It's been a rough start to the season for the Portland Pirates. They started the season with a mixture of professional rookies and some veterans with NHL experience. It was a mix that not many of us were sure of and so far they are very unsure of themselves.
This wasn't the start that Kevin Dineen was hoping for out of his inexperienced team. There is hope for the team to have a turnaround and hit starts and ends with Jhonas Enroth. Enroth is a player that is expected to be a NHL goalie at some point in his career but he started the season with a couple of terrible outings. He has been better as of late, finally lowering his goals against below four and his save percentage is inching closer to .900.
I know you are probably getting sick of all the tables I have been posting on the site but here is another one for you. I thought it would be good to put the Pirates stats up on the site, especially after the fanpost about Gerbe last week.
| # | Player | Pos | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PPG | SHG | GWG | Shots |
| 25 | Mark Mancari | RW | 12 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -3 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 30 |
| 11 | Tyler Ennis | C | 12 | 6 | 4 | 10 | -4 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 28 |
| 19 | Nathan Gerbe | LW | 11 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 31 |
| 20 | Jeff Cowan | LW | 12 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1 | 24 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 21 |
| 12 | Paul Byron | C | 10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -4 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 15 |
| 17 | Mark-Andre Gragnani | D | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| 47 | Philip Gogulla | LW | 12 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| 21 | Derek Whitmore | LW | 12 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| 15 | Felix Scutz | C | 12 | 0 | 4 | 4 | -3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| 3 | TJ Brennan | D | 11 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 |
| 26 | Kyle Wanvig | RW | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | -4 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| 22 | Kyle Rank | RW | 12 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| x | Mark McCutcheon | C | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| 8 | Cody McCormick | C | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| 28 | Mike Kostka | D | 12 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
| 9 | Travis Turnbull | C | 12 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| 6 | Mike Weber | D | 12 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -2 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 |
| 44 | Drew Schiestel | D | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| 33 | Joe Dipenta | D | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 27 | Dennis Persson | D | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| 7 | Matt Generous | D | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| 39 | Hans Benson | RW | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 29 | Brad Larsen | LW | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| x | Maxime Legault | RW | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| # | Player | Pos | GP | GAA | W | L | OTL | SO | Save Pct. | |||
| 1 | Jhonas Enroth | G | 10 | 3.9 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0.872 | |||
| 30 | JP Lamoureaux | G | 2 | 3.94 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.871 | |||
The Sabres signed Mark Mancari just days before the season started and now he is leading the team in scoring. He is a player that does have some limited NHL experience and could be a call-up if a top six forward goes down to injury. The issue with Mancari is waivers...if he gets called up and does well there might be a team that will try to claim him when he is returned.
I still think Gerbe wil be the first call-up if a top six player gets injured. There is still an option to bump Kennedy up to one of the first two lines. Gerbe and Kennedy could be the Pominville and Roy from the 2005-2006 team. Pominville and Roy were young forwards that weren't given a chance to start the season but proved they belonged in the NHL as the season wore on.
Sabres fans should be excited about Tyler Ennis. We have heard plenty about his talent and he is off to a great start in his pro career. He leads the Pirates with six goals scored and scored the first hat trick of his pro career just a couple of weeks ago. Paul Byron is another guy that has some expectations but he hasn't taken to the pro game as quickly as Ennis. He has scored a couple of goals but he is a disappointing minus-4.
November will be a busy month for the Pirates with 12 games in total. The Pirates will have a crazy stretch of games in the middle of the month when they play five games in seven days with three of those games being played at home. The Pirates are hoping to have some players back from injury and suspension before that stretch as they hope to improve their last place record.