Gordon

PROVIDENCE — Scott Gordon did not have a pleasant day yesterday, at least not in terms of work he had to do.

Gordon’s plan had been to be doing serious preparation for the AHL Eastern Conference finals against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Gordon had every reason to believe, as recently as a week ago, that his Providence Bruins would be hosting the first game of the series.

In a surprising and disappointing turn of events for Gordon and his Providence team, the P-Bruins lost four games in a row, after winning the first two contests of their second-round series against Portland. Instead of working toward a possible Calder Cup championship, the Providence coach spent yesterday in meetings, filing reports and making evaluations on his players.

Boston Bruins officials, headed by general manager Peter Chiarelli and Don Sweeney, the team’s director of hockey operations and player development, were in town to oversee the meetings and speak to the players and Gordon.

“We’ll talk about the season and about what will be expected of them this summer,” Gordon said before heading to the meetings.

It was a bittersweet time for all involved.

“Any time you end a season and you don’t go as far as you want to; any time you don’t win, it’s disappointing,” Gordon said. “With the year we had, we certainly thought we had the opportunity to go to the end. That makes it even more disappointing. But from my standpoint, our players did everything we asked of them. It was tough to take, but it certainly wasn’t from lack of effort.”

After easily beating Portland in the first two games at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, the P-Bruins lost four close games, in which they outshot the Pirates.

“The third game was the toughest one. We were ahead with one minute to go in the game,” Gordon said. “All year long we’ve been pretty good protecting the lead. On that goal, there was not a whole lot more we could have done. That win gave them the momentum.”

Gordon felt his team put itself in position to win every game. The difference, he felt, was the work of Portland goalie Jean-Sebastien Aubin.

“You have to give Aubin the credit. He showed why he’s spent so much time in the NHL,” Gordon said.

While there obviously was disappointment with the way the season ended, there were plenty of positives to the year. Compiling the best record in the AHL during the regular season is an accomplishment, one that was well earned. The team had to begin the season with a 10-game road trip because of work at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center and not only survived, it played well from the get-go.

“When you look at the big picture, there is a lot to take out of what the team did. I don’t think that when the year began anyone expected us to have the best record,” Gordon said. “Up and down the roster guys did their job. The guys who we had returning built on what they had done before and the rookies had good years.

“We had a team that worked hard. We didn’t have a team where one or two guys carried us,” the coach added. “It was a team effort for us every night.”

Gordon singled out two players for exceptional seasons.

“Pascal Pelletier was our leading scorer, but he also was one of our hardest workers,” Gordon said. “Jeff Hoggan was our MVP. It didn’t come easy for him. He worked for the goals he got. Really, that’s the way our team played. I don’t think many teams can find the consistency we played with this year.”

The foundation seems to be in place, with a number of young players, for improvement for the parent team and also for more good play from the P-Bruins. Gordon has one more year left on his contract and would seem to be all but certain to return. The only thing that could change that would be if an NHL team came calling, not an unlikely scenario considering the way Gordon had his team play this season.

He said candidly, though, that he has not heard from anyone, in that respect, and that he expects to be back in Providence again next year.

pkenyon@projo.com