What do nerds and the Worcester Railers have in common? Neither of them can score enough.
As both a former nerd (some would argue this writer is still currently one) and a Railers fan, I can attest that both of those things are true, and they were true once again Friday night at the DCU Center as Worcester could only put the puck past Reading Royals netminder Nolan Maier once in a 2-1 shootout loss.
It was the third consecutive one-goal game for the Railers, who still hold on to the fourth and final North Division playoff spot by virtue of having played one fewer game than the Royals. Worcester is now closer to last place in the division than they are to third place. Much closer.
Entering Friday’s game the Railers’ leading goal scorer is Blade Jenkins, who hadn’t played for the team in a month before being loaned back to the team Friday afternoon. His 20 goals tie him for 38th in the ECHL. Worcester has five players with double-digit goals and is tied with Allen for the fewest in the league. Anthony Callin’s team-leading 29 assists ties for 46th in the ECHL. Jenkin’s 45 points aren’t in the ECHL’s top 50; Callin’s plus-8 rating doesn’t make the top 100. The Railers rank 26th in power play goals, goals per game, and team shooting percentage.
And without looking, it’s safe to say all of those stat rankings have gotten worse after the loss Friday.
The Railers have done essentially nothing the past two seasons trying to increase goal scoring. Adding Ryan Scarfo might help in the dressing room, but it absolutely isn’t going to help on the ice. While it’s possible to lose games in the dressing room not a single game in any sport has ever been won in one. In hockey, games are won on the ice, and with the ECHL trade deadline being on Thursday it’s time for the Railers hockey ops to finally make a serious move in getting players that can score goals, either by trades or by signing players out of college. What’s the worst thing that can happen, not making the playoffs?
Spoiler alert: if you don’t score while in a playoff race, you never win the playoff race.
About the game, Yvan Mongo scored a nice goal at 10:58 of the opening frame when he converted on a give-and-go with Joseph Nardi after a failed Railers dump and chase. We will show the highlight because, honestly, it’s a quality goal.
Almost exactly a full period later Zsombor Garat tied it 1-1 with a nice goal of his own.
Todd Goehring is the only helper listed, but we might see one added for Joey Cipollone. It’s hard to tell from the video if he touched the puck at all.
Through regulation and overtime the teams went, and in the shootout Jake Bricknell was the only goal scorer on a bid that Railers netminder John Muse thought he stopped but the puck continued to slowly slide toward the goal line as Muse stood up and it just made it over the goal line.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Joey Cipollone, John Copeland (IR/unknown), Jake Goldowski, Tristan Lennox (IR/lower body), Anthony Repaci (IR/upper body), Brendan Robbins, Ryan Verrier (IR/upper body), and Zach White. Cole Ceci was the backup goaltender.
Friday afternoon the Hartford Wolf Pack returned Blade Jenkins to Worcester. Despite now being under an AHL contract with Hartford Jenkin’s ECHL player rights are held by the Railers. Because he signed an ECHL contract with Worcester for this season the Railers should give him a qualifying offer over the summer to retain his ECHL player rights for the 2024-25 campaign. Not doing so would absolutely be a firable offense for any ECHL general manager. To make room for Jenkins on the roster the Railers released Carson MacKinnon.
The NY Islanders have once again reassigned forward Reece Newkirk from the Railers to Bridgeport. On Twitter, “not a burner account” notes that in the past two months, Newkirk has played three AHL games, equaling the number of times he has traveled back and forth between Worcester and Bridgeport. Just another reason why the Railers need to dump the Islanders organization and pursue other options. Those who follow this writer on Twitter will notice virtually all Railers-related tweets now carry the hashtag “#DumpTheIslanders”. Oh, and of course, he was a healthy scratch for the AHL Islanders in Laval.
It’s not often that the crack stats crew at the DCU Center makes any sort of mistake, but they made one last night, although it’s probably just an entry error and easily fixed. Late in the second period, Reading got caught in the Roy Sommer line change after playing with six skaters for 13 seconds. Yes, 13 seconds, and confirmed by video. The three officials on the ice only noticed because the Railers’ bench was banging their sticks and yelling for the penalty to be called. The infraction should be entered as 18:56 of the frame, but the “1” was missed and the scoresheet and box score say 8:56. An essentially meaningless error that would have likely gone unnoticed had the Railers not ended up with a brief five on three power play early in the third.
Keeping an eye on Holy Cross’ conference playoff run, and Friday night the Crusaders defeated American International College 5-2 at the Hart Center Rink in game one of the Atlantic Hockey semifinal round. AIC took the 1-0 lead on the power play in the opening minutes of the first period, and Holy Cross Senior Alec Cicero tied the game at 1-1 with 7:58 remaining in the opening frame. Tyler Ghirardosi made it 2-1 later in the period, and Liam McLinskey tipped in a shot by Matt Guerra to extend the Crusader lead to 3-1 with 9.8 seconds remaining in the period. AIC cut the lead to 3-2 with the second period’s lone goal, and Holy Cross added two empty-net goals in the final frame for the 5-2 victory. Senior Jason Grande recorded 22 saves in the win, while AIC’s Nils Wallstrom made 18 in the loss. Game two of their best-of-three series is Saturday night.
The three stars of the game were:
1. REA – 49 Jake Bricknell
2. WOR – 70 Zsombor Garat
3. REA – 73 Nolan Maier
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Railers Ticket Operations Manager Steve Kando.
Even Strength Lines
Bakanov / Pivonka / Calder
Jenkins / Scarfo / Callin
Howdeshell / Quinlivan / Piercey
Goehring / X / Cipollone
Cosgrove / Dickinson
Welsh / Krygier
Garat / Kulakov
Our affiliates last night
Laval 3, Bridgeport 1
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Maine 6, Adirondack 2
Trois-Rivières 5, Idaho 0
Standings
(“Hand” are games in hand from WOR’s point of view)
| TEAM | PTS | PTS % | HAND | vs WOR |
| ADK | 78 | .672 | 0 | 2 |
| NOR | 73 | .629 | 0 | 0 |
| NFL | 62 | .517 | 2 | 3 |
| WOR | 57 | .491 | X | X |
| REA | 57 | .483 | 1 | 3 |
| ME | 55 | .482 | -1 | 3 |
| TR | 55 | .482 | -2 | 3 |
BOX SCORE
Reading 1 0 0 0 – 2
Worcester 0 1 0 0 – 1
1st Period-1, Reading, Mongo 14 (Nardi, Connor), 10:58. Penalties-Millman Rea (holding), 18:41.
2nd Period-2, Worcester, Garat 2 (Goehring), 10:54. Penalties-Dickinson Wor (holding), 4:46; Connor Rea (interference), 8:20; served by Smith Rea (bench – too many men), 8:56.
3rd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Millman Rea (slashing), 0:27.
1st OT Period- No Scoring.Penalties-No Penalties
Shootout – Reading 1 (Bricknell G, Smith NG), Worcester 0 (Pivonka NG, Howdeshell NG, Jenkins NG).
Shots on Goal-Reading 13-9-12-6-1-41. Worcester 11-13-14-2-0-40.
Power Play Opportunities-Reading 0 / 1; Worcester 0 / 4.
Goalies-Reading, Maier 14-14-3-2 (40 shots-39 saves). Worcester, Muse 13-8-1-1 (40 shots-39 saves).
A-2,856
Referees-Will Kelly (7).
Linesmen-Sam Schildkraut (46), Philippe Pilon (68).
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