Portland, ME – The Portland Pirates were hit on two fronts, Saturday night, at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

The first was a hot goaltender, and the second was the fact they weren’t ready to play.

The result reflected as much as Kevin Poulin made 31 saves in net for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers to earn his third consecutive shutout en route to a 4-0 victory over the Pirates.

Poulin, playing his ninth straight game for the Sound Tigers, hasn’t allowed a goal in 198 minutes, 17 seconds, dating back to Dec. 31 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, beating the mark set by Rick DiPietro of 156:09 in March 2002.

“It’s great not only for me, but the team,” said Poulin in a modest tone. “Not allowing any goals is good as it gives the defense some really good confidence and we’re feeding off that as a team right now.”

“When you get goaltending, it breeds confidence and our guys are really confident with (Kevin) Poulin in net,” said Bridgeport coach Brent Thompson. “He’s playing great. He weathered the storm. He knew Portland was going to come at him hard.”

The Pirates outplayed the Sound Tigers in the first 20 minutes of play, but in the second period the lights were turned off and nobody was home as Bridgeport scored four unanswered goals including two on the power play.

“It was an odd game,” said Pirates coach Ray Edwards. “I’m not sure what to think of tonight. I don’t think we can let ourselves off the hook for this game. Were we a little bit too big for our britches? I wonder if we looked past them. We just weren’t in sync. If you’re not ready to play against anybody, you’ll lose.”

“I thought we were good in the first period. We pushed the game the way we wanted too and then we got away from that in the second period.”

“We got outworked, that’s pretty much all there is too it,” said Pirates’ captain Dean Arsene. “We didn’t come prepared to play. We played a couple teams in Providence and Bridgeport that are down in the conference – standings wise – and they’re making a push, and plain and simple, they outworked us.”

At 6:11, the Sound Tigers got on the board with a power-play goal when Kael Mouillierat was at the bottom of the right circle able to capitalize on a rebound from Pirates’ goalie Curtis McElhinney for a 1-0 lead.

At 10:11, Rhett Rakhshani found the back of net, beating McElhinney, and less than two minutes later Bridgeport struck again to extend the lead to 3-0 when former Lewiston Maineiac Mathieu Aubin scored off a rush midway into the second period.

Aubin played for the Maineiacs for three years, from 2003-’06, the first three years of the franchise’s existence in Lewiston. In 2005-’06, he recorded 47 points, 56 assists for 103 points with the Maineiacs.

That ended the night for McElhinney, who was replaced by Justin Pogge, after making 12 saves on 15 shots.

Pogge received a few Bronx cheers from the 5,058 in attendance after the first three saves.
With 4:38 left in the second period, Mouillierat scored his second of the game, getting to the loose puck and shoveling underneath the Pirates’ netminder, putting the Pirates down by four goals.

The goal was the second power-play goal given up by the Pirates in the game as the penalty kills has become an issue the last two weeks, giving up 10 power play goals on 31 opportunities (67.75 percent) in six games.

“For one, we’re taking too many penalties,” said Arsene. “We have to get rid of the stick penalties. Everybody is at fault and everyone is to blame, not just a couple guys. Everyone is taking bad penalties at bad times, and it’s changed the momentum of the game. As players, we haven’t been good enough at times at anticipating the play and we need to get better.”

Fortunately, for the Pirates, they get to have short memories as they travel to Worcester for a 3pm start.

NOTES: Trevor Gilles was with the Sound Tigers, but not in the lineup as he recovers from a concussion…. Joey Haddad and Blair Riley, both playing for the Sound Tigers on PTO’s, attended Pirates training camp before being released to their respective ECHL clubs… Alex Bolduc is expected to make his debut in the Pirates lineup in two weeks. Signed in the off-season, Bolduc is recovering from shoulder surgery from playing summer hockey.