After dropping their last two games, the Portland Pirates (25-15-1) returned to the win column with a 4-1 victory over the visiting St. John’s IceCaps in front of a crowd of 3,718 at Cross Insurance Arena.
MacKenzie Weegar (4) opened the scoring with an even-strength goal at 14:09 of the first period. The assists were credited to Brett Olson and Garrett Wilson.
Rocco Grimaldi (7) notched a power-play goal from Shane Harper 1:49 into the second period to put the Pirates up by two.
Connor Brickley set up John McFarland (14) at 16:33 to put Portland in firm control of the game after forty minutes.
St. John’s Nikita Scherbak finally solved Mike McKenna with 4:22 left in regulation to break up the veteran goalie’s shutout bid.
Olson (8) picked up his second point of the night with an empty-net goal at 19:43 to complete the scoring.
Zachary Fucale made 34 stops in taking the loss for the IceCaps, while McKenna turned aside 26 shots to raise his record to 20-8-1.
The same two teams will meet in Portland again on Friday night at 7 p.m.