Maine Hockey Journal

Pirates sign goaltender Erickson to fill backup role

After releasing goaltender Todd Ford back to South Carolina of the ECHL in order to take part in the first round of their divisional series against the Cincinnati Cyclones, the Portland Pirates have signed Beau Erickson to a Professional Tryout.

Ford played three games with Portland, going 3-0-0 with a 1.33GAA and a .958 save percentage, but Pirates’ head coach Kevin Dineen intended to have Ford back with his ECHL club in time for their first game.

“Todd’s going to go down (to South Carolina) and play some hockey and get the playoff atmosphere, and keep up what he was doing here,” said Dineen. “Our game plan was to get him back there.”

Erickson joins the Pirates, ironically, from the South Carolina Stingrays after they released him to make room on their roster for the return of Ford.

In 24 ECHL games with Reading, Utah and South Carolina, Erickson is 10-9-1-2 with a 2.92GAA and a .907 save percentage.

Erickson, a native of Hinton, Iowa, played three seasons with Univ. of Connecticut before signing with the Reading Royals of the ECHL in 2009.

Dineen spent the better part of the last two day’s video scouting upwards 10 goalies across the ECHL before signing Erickson to a contract.

That said, it will be JP Lamoureux’s team as the Pirates head into their final weekend of the regular season.

“JP (Lamoureux) is going to get the net and run with it during our playoff series,” said Dineen. “If he’s physically capable of going all three games this weekend, he’s going to do that. Beau will come in and fill our net, and we’ll evaluate on a weekly basis.”

“I’ve done a lot of homework over the last two days; we just didn’t want to bring somebody in here.”

The reason why this has become an issue for the Pirates is because of an injury to Jhonas Enroth.

Enroth suffered a high ankle sprain to his right ankle and is improving, but there is still no timetable for his return to game action. Dineen is being very cautious with Enroth due to the nature of the injury and the position that Enroth plays, but Dineen says he’s comfortable with goaltending situation for the Pirates and for right now why shouldn’t he be.

Lamoureux hasn’t lost a game in regulation since the middle of March, going 5-0-2-1 during that span.

“We’re hoping to get Jhonas skating within a week, and until then it’s fuzzy and gray,” said Dineen. “To say it’s two weeks or four weeks, it doesn’t matter and it won’t matter until he gets on the ice. We’re comfortable with our situation right now.”

NOTES: The Pirates brought Ray Jean in as a practice goalie to fill in until Erickson arrives sometime later today. Dineen indicated that the Sabres would be making organizational moves within the next 24-48 hours, but didn’t give any names.

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