As the team approaches the ECHL’s Christmas holiday break the Worcester Railers find themselves in all too familiar territory: not in a playoff spot in the standings. With Saturday night’s 4-1 loss at Cool Insuring Arena to the Adirondack Thunder the Railers are now within the games in hand of the last-place Reading Royals, the team they lost to Friday night.
Worcester’s .425 points percentage puts them sixth in the ECHL’s seven team North Division, and eleventh in the Eastern Conference. Only one team in the ECHL, Reading, has won fewer games than the Railers. The Railers are tied for the ECHL’s worst power play (12.3%) and are 19th of 28 on the penalty kill (76.8).
No team in the league has scored fewer goals than Worcester’s 58, and as math usually works, they have the lowest per game average (2.52), more than two goals per game fewer than league leading Idaho (4.84). The Railers’ defense ranks 18th in the ECHL at allowing 3.39 goals per game, almost a full goal more per game than the top ranked Admirals (2.43).
Right about this time of year last season, this writer started taking a lot of heat by saying the Railers were in trouble and needed to make changes as hockey ops and fans who didn’t know any better were blinded by the standings and said everything was fine and it would all work out.
As the weeks passed, I kept pointing toward the play on the ice and continued to say changes needed to be made, but everyone just kept looking at the standings. I even went as far as to send a list of SPHL players to the team in hopes at least some of those guys would get a look. My list and I were ignored because any new guys “wouldn’t know the system”, and we all know what happened.
Guess what? It’s all happening again, only this time we don’t have a 15-2-1 start to fall back on.
As for the game, if you didn’t watch and care about what happened you can check out the PR story on the Railers website. You could even check out what the Thunder have to say.
There are some video highlights posted on the ECHL’s website.
Joey Cipollone scored his first pro goal in the game, and that’s always a nice thing to point out. With Twitter, errr, X blocking videos in tweets from appearing on many blogs we’ll have to link to the highlight.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Andrei Bakanov, Anthony Callin (Bereavement/Family Leave list), Christian Krygier (IR/upper), Tristan Lennox (lower body), Riley Piercey, Jake Pivonka, Jack Quinlivan (IR/unknown), and Quinn Ryan (IR/unknown). Despite the box score currently saying Joel Eisenhower was the emergency backup goaltender (EBUG), it was actually old friend Joe Spagnoli. It was Spagnoli’s 12th game as an EBUG for the Railers, and his #40 was the third different number he has worn with the team.
Speaking of EBUGs, based on Worcester’s all-time transaction list Joel Eisenhower is the first actual EBUG to play for the Railers. Charlie Millen was originally an EBUG, and then got signed to a regular contract and started a game. Railers Booster Club president Rich Lundin asked this writer how many EBUG-type goaltenders had played for Worcester pro teams, and that number is surprisingly high when you consider goaltenders on the IceCats and WorSharks on professional try-out contracts (PTOs) as EBUGs, which many of them essentially were. Plus, the rules between the AHL and ECHL are different concerning that situation. With no salary or roster cap in the AHL, all teams had to do was sign a goaltender to a PTO and he was free to play at any time. In the ECHL, with both a salary cap and roster limits, goalies that are EBUGs can only play when the starting goaltender is forced to leave the game due to injury or illness, and they can’t start a game. They are also limited to seven days on the roster at a time, while under AHL rules goalies on PTOs can dress for up to 25 games, and their PTO contract is renewable essentially all season.
Before the start of the main event, the Worcester Fire Department hockey team took on a team of fellow firefighters from Saratoga Springs, and in a contest seemingly played without any defense being attempted, they defeated their temporary New York rivals 11-7. The two teams then were involved in the ceremonial puck drop before the Railers/Thunder tilt.
There were a couple more things to add in this section, but to be honest I’m shocked anyone has made it down this far down the posting before being so frustrated they close the window, so we’ll save those tidbits for next time.
The three stars of the game were:
1. ADK – 22 Nico Blachman
2. ADK – 10 Ryan Smith
3. ADK – 21 Patrick Grasso
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Joey Cipollone.
Even Strength Lines
Repaci / Jenkins / Goehring
Kuefler / Newkirk / Calder
Howdeshell / Cipollone / Robbins
Schultz / X / White
Garat / Welsh
Cosgrove / Copeland
Kulakov / Verrier
Our affiliates last night
Montreal 5, NY Islanders 3
Bridgeport 4, Charlotte 3 OT
In the ECHL’s North Division
Newfoundland 3, Maine 1
Norfolk 4, Trois-Rivières Lions 1
BOX SCORE
Worcester 0 0 1 – 1
Adirondack 2 1 1 – 4
1st Period-1, Adirondack, Grasso 10 (Jozefek, Smith), 4:59. 2, Adirondack, Blachman 2 (Smith, Isley), 15:01. Penalties-Schultz Wor (removing the helmet, fighting – major), 2:16; Skeoch Adk (removing the helmet, fighting – major), 2:16; Blachman Adk (hooking), 8:25; Kuefler Wor (delay of game), 16:48; Cosgrove Wor (boarding), 17:55; Schultz Wor (roughing), 17:55; Felix Adk (roughing), 17:55.
2nd Period-3, Adirondack, Blachman 3 (Middendorf, Skeoch), 15:23. Penalties-Robbins Wor (holding), 6:57; Howdeshell Wor (hooking), 10:20; Isley Adk (tripping), 12:56.
3rd Period-4, Worcester, Cipollone 1 (Verrier, Howdeshell), 2:02. 5, Adirondack, Smith 11 (Felix), 11:43. Penalties-Copeland Wor (elbowing), 8:54; Felix Adk (roughing), 9:34.
Shots on Goal-Worcester 5-8-9-22. Adirondack 13-9-11-33.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 0 / 3; Adirondack 0 / 5.
Goalies-Worcester, Tikkanen 3-5-1-1 (33 shots-29 saves). Adirondack, Purpura 5-1-2-1 (22 shots-21 saves).
A-3,841
Referees-Steven Sailor (5).
Linesmen-Trevor Waite (73), Shane Kanaly (74).
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