The Springfield Thunderbirds were edged 5-4 in a shootout by the Providence Bruins Saturday night at MassMutual Center.
The Thunderbirds have now lost four in a row, with the last three of those defeats coming past regulation time.
Providence’s Alex Grant opened the scoring 4:12 into the first period to put the visitors up early.
Springfield grabbed the lead later in the frame on goals from Josh Brown and Ryan Horvat that came 4:52 apart.
Brown’s bagged his second of the season at 8:59 with the lone assist credited to Juho Lammikko.
Lammikko and Brown combined to set up Horvat for his third with 4:09 left in the period.
New acquisition Michael Sgarbossa extended the Thunderbirds lead at the 6:38 mark of the second period. Collecting assists on Sgarbossa’s first with Springfield were Dryden Hunt and Brown, who registered his career-high third point of the night.
The Bruins would ride a three-goal surge from ex-Panther Peter Mueller, Peter Cehlarik and Colton Hargrove to a 4-3 lead after forty minutes.
Paul Thompson came up with the game-tying goal with 1:05 left in regulation to secure a point for Springfield. MacKenzie Weegar and Chase Balisy drew the helpers on the play.
Cehlarik scored the only goal in the shootout, beating Reto Berra, who finished with 28 stops, in the second round.
Providence netminder Anton Khudobin (34 saves) denied Sgarbossa, Thomas Schemitsch and Balisy in the skills competition to post the win.
Up next for the T-Birds is a home-and-home with the Hershey Bears this weekend.
For more on the Florida Panthers AHL affiliate, pay a visit to the official site.