Saturday’s boxscores
BINGHAMTON 5, ALBANY 2
Greg Mauldin scored the go-ahead goal with 7:36 left in the second period and he and former River Rat Marc Cavosie each had a goal and an assist as Binghamton took a much-needed 5-2 victory from Albany on an emotional night at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena on Saturday.
It was the Senators’ first home game since Friday’s tragedy at the American Civic Association in downtown Binghamton.
The Sens trailed by a goal until Cavosie tied the score with his shorthanded tally at the 8:03 mark of the second period. Mauldin put Binghamton on top just over four minutes later and Zack Smith picked up an important insurance marker at 18:06.
Mattias Karlsson and Mark Bomersback also scored for the Senators and Jeff Glass, making his 16th consecutive start, stopped 25 shots.
The victory keeps Binghamton one point ahead of Philadelphia in the race for the fourth and final playoff spot in the East Division.
Jakub Petruzalek and Cory Quirk scored for Albany.
WORCESTER 3, MANCHESTER 2
Thomas Greiss denied Matt Moulson’s penalty shot with six seconds left in the third period, preserving a 3-2 victory for Worcester at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester.
Ryan Vesce, Dan DaSilva and Kyle McLaren scored for the Sharks, who won their fourth straight game and moved closer to securing a playoff berth in the Atlantic Division. Worcester now sits in third place, with a three-point lead over the fifth-place Monarchs.
Greiss finished the night with 34 saves as he improved to 6-1-0 in his last seven decisions and 28-23-2 overall for the year. Jonathan Bernier stopped 33 of 36 shots in defeat.
Thomas Hickey, who made his pro debut with the Monarchs on Wednesday, recorded a goal and an assist. Hickey was the fourth overall pick in the 2007 NHL draft.
PROVIDENCE 3, PORTLAND 2 (SO)
Tuukka Rask stopped all 14 shots he faced in the third period and overtime and turned away all five Portland attempts in the shootout as Providence secured its 11th consecutive Calder Cup Playoff berth with a 3-2 win over the Pirates at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.
Brad Marchand’s goal with 9:30 left in regulation tied the score and Martin St. Pierre’s eighth goal in 16 attempts this season was the only marker of the shootout. Vladimir Sobotka added a goal and an assist for the Bruins.
Providence crept back to within four points of first-place Hartford in the Atlantic and also guaranteed at worst a second-place finish, meaning home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
Colton Fretter and Mathieu Darche scored for Portland which slid into fourth place, two points ahead of Manchester.
SPRINGFIELD 4, LOWELL 3
Charles Linglet scored on a power play with 1:23 left in regulation, snapping a 3-3 tie and sending Springfield to a 4-3 win over Lowell before 5,912 fans at the Tsongas Arena.
The loss pushes the Devils to the brink of elimination in the Atlantic Division playoff race. Lowell is seven points out of fourth place with four games remaining.
Ryan Potulny scored his team-leading 34th goal of the season and Jordan Eberle added his second goal and fourth point in six games since joining the Falcons as Springfield rallied from a 3-1 deficit. Linglet’s goal was his seventh in 18 games as a Falcon; he scored once in 37 games for Peoria earlier in the year.
Colin McDonald scored a shorthanded goal and also had an assist for Springfield.
Barry Tallackson, Matt Halischuk and Nicklas Bergfors scored for Lowell, which lost for the first time in regulation this season when leading after two periods (22-1-0-2).
PHILADELPHIA 4, NORFOLK 2
Boyd Kane scored twice and Jean-Sebastien Aubin made 35 saves as Philadelphia kept pace in the East Division playoff race with a 4-2 win at Norfolk.
The Phantoms, winners of five straight and 9-2-0-2 in their last 13, remain one point behind fourth-place Binghamton.
Sean Curry and David Laliberte also scored for Philadelphia and Jared Ross recorded three assists as the Phantoms moved to 5-1-0-1 against the Admirals this season.
Blair Jones and ex-Phantom Pete Zingoni scored for Norfolk.
HERSHEY 3, WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON 2 (SO)
Alexandre Giroux scored twice in regulation and Hershey shook off a late third-period rally to post a 3-2 shootout victory in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday night.
Michal Neuvirth was on his way to a shutout until Paul Bissonnette got the Penguins on the board with 5:39 left in regulation. Mark Letestu then forced overtime with his goal with 3.2 seconds left.
Neuvirth finished with 40 saves to improve his record to 8-4-2.
Giroux’s 57 goals are now tied for the sixth-most ever in a single AHL season, matching Baltimore’s Mitch Lamoureux (1982-83) and Cape Breton’s Dan Currie (1992-93).
Hershey remains atop the East Division with 104 points, four ahead of idle Bridgeport and five clear of the third-place Penguins.
HAMILTON 4, GRAND RAPIDS 2
Hamilton took the upper hand in the battle for home-ice advantage in the first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs with a 4-2 win over Grand Rapids at Copps Coliseum.
The Bulldogs and Griffins will meet in the North Division semifinals. Both teams now have 96 points in 77 games; Hamilton owns the tiebreaker with more victories (46 to 42).
Brock Trotter, Yannick Weber, Ryan Russell and Yanick Lehoux were the goal scorers for the Bulldogs, who have won four in a row at home.
P.J. Atherton and Brian Lashoff scored for Grand Rapids. It was Atherton’s first AHL goal since Mar. 4, 2007, and Lashoff’s goal was his first as a pro.
SYRACUSE 3, ROCHESTER 2
Nick Holden scored the winning goal with 12:16 left in the third period to lift Syracuse to a 3-2 win over Rochester at the War Memorial at Oncenter on Saturday.
Maksim Mayorov and Alexandre Picard also scored and Derek MacKenzie had two assists for the Crunch, who are 9-3-0-1 in their last 13 games.
Randall Gelech recorded a goal and an assist and Janis Sprukts had a goal for the Amerks.
TORONTO 3, MANITOBA 2
Justin Pogge made 34 saves as Toronto completed a two-game weekend sweep with a 3-2 win over Manitoba at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. It was the Marlies’ fifth straight victory over the Moose.
Attendance was 13,043 for the seventh meeting of the regular season between the North Division rivals and potential first-round playoff foes.
Jason Krog’s 30th goal of the season staked the home club to an early 1-0 lead, but Jiri Tlusty, Joe Ryan and Darryl Boyce answered for Toronto and Pogge held off the Moose the rest of the way to improve to 4-1-0 this season against conference-leading Manitoba.
The Marlies hold onto their one-point lead over fourth-place Syracuse in the North.
PEORIA 2, QUAD CITY 1
The Peoria Rivermen clinched a return to the AHL postseason with a 2-1 win over Quad City at the I Wireless Arena on Saturday night.
The Rivermen, who now have points in seven straight games (6-0-0-1) and 14 of their last 16 (12-2-1-1), missed the playoffs in 2007 and 2008 after being swept in their first-round series in 2005.
Jim Jackson and Yan Stastny scored midway through the first period and the Rivermen’s tandem of Manny Legace and Chris Holt did the rest, combining for 31 stops on 32 Flames shots. Legace was perfect in two periods of work, stopping all 20 shots.
Anders Eriksson had the only goal for the Flames, who saw their six-game points streak (5-0-0-1) come to an end. Quad City remains five points out of fourth place in the West Division with just three games left.
LAKE ERIE 3, HOUSTON 0
Lake Erie played spoiler for a night, keeping Houston from clinching a playoff berth with a 3-0 win over the Aeros at the Quicken Loans Arena in front of 9,139 fans in downtown Cleveland.
Matt Hendricks gave the Monsters a 1-0 lead with a first-period goal, and Mike McLean and Chris Durno scored 1:09 apart in the third period to propel Lake Erie to its 20th home win of the season.
Tyler Weiman made 22 saves for his league-leading eighth shutout.
The Aeros were blanked for the sixth time this year, but remain five points ahead of Quad City in the race for the final playoff spot in the West Division.
SAN ANTONIO 1, IOWA 0
Joel Perrault broke a scoreless deadlock with 2:50 left in regulation and Josh Tordjman made 27 saves for his second shutout of the weekend as San Antonio dashed Iowa’s postseason dreams with a 1-0 win at the AT&T Center.
The loss mathematically eliminates the Chops from playoff contention.
After returning from a month-long NHL stint with Phoenix, Tordjman stopped all 49 Iowa shots he faced over the two-game weekend set and now has six shutouts on the season.
Perrault, who scored the decisive goal on Friday as well, now has eight goals – including four game-winners – in his last nine games.
Attendance in San Antonio was 9,705.
MILWAUKEE 4, ROCKFORD 1
Justin Taylor had two goals and an assist and Mark Dekanich made 30 saves as Milwaukee topped the 100-point mark with a 4-1 win over Rockford before 6,229 fans at the MetroCentre.
Taylor came in with four points in 17 AHL games for three teams this season, but erupted for his first career three-point night at the AHL level.
Cody Franson and James Sixsmith also scored for the Admirals, who won for just the second time in eight games (2-5-0-1).
Brian Connelly scored his first professional goal for the IceHogs, who saw their three-game winning streak snapped.
