While the ECHL season ended just about a month ago and the NHL and AHL seasons carried on until June 24th, once again the Worcester Railers started their summer vacations far too early when for the second time in as many seasons the club couldn’t win one of its final two regular season games to qualify for the ECHL’s Kelly Cup playoffs. Three seasons ago, Worcester missed the playoffs by three points, earning just seven out of a possible 20 points over their last ten games while scoring just 17 goals.
As I wrote after Worcester’s 5-1 loss to the Adirondack Thunder on March 16th last season, head coach and general manager Jordan Smotherman had to go. Like David Cunniff before him, Smotherman’s inability to do the general manager’s job caused losses on the ice and directly led to the team not making the playoffs. Smotherman’s comments on doing the GM job made it obvious he wasn’t particularly interested in the role, and with that in mind, he and the Railers “mutually parted ways”.
Railers Chief Operating Officer Mike Myers began the search for a new head coach and general manager, and at some point during the process decided to separate the two jobs, which isn’t generally the norm in the ECHL. When the hunt ended, Myers promoted Bob Deraney to head coach and hired Nick Tuzzolino as the new general manager and associate head coach.
As an aside, many have asked me how the hierarchy will work when the GM is usually the boss of the head coach, and the head coach is typically the boss over the associate head coach. All I can tell you is that at least on paper, they’ve got that all covered. There is zero chance this situation hasn’t been deeply discussed by the three involved and the roles of Deraney and Tuzzolino will have been well defined. It’s a situation that I’m not worrying about at all.
When asked, I’ve made it clear I didn’t care all that much who was brought in, I only cared that the person who was hired to be the general manager would not be timid in doing the job and would not hesitate to make the right personnel decisions when they are needed to be made. Over the last two seasons there have been far too many players on the roster that had no business playing in the ECHL, and while that is bound to happen from time to time because of injuries and recalls those emergency players need to be moved on from at first opportunity.
Will Tuzzolino be able to do that? Hopefully, the answer is yes.
The area on the team that needs to be addressed first is the offense. The Railers have struggled to score goals pretty much every season they’ve existed. Under Jamie Russell Worcester’s offense finished no better than 25th in the ECHL, and their best power play was 23rd. The split season of Russell and David Cunniff was just as bad, with a 25th-ranked offense and 26th-ranked power play.
Cunniff’s only full season was the Railers’ best offensively with them finishing 13th with the 15th best power play. Smotherman’s first season with the Railers saw a slight dip with Worcester ranking 17th on offense with the best power play in franchise history finishing 11th. But last season the offense was back in the crapper, finishing 24th with the 25th-ranked power play.
Last season the players supplied to the team by the Islanders organization went 82-130-212 with a minus-7 rating. The skaters under contract to Worcester, all 30 of them, went 126-214-337 with a minus-87 rating. Looking at the list of players loaned to the Railers last season, with the possible exception of Reece Newkirk, who is no longer Islanders property, there’s a good chance we won’t see any of those guys back here.
The one saving grace Tuzzolino has in bringing in more offensive players is Deraney will have a real offensive scheme in place as opposed to Smotherman’s “run and gun” mentality. Russell and Smotherman had essentially no offensive system in place, and their offensive rankings show that. Cunniff had one, and the offense thrived. Cunniff’s defense was terrible though, so that was the big problem there.
Getting players who are better offensively should also fix the power play issue, along with having an actual plan for when the team is on the power play.
Tuzzolino also catches a break on defense as the blueliners on the roster last season were certainly good enough for the ECHL. The team could use a right-shooting puck mover, and perhaps a mobile big-body defender to clear the front of the net, although those two things are likely on every GM’s list at every level and there aren’t a lot of either to go around in the ECHL.
We can once again expect two goaltenders from the Islanders, so the only thing Tuzzolino needs to do there is have a couple targets to shoot at in training camp, and hopefully one of them shows enough skill that they can be called upon if needed.
I’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of weeks if Deraney and Tuzzolino are the right two guys to get us into the playoffs and get a deep run toward the Kelly Cup. The simple answer is, I don’t know. But I do know if the Railers didn’t make these changes they were destined to see the same things happening that have taken place over the last six seasons. A line I have unfortunately had to repeat a lot over the years is “I’ve seen this movie before”. We’re all sick and tired of how that movie ends.
Here’s to hoping the 2024-25 season has a different ending.
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