Maine Hockey Journal

Pirates tripped up in Worcester

Worcester, Mass. – After earning five of a possible six points, the Pirates failed to earn a point tonight as they dropped a 4-2 decision to the hands of the Worcester Sharks at the DCU Center on Sunday afternoon.

The Sharks, like their parent club in San Jose, have been on a roll lately going 7-3-0 in their last 10 games.

Worcester would build a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes of play on goals by Derek Joslin and Jason Demers.

At 3:59, with Matt Ellis in the box for interference, Joslin notched his fifth of the season when he picked the top-left corner, beating Pirates’ goaltender Adam Dennis for the 1-0 lead.

With Portland pressing, looking for the tying goal, the Sharks made it 2-0 as Demers blistered a slap shot by Dennis at 11:03 of the first period. It was Demers first of the season.

In the second period, the Pirates stormed back as Marek Zagrapan scored at 7:44 of the period on the power play. Mark Mancari, at the top of slot, fired a bullet on net as Zagrapan got his stick on the puck, deflecting it by Sharks’ netminder Thomas Greiss. Mancari extended his point-scoring streak to 10 games with the assist on the play.

At 9:22, Colton Fretter made it 2-2 when he found the loose puck, jamming it past Greiss for his fourth goal in his last two games. In the last five games, he’s scored eight points with plus/minus-2 rating as his teammates have jokingly begun to refer to him as “Fretzsky”.

With the game tied 2-2, the Pirates laid the shots on Greiss in the third period, but with 3:07 left in the game, 43 year-old Claude Lemieux scored his second goal of the season when he deked to the right, putting a backhand shot by Dennis.

Ryan Vesce added an empty-net goal with five seconds left in the game to seal the win for Worcester.

NOTES: The Pirates power play has hit a bit of a hot streak as of late, scoring seven power play goals in their last three games. Mike Funk was released from a local area hospital in Lowell, Mass. last night after being diagnosed with a concussion. He went back to Portland to be further evaluated on Monday and will be out indefinitely. This is the second time Funk has suffered a major concussion this season as he missed the first month of the regular season after being injured in Buffalo during training camp.

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