pirates get back in to the win column

Portland, ME – How do you spell relief?

A-U-B-I-N

It wasn’t a moment too soon for J.S. Aubin to return to Portland as he made 25 saves, backstopping the Pirates to a 2-0 victory over the Albany River Rats, snapping the Pirates season high four game losing streak.

Aubin reassigned to Portland on Saturday, spent the last three games as the back up to Jonas Hiller in Anaheim after Jean-Sebastien Giguere couldn’t play due to back spasms, notched his third shutout in eight starts with the Pirates.

“Things are going well for me (since coming to Portland),” said Aubin. “They feed off me and I feed off them and this is a really good combo right now.”

Portland would get on the board first in the second period when Jason King scored his 29th goal of the season with the Pirates on a power play.

Tyler Bouck would make it 2-0 when redirected Andrew Ebbett’s blast into an open net at 7:29 of the second period.

The Pirates played solid defense for the complete 60 minutes, not allowing the Rats to have many scoring chances. Joe Callahan, after the game, spoke about keeping it simple, playing smart and being accountable something he said the Pirates needed to do in order to snap the streak.

“We had to break out of this streak some how and this was a good way to do it,” he said. “It’s great to have (Aubin) back and it’s one of those games that we did all the little things right to play a good smart safe game.”

Albany, who didn’t play on Saturday, appeared to be the team who just played three-in-three as the Pirates had the fresher legs.

“It’s funny how that works sometimes,” said Pirates’ coach Kevin Dineen. “I’ve heard from my players that feel so rotten on Saturday night and then they come back and they found their legs on Sunday.”

Either way, the Pirates are able to rid the monkey off their back – called a four game losing streak and they prepare for Worcester and Hartford this upcoming weekend.

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Kudos has to be given to the Portland Pirates training and equipment staff who were up all night, cleaning all the equipment after the Pirates bus fire in Needham, MA.

From Dineen’s comments some 24 hours after the incident took place, I certainly got a sense of regret about continuing with road trip and not seeking a postponement of the game — A game the Pirates lost 7-1.

“The frustration and lack of sleep,” he said, “it was a real wow factor for me this morning.”

“There’s always funny stories that go around in hockey and when things happen you always kind of say that ones going in a book. What happened yesterday goes in a whole chapter just from the decision to keep going to Providence.”

“The decision to play the game was not a fair decision made on behalf of my players.”

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The Pirates recalled Matt Christie from the Augusta Lynx, Portland’s ECHL affiliate. This is the third time this season he’s been recalled to Portland. In 17 games this season with the Pirates, he has nine points (four goals, five assists).

Christie has spent the majority of the season with the Lynx where he has 11 goals, 29 assists for 40 points in 52 games.

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