PORTLAND, MAINE – The St. John’s IceCaps were shut out for the third time in their last four games Friday when they fell 3-0 to the Portland Pirates. The IceCaps are scoreless in their last two games and have now gone 133 consecutive minutes without scoring a goal.
Friday’s game was indicative of the IceCaps recent offensive woes. They outshot the Pirates 31-25 and had their share of quality scoring chances, however they simply couldn’t put the puck in the net. The scenario was a mirror image of the team’s 2-0 loss to the Norfolk Admirals on Oct. 28.
Pirates goalie Chad Johnson earned the shutout for Portland on Friday, having also blanked the IceCaps when the teams last met on Oct. 24 in St. John’s.
“He made some pretty big saves which we had to have,” Pirates center Brendan Shinnimin said of Johnson to the Lewiston Sun Journal. “He didn’t just make the first saves but sometimes he made the second and third saves.”
Chris Brown put Portland on the scoreboard at 8:33 of the first period with a power play goal. Brett Hextall put the Pirates up 2-0 at 12:26 of the second period when he beat Eddie Pasquale with a bad angled shot from the right-side boards. Shinnimin made it 3-0 with his goal at 4:13 of the third period.
Shinnimin and Michael Stone each had two assists for the Pirates, while Brown and Chris Summers had one helper apiece.
“Tonight, I think we didn’t play our best, but we managed to get three goals and we didn’t give up any,” Stone told the Portland Press Herald after Friday’s game. “That’s kind of the breaks we’re getting now because we’re working hard and we’re just in the right spots.”
Johnson made 31 saves in net for the Pirates, earning his third win and second shutout of the season. Pasquale stopped 22 shots while seeing his record fall to two wins and five losses.
Notes: IceCaps defenseman Paul Postma played his first game of the season on Friday after sitting out the club’s first eight games with a rumored hamstring injury. Postma, the IceCaps 2011-12 team MVP and Top Defenseman, went minus-two with three shots on goal in the loss to Portland … The IceCaps are back in action tonight when they visit the Worcester Sharks.
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