Portland, ME – The Portland Pirates were looking at the positive.

Despite giving up a two-goal lead, the Pirates earned point and consider Monday night as a moral victory of sorts.

I know we didn’t win and people will be upset with that, but for me it was an internal positive and an internal win,” said Pirates coach Ray Edwards. “We did a lot of things that we hadn’t been doing. We will take those things and build off it.”

John McCarthy scored a power-play goal with 1:04 left in overtime, giving the Worcester Sharks a 4-3 victory over the Pirates before 5,230 at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

“Our team is in the state right now of becoming a better team,” said Edwards. “It’s not the structure part of the (game), but chemistry, cohesiveness, togetherness of the team. Today, we took a stride forward so we’ll see what the next game brings us. I thought today we were much better as a group. We handle each other better (emotionally) on the bench.”

Maxim Goncharov took a penalty for hooking that set up the game-winning goal with less than two minutes to play in the game that left Edwards none too pleased with Goncharov.

“I don’t like the penalty at the end of the game,” said Edwards. “It was a lazy penalty and those are the things that we need to get out of our game. It will be addressed. It was bad penalty and a bad one-on-one battle that cost us the game.”

“The rest of the game we competed hard.”

McCarthy skated wide of the Pirates’ defense, taking a shot from the right circle that beat Pogge over the shoulder to complete the comeback for the Sharks.

The Pirates entered the Christmas break as a team broken mentally and they looked as such with a 3-5-1-1 record in their last 10 games. Edwards felt the break couldn’t come at a better time.

“In this case (the time away) helped us,” said Edwards. “I didn’t like where our team was (mentally). There was a lot of stuff with our team that I didn’t like so I thought it was good for our team to get away for six days to evaluate some things.”

“We talked to our group this morning about what’s expected of this group from a team perspective, from an attitude perspective and work perspective, and if we don’t get it then players won’t play. It’s that simple. The accountability has to go up and I think will.”

The Pirates responded to the time away by jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first twenty minutes of the game as Andy Miele and Brett Hextall each scored break rather long scoring droughts.

Miele’s goal came just 52 seconds into the game when he took a feed from Brett MacLean, getting behind the Sharks defense, and sliding the puck by Tyson Sexsmith for his first goal since Nov. 25 against the Sharks.

Miele had been on a bit of a scoring drought over the last 10 games only recording four assists.

“We need Andy to produce for us on a regular basis as one of our younger players,” Edwards.

For Hextall, he wasn’t even aware that his goal was his first on Civic Center ice, but the relief of just scoring a goal provided enough satisfaction as he recorded his first point since Nov. 9 – a stretch of 17 games.

“It’s definitely a monkey off my back,” said Hextall. “I’ve been feeling (the pressure) for a while. I’ve been feeling like I have been playing better for a while, but the points didn’t come. Certainly, glad they came today. That’s what my team expects of me and what I expect of myself to be a guy that plays hard and kills penalties, but can put up points too.”

Hextall connected on Brock Trotter’s pass from the left boards, flipping the puck by Sexsmith for the power-play goal at the 12:25 mark of the first period after getting the puck

Fisticuffs filled the final nine seconds of the period with several fights including a tussle by Miele and eventual game-winning goal scorer John McCarthy.

The Sharks gained the momentum for about a five-minute segment in second period and capitalized by scoring twice to tie the game at 2-2.

Sean Sullivan nearly had the Sharks first goal nine minutes into the period, but Pogge managed to just catch a piece of the puck with his left skate blade.

Worcester, who finished 2-for-3 on the power play, broke through with a power-play goal just seven seconds after Chris Summers was whistled for holding as Nathan Moon kept whacking at the puck, knocking it past Pogge at 11:10 of the second period.

Two minutes later, Worcester tied the game as a scramble ensued in the crease area of Pogge and the puck was inadvertently knocked into the net by a Pirate.

The Pirates had several good chances, but couldn’t get another puck past Sexsmith as he earned his first win at the Civic Center, stopping 33 of 35 shots.

“(Worcester) is a heavy team and they pushed hard,” said Edwards. “They got two quick ones. I thought we responded well afterwards and had numerous chances to score. I didn’t mind our team tonight. We worked hard. We made a few mistakes, but what I liked about our team was we competed hard, we had a will to compete, we good fight in our game and a lot of chances. We need to bury some of those chances.”

NOTES: Pirates goaltender Curtis McElhinney cleared re-entry waivers on Friday and was recalled today by the Phoenix Coyotes. In 21 games with the Pirates, McElhinney is 9-11-0 with a 2.95GAA and a .875 save percentage.… Patrick O’Sullivan also was recalled on Monday by the Coyotes on an emergency basis. O’Sullivan has two goals, six assists in six games.