The Portland Pirates redeemed themselves after a rough start, rallying to tie the game in the third period and again force overtime.
And again, the team suffered a knockout punch with little time left on the clock.
Linden Vey sent the puck past Pirates goalie Louis Domingue with 1.8 seconds remaining in overtime to lift the Manchester Monarchs to a 3-2 win over Portland.
The loss is the Pirates sixth in a row (0-3-1-2), though the team has earned points in three of those six losses.
Things started inauspiciously for the Pirates, who fell victim to penalties in the first two frames while allowing the Monarchs to score a pair.
Manchester got on the board first at 8:09 of the opening frame when Sean Backman beat Domingue on a feed from Jordan Weal at 8:09.
The hosts added a second goal in the second frame, this one from Tanner Pearson with help from Andy Andreoff.
It appeared that the Pirates were doomed in the third period, until Andy Miele scored his team-leading 17th of the season on assists from Brandon Gormley and Corey Trivino at 9:22.
An ensuing penalty to Manchester’s Andrew Campbell put the Pirates on a power play, on which they converted when Ethan Werek potted his third of the season with help from Mathieu Brisebois to even the score at 2-2.
The teams skated evenly the rest of the way, though Portland had a chance to take the lead on yet another power play in the waning minutes of regulation, but Jean-Francois Berube made a handful of his 26 saves on the sequence to keep the Pirates at bay.
Only Norfolk has played in more overtime games this season in the American Hockey League. The Pirates are 1-2 in overtime, and 3-7 in shootouts for a combined 4-9 in overtime games this season.
The Pirates have little time to rest, as they will skate against Springfield on the road Sunday afternoon.
Gormley and Trivino were each a plus-1 on the game for Portland, the only two players above “even.”
Andrew Bodnarchuk and Brett Hextall dropped the gloves Saturday in the second period.
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