After an unscheduled off day on Friday for both the Worcester Railers and Maine Mariners the two teams got down to business Saturday night at the DCU Center and the extra rest did wonders for Railers captain Anthony Repaci as he notched the franchise’s second-ever natural hat trick to help lift his team over Maine 5-1. Four other Railers also had multiple-point nights, and goaltender Michael Bullion made 25 saves to help preserve the win on Hockey Fights Cancer Night.
Worcester has played a lot of boring periods of hockey in this young season, and luckily when they do that their opponents haven’t exactly looked lights out either. Such was the case in the opening frame last night. The Mariners had the better of the few real scoring bids there were, but Bullion was up to the task each time.
While the first and second periods had the same number of combined shots, 16, the middle stanza was played at a much quicker pace as both teams seemed to scrape the rust off and really get down to business.
Ninety-four seconds into the frame it was Riley Piercey breaking the scoreless tie with an absolute laser high to the glove side of Maine goaltender Nolan Maier after a nice centering feed from Connor Welsh. Justin Gill had the secondary assist on the play.
Sebastian Vidmar, who makes it seem like he has hundreds of career goals against Worcester, tied it 1-1 at 3:46 of the period when the Railers defenders lost track of him, and he was able to stuff a rebound home from the far post. But that was the only puck that would get past Bullion.
The Railers would take the lead for good at 7:54 when Jack Randl buried a nice feed from Jordan Kaplan. Welsh picked up his second helper of the game on the tally.
From there was all Repaci, who scored all three of his goals in the third period. The first came 33 seconds into the frame on another nice pass from Kaplan after Ryan Dickinson had wheeled the puck behind the Maine net.
At 14:53 Repaci and Kaplan teamed up again, this time with Randle grabbing the second assist.
All that was left was to see if Repaci could notch his franchise record third career Railers hat trick, and he did it in style at 16:53 with some help from Piercey and Cam McDonald.
There’s very little time to celebrate the win as the Norfolk Admirals come to town on Sunday for a 3pm start.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Anthony Callin (IR/lower body), Cole Crowder (3-day IR/unknown), JD Dudek (IR/upper body), Lincoln Hatten, Brenden Rons, and Ryan Verrier (unknown injury). John Muse was the backup goaltender.
In transactions over the last week, Tuesday the New York Islanders reassigned Henrik Tikkanen to Bridgeport, and the AHL Islanders released John Muse from his PTO. Also on Tuesday, the Railers signed Kolby Johnson from the SPHL’s Pensacola Ice Flyers. Johnson has 79 penalty minutes in just 10 career SPHL and FPHL games, so it’s easy to guess what type of player he is. On Wednesday Anthony Callin was moved from the 3-day IR list to the 14-day IR, and Cole Crowder was added to the 3-day list.
After the transactions were released on Wednesday Worcester announced they acquired defenseman Brenden Rons from the Rapid City Rush in exchange for future considerations. This is a head-scratching move from Railers general manager Nick Tuzzolino as the first-year GM traded away left-shooting defender Artyom Kulakov citing what would be a lack of playing time for the Russian defenseman. Rons also finished his junior and collegiate careers with significant “minus” ratings, making this even more of a confusing move. Rons was a minus-1 in his only pro game, a 5-2 Rush loss to the Utah Grizzlies on October 26th.
Just prior to Saturday’s start the Fort Wayne Komets announced they had traded Austen Swankler to Worcester. Some digging by Justin A. Cohn, who covers the ECHL for FloHockey, determined that while it wasn’t announced Swankler was sent to the Railers to complete two trades involving the Greenville Swamp Rabbits. The Komets owed the Swamp Rabbits future considerations for the Brannon McManus trade, and Greenville owed Worcester future considerations for the Zach White trade. So Swankler is the future considerations for both of those trades. As we’ve mentioned before, welcome to ECHL hockey.
Before the Railers/Mariners tilt the Boston Bruins Alumni took on the “Why Me All-Stars” in a charity fundraiser match-up, and while the Bruins win pretty much every year it’s usually close in the first half. This year it was a laugher from the opening puck drop as the Bruins won handily 13-5 in a game that was nowhere near as close as the score sounds. Former Worcester IceCats forward Jason Zent played as a “special guest” member of the Bruins alumni and had two very nice goals.
More scoring changes were made from last weekend’s series against Norfolk. Jordan Kaplan gaining an assist on Matthew Kopperud’s first-period goal on Friday was already announced, but as we predicted Ryan Dickinson was credited with a secondary assist on Andrei Bakanov’s goal, and Anthony Repaci’s OT goal, which was originally listed as unassisted, now has helpers from Kopperud and Connor Welsh. For Sunday’s game, Welsh’s second-period strike originally listed an assist to Kopperud, but that has been changed to helpers by Jack Randl and Colin Jacobs.
I was asked if Friday’s postponement was the first “anything” in Worcester hockey, and without doing a lot of digging it’s safe to say it wasn’t. While the IceCats never had a game postponed for any reason the WorSharks had at least a couple, with one being due to unsafe ice conditions. The first Worcester hockey postponement was a memorable one, on November 15, 2008, as over 6,000 fans got to stand around in the mostly dark DCU Center after a malfunction and small fire in the main electrical room. Actor Jason Earles, who was staring in Hannah Montana at the time, continued to sign autographs while being lit by flashlights held by DCU Center security and WorSharks ticket staff well after the game was postponed.
In voting over on the Railers’ fans “Hockey,hockey,hockey” group it was Connor Welsh emerging as last week’s winner for “Railers Player of the Week” with, as of Saturday morning, over 60% of the votes cast. Defending winner Matthew Kopperud was second, and Riley Piercey finished third.
The three stars of the game were:
1. WOR – 81 Anthony Repaci
2. WOR – 32 Michael Bullion
3. WOR – 10 Jordan Kaplan
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Jack Randl.
Even Strength Lines
Piercey / Kopperud / Gill
Randl / Kaplan / Repaci
Bakanov / DeMelis / Loughran
Johnson / Jacobs / Donhauser
Luce / Welsh
McDonald / Klee
Rajaniemi / Dickinson
Our affiliates last night
New Jersey 4, NY Islanders 3 OT
Providence 8, Bridgeport 4
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Norfolk 3, Adirondack 2
Reading 4, Indy 2
Wheeling 4, Trois-Rivieres 3
BOX SCORE
Maine 0 1 0 – 1
Worcester 0 2 3 – 5
1st Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Piercey Wor (hooking), 3:36; Luce Wor (tripping), 7:21; Vidmar Mne (hooking), 14:38.
2nd Period-1, Worcester, Piercey 4 (Welsh, Gill), 1:34. 2, Maine, Vidmar 1 (Millman, Deveaux), 3:46. 3, Worcester, Randl 3 (Kaplan, Welsh), 7:54. Penalties-Bavaro Mne (tripping), 11:55.
3rd Period-4, Worcester, Repaci 3 (Kaplan, Dickinson), 0:33. 5, Worcester, Repaci 4 (Kaplan, Randl), 14:35. 6, Worcester, Repaci 5 (McDonald, Piercey), 16:53 (PP). Penalties-Piercey Wor (hooking), 5:47; Jermain Mne (hooking), 9:07; Vidmar Mne (tripping), 15:52; Loughran Wor (high-sticking), 18:00.
Shots on Goal-Maine 10-7-9-26. Worcester 6-9-9-24.
Power Play Opportunities-Maine 0 / 4; Worcester 1 / 4.
Goalies-Maine, Maier 1-3-0-0 (24 shots-19 saves). Worcester, Bullion 3-1-0-0 (26 shots-25 saves).
A-5,720
Referees-Marc-Olivier Phaneuf (23), Alexandre Bechard (27).
Linesmen-Nicolas Boivin (82), Davids Rozitis (90).
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