PORTLAND, ME – Mathieu Darche scored his 14th goal of the season in overtime despite Nathan Lawson’s 23-save effort to give the Portland Pirates the extra point and defeat the Sound Tigers 2-1. Trevor Smith scored the only goal of the contest for the Sound Tigers, whose record falls to 26-14-3-2, giving them 57 points and placing them in a tie for second place in the East Division with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
For the second straight game, neither team could break the scoreless tie in the first period. Lawson’s best save of the opening period came on a broken play that led to Felix Schutz getting behind both Sound Tiger defensemen and coming in alone on the Sound Tiger net-minder. Schutz tried pulling the puck to his back-hand and sliding the puck under Lawson but the goalie’s pad was squeezed to the ice denying the Pirate forward and keeping the game dead-locked at 0-0 heading into the second period.
With a minute remaining in the middle frame, Smith would score the Sound Tigers’ first goal of the weekend to give the team a 1-0 lead, while on the power-play. Kurtis McLean was able to foil a Portland clearing attempt and snap a pass to Andrew MacDonald at the left point. The All-Star defenseman walked in and cranked a shot on Enroth that he made the initial pad save on but the rebound bounced to Smith in the right circle. The team’s leading goal scorer caught the puck on his backhand and sent a shot over Enroth and into the left corner of the net for his 22nd goal of the season. Mike Iggulden had an assist on the tally.
Bouck would tie the score in the third 1:46 into the period with his fifth goal of the season at 1-1. Colton Fretter and Kenny MacAulay had the assists on the game-tying goal. Both teams would exchange chances but could not tally the game-winner in regulation, sending the game into overtime.
In the extra session, Mike Iggulden would take a one-minute high sticking penalty, just over a minute in. Portland would control play but were unable to find the game-winner while on the man-advantage. Only 13 seconds after Iggulden’s penalty would expire, Tim Kennedy would set up the game-winner on a back-door pass to Darche for his 14th marker of the year, giving the Pirates the 2-1 win.
Lawson finished the game with 23 saves and was named the second star in the contest. Enroth earned the win, stopping 36 of the 37 Sound Tiger shots he faced. The Sound Tigers were 1-for-6 on the power-play and 5-for-5 on the penalty-kill.