Friday night the Worcester Railers took on the Trois-Rivières Lions at Colisée Vidéotron in Quebec, and Worcester used a three-goal second frame and another stellar outing from goaltender John Muse to defeat their North Division rivals 4-3.
Anyone involved with hockey will tell you playing with a lead is much easier than playing catch-up, and teams that score first a lot tend to also win a lot, so getting on the board early is a great recipe for victory. It took a quick video review to confirm it, but Jack Pivonka gave his team that early 1-0 lead with a power play goal at 8:26 of the opening period.
One thing head coach Jordan Smotherman absolutely needs to solve for playoff success is the Railers’ trend of giving up goals quickly after they’ve scored one. It happened twice on Friday, the first time was less than two minutes after the Pivonka tally when Brycen Martin was able to take a pass from Tyler Hylland and skate unmolested from the left point all the way deep into the slot, beating Muse at 10:10.
John Parker-Jones would make it 2-1 Lions at 3:27 of the middle stanza when he capped off a three-on-one rush with a wicked wrist shot over the left shoulder of Muse.
At 8:35 Artyom Kulakov would unleash a wicked wrister of his own that would beat Trois-Rivières netminder Zachary Émond to the far side to make it a 2-2 game.
Just 71 seconds after the Kulikov goal Andrei Bakanov would give his team their second lead of the game when he banged home a loose puck.
It can’t be seen on the video, but the puck ended up on Bakanov’s stick after Ryan Dickinson’s shot went high over the net and bounded off the end glass. Dickinson’s shot missed by so much that had this been a home game there is little doubt this writer and Booster Club President Rich Lundin would have said “just a bit outside” to each other as we do on many shots that miss the net by such a wide margin.
It took just another 44 seconds for Anothy Callin to end Émond’s night as the goaltender was pulled when he allowed Worcester’s third goal of the frame.
That Callin goal proved to be huge as once again the Railers surrendered a quick goal to the Lions when Nicolas Guay was able to bank a loose puck off Kulakov and over the goal line as the defender rushed to the net with Muse out of the crease at 11:15, or just 45 seconds after the Callin tally.
That would be all the scoring, and thanks to some solid play by Muse that would also be two points in the Railers column.
The two teams play again on Saturday, with a 3pm puck drop.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were John Copeland (IR/unknown), Todd Goehring, Tristan Lennox (IR/lower body), Riley Piercey, Anthony Repaci (IR/upper body), and Ryan Verrier (IR/upper body). Cole Ceci was the backup goaltender.
With Reece Newkirk re-assigned by the NY Islanders to Bridgeport before Worcester headed to Canada, we’ll once again keep our eyes looking at Park City to see if he’s in the AHL Islanders line-up, and in perhaps the least shocking news that could be told to Railers fans, Newkirk was a healthy scratch Friday night in Bridgeport’s 4-2 win in Springfield.
Just one scoring change from Tuesday’s school day game in Maine, and as predicted John Muse loses his assist on Jake Pivonka’s goal, and the secondary helper now goes to Artyom Kulakov. To be honest it wouldn’t have taken Uri Geller to predict the change, Kulakov passing the puck to Newkirk was about as obvious as obvious could be. Perhaps the 5,000 screaming school kids distracted the scorers. At any rate, the goal now correctly reads “2. WOR Pivonka, (15) (Newkirk, Kulakov), 7:28.”
No matter who your opponent is you never want to see anyone injured, and unfortunately, a potentially bad one happened to Trois-Rivières defender Miguël Tourigny when Zach White’s third-period clearing attempt hit Tourigny square in the face. Tourigny immediately went down and lay on the ice for a few moments before getting to his knees, and there was a lot of blood dripping from the left side of his face. He needed help getting to the dressing room, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he went. Tourigny was later seen watching the game holding a towel to his face. Matthew Vachon, a local reporter for Le Nouvelliste, said in a game story that Tourigny took the puck to near his left eye, and it was “quite swollen”.
Even during road games, this writer makes a list of plays to take another look at, even if those things are just to get a better view of what happened as opposed to some moment that might have had a tremendous impact on the game. One of those things took place about nine and a half minutes into the opening period on an otherwise innocuous dump-in by Trois-Rivières. In the live video, it looked like Railers netminder John Muse might have played the puck behind the goal line outside the trapezoid. With referee Marc-Olivier Phaneuf far behind the play it wouldn’t have been easy for him to see the potential rules infraction, but on a second–and third–view of the video Muse doesn’t. At worst, the puck is on the goal line, but in all likelihood, it’s a couple inches short of it. Again, nothing earth-shattering, just one of those things worth looking at again.
After the final horn the Lions’ frustrations boiled over, something that seems to happen after every game against them it seems, and there was a bit of a donnybrook between the teams that ended up in some essentially meaningless penalty minutes being added to a few players and Lions’ captain Cedric Montminy having to cough up fifty bucks for a misconduct penalty. The issue for Worcester is there is the potential of a Railers player doing something that was not initially penalized causing him to be suspended. That thing? Well, one way or the other we’ll mention it after Saturday’s game.
The three stars of the game were:
1. WOR – 44 Anthony Callin
2. TR – 14 Brycen Martin
3. TR – 85 John Parker-Jones
The 210Sports Player of the Game was John Muse.
Even Strength Lines
Calder / Pivonka / Callin
Bakanov / Robbins / White
Howdeshell / Cipollone / Quinlivan
MacKinnon / X / Goldowski
Cosgrove / Dickinson
Welsh / Krygier
Garat / Kulikov
Our affiliates last night
Bridgeport 4, Springfield 2
In the ECHL’s North Division
Maine 7, Adirondack 0
Reading 5, Norfolk 4 OT
Idaho @ Newfoundland, ppd, snow (Will be played on Monday)
Standings
(“Hand” are games in hand from WOR’s point of view)
| TEAM | PTS | PTS % | HAND | vs WOR |
| ADK | 76 | .679 | 1 | 2 |
| NOR | 71 | .623 | 2 | 0 |
| NFL | 59 | .518 | 2 | 3 |
| WOR | 56 | .509 | X | X |
| REA | 53 | .473 | 1 | 5 |
| ME | 52 | .473 | 0 | 3 |
| TR | 50 | .463 | -1 | 4 |
BOX SCORE
Worcester 1 3 0 – 4
Trois-Rivières 1 2 0 – 3
1st Period-1, Worcester, Pivonka 16 (Callin, Cosgrove), 8:26 (PP). 2, Trois-Rivières, Martin 4 (Hylland, Parker-Jones), 10:10. Penalties-Ducharme Tr (slashing), 7:43; Robbins Wor (tripping), 18:15.
2nd Period-3, Trois-Rivières, Parker-Jones 6 (Yaremko, Martin), 3:27. 4, Worcester, Kulakov 4 (MacKinnon, Goldowski), 8:35. 5, Worcester, Bakanov 9 (Dickinson, Robbins), 9:46. 6, Worcester, Callin 11 (Calder, Krygier), 10:30. 7, Trois-Rivières, Guay 5 (Voyer), 11:15. Penalties-No Penalties
3rd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Krygier Wor (tripping), 15:54; Callin Wor (roughing), 20:00; Muse Wor (roughing), 20:00; Robbins Wor (roughing), 20:00; Montminy Tr (roughing, misconduct – continuing altercation), 20:00; Voyer Tr (roughing), 20:00; Yaremko Tr (cross-checking, roughing), 20:00.
Shots on Goal-Worcester 9-12-3-24. Trois-Rivières 6-10-13-29.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 1 / 1; Trois-Rivières 0 / 2.
Goalies-Worcester, Muse 13-7-1-0 (29 shots-26 saves). Trois-Rivières, Émond 5-6-0-0 (15 shots-11 saves); Vrbetic 10-14-3-1 (9 shots-9 saves).
A-1,838
Referees-Marc-Olivier Phaneuf (23).
Linesmen-Philippe Pilon (68), Jarrett Burton (91).
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