Falcons Game 37: Payback in Portland

One of the good things about a home and home series is that sometimes the memories are a little too fresh. The Falcons no doubt remembered clearly squandering a three goal lead to the Portland Pirates on Friday night in Springfield. They used that to their advantage, playing a solid 60 minutes against the Pirates at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, ME on Saturday night, skating away with a 4-2 victory.

The Falcons continue to be lethal to the Pirates when shorthanded. This time, the Birds got on the board first when Tim Spencer was in the box for roughing, Cam Atkinson and Matt Calvert took off on a nifty two on one break. The give and go ended up on Cam’s stick after a perfectly timed pass from Calvert. The puck eluded Portland netminder Justin Pogge, banking off the post and finding the back of the net for a 1-0 Falcons lead.

Martin St. Pierre extended the lead to 2-0 at 13:26 when he intercepted a clearing attempt deep in the Portland zone and fired a one timer past Pogge.

The Pirates pulled within one when David Rundblad scored his first goal of the season, when he let one fly from the left point.

Portland outshot the Falcons 13-7. Manny Legace, after a rare night off on Friday, was money in net for the Falcons. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Pirate goal was the result of a big screen in front of Manny.

In the second period, the Falcons continued to flex their shorthanded muscles against the Pirates. Alexandre Giroux scored his 12th of the season while Brett Lebda was in the box.

For the second night in a row, the Falcons took a 4-1 lead after two periods after Wade MacLeod picked up his third goal of the season when he tipped home a Dalton Prout blast from the blueline.

An all star scrap at the 10:51 mark between Tim Spencer and Ryan Hollweg. Lots of overhand rights connected for each, then just when it looked like it was coming to a close they went for another 15 seconds. A beauty!

The Falcons came out in the third period playing a conservative brand of hockey. This suited them well, as there were no careless penalties along the way to adversely affect them.

The only score of the period was Jordan Szwarz getting his second goal in as many nights and third of the season to draw the Pirates within two at 16:53. The final two minutes of the game saw Pirates goalie Pogge on the bench in favor of the extra attacker. A late penalty to Andrew Joudrey gave the Pirates a brief 6 on 4 advantage. That was negated when Andy Miele took a slashing penalty in the closing seconds, leaving the final score 4-2 Falcons.

The Falcons close out the weekend back at home on Sunday afternoon when they host the Providence Bruins at 3PM.