After Friday night’s 8-1 thrashing at the hands of the South Carolina Stingrays the Worcester Railers made a mad dash to Colisée Vidéotron in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec for the first of a pair of weekend matchups against the Lions on Saturday night, and had to recover from two two-goal deficits to get the game to overtime where Riley Piercey connected with just 22 seconds left in the extra session to give the Railers the 5-4 win.
With his four-point night, Worcester captain Anthony Repaci became the new all-time Railers franchise points leader with 151, passing Barry Almeida for the top spot. Repaci is now tied with John McCarthy for fifth in points all-time in Worcester pro hockey history. Worcester Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Boguniecki is next on the list at 155. Repaci’s franchise record of 74 Railers goals trails only Marc Brown’s 79 for the top spot in Worcester pro hockey history, and he trails Almeida for the Railers assist record by 13.
But it was a roller coaster ride before Piercey’s heroics and for Repaci to reach those career marks Saturday.
Jakov Novak would give Trois-Rivieres a 1-0 lead at 15:30 of the opening period when the Lions needed just 11 seconds to take advantage of their first power play opportunity. Novak would strike again in the second period at 12:13 after Railers netminder John Muse made a nice save on a three-on-one rush. As play continued Muse didn’t see the cross-ice feed to Novak, and he had all 24 square feet to shoot at.
The Railers would grab their first power play goal at 16:19 of the middle frame on a Matthew Kopperud one-timer. Repaci and Connor Welsh got the assists.
Worcester’s second power play goal of the game came just 53 seconds into the third period when Anthony Callin’s one-timer was partially stopped by Lions goaltender Hunter Jones, but Piercey was there to swipe the loose puck into the net. Repaci had the secondary helper on the play.
After needing just 11 seconds for their first power play goal Trois-Rivieres improved on that and used just six seconds of Ryan Verrier’s ill-timed roughing minor to take a 3-2 lead at 9:41. Jonathan Yantsis scored what could have been the backbreaker at 11:21 after finding a loose puck and flipping it past Muse for the Lions 4-2 lead.
As it turns out, Repaci has a very strong back as he once again lifted his team and carried them back to an even score. His first goal came at 13:02 after a nice feed from Jordan Kaplan.
Railers career point number 151 for Repaci tied the game 4-4. It was on a gifted power play and was scored with Muse on the bench for an extra attacker to make it six skaters on four. Welsh and Kopperud had the assists.
It was Worcester’s first extra attacker goal since January 20, 2024, in Fort Wayne, a game they won 4-3 in a shootout.
The overtime period was like a basketball game, with both sides going up and down the ice nonstop. If there was a whistle in the first four and half minutes of extra time this writer doesn’t recall it.
Just a few moments after Kopperud beat Jones on a three-zone breakaway only to hit the near post, Piercey, at the end of a long shift, had just enough gas left to earn the Railers the extra point.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Michael Bullion (3-day IR/unknown), Cole Crowder (14-day IR/unknown), JD Dudek (IR/upper body), Colin Jacobs, and Matias Rajaniemi. Henrick Tikkanen was the backup goaltender.
On Saturday, the ECHL Department of Player Safety announced that Trois-Rivières’ Brycen Martin had been suspended for two games as the result of his major penalty and game misconduct for elbowing at 19:21 of the third period on Friday night against Maine. He missed Saturday’s game between the Railers and Lions and will miss Sunday’s contest.
In his game story on the Railers website for Friday night’s game, Bill Ballou mentioned a scoring error that this writer had missed, and a Worcester player lost out on a “plus” rating on Jack Randl’s shorthanded goal in Norfolk on November 3rd. The scorer listed just the point-getters on the play, Randl, Cole Donhauser, and Ryan Dickinson as getting a “plus”, leaving out the fourth penalty killer. Now this could theoretically be possible if that fourth player was substituting during the rush and his replacement wasn’t on the ice yet, but that never happens on a play well away from the bench as those two players would have likely both been on the sheet at the same time changing places, and the “plus” would go to the player entering the ice. Turns out it didn’t matter as Matias Rajaniemi was on the ice for the faceoff in the Railers’ end and was part of the congratulatory gathering to the right of Admirals netminder Joe Cannata. Will Rajaniemi get his “plus”? At this point, probably not. But the mystery is solved.
Speaking of “pluses”, the scoring on Riley Piercey’s overtime goal looks pretty straightforward as it reads “OT1. WOR Piercey, (6) (Klee), 6:38”. But a deeper dive shows one of hockey scoring’s oddities and one that was used as an example in the Rajaniemi “plus” mystery in the previous section. Mason Klee caused a turnover at the Worcester bench that Piercey collected and scored on, but while Piercey was racing into the zone Klee was replaced on the ice by Connor Welsh and Jack Randl, who was the last man back defensively, also raced to the bench to be replaced by Jordan Kaplan. Welsh and Kaplan, who did nothing but be on the ice when the goal was scored, earn a plus-1, while Klee and Randle do not. I’m sure Klee is happy with an assist and the win though.
If you’ve gone to a Railers game at the DCU Center this season and thought to yourself that there looks to be a lot more people in the arena, you’d be right. Through six games last season Worcester averaged 3,158 fans per game, but this season they’ve improved at the gate by over 40%, currently averaging 4,527 fans per night. This is because Vice President of Tickets and Corporate Partnerships Dave Aitken, Senior Director of Ticket Sales Connor Haynes, and the rest of the ticket staff spent all last season focusing on future ticket sales growth, rebranding season ticket memberships as the “508 Club” and making a heavy push to sign up new members. Late last season if you arrived just as the doors opened, you’d have seen the staff working with new season ticket members in picking seats and choosing what packages would work best for them. And that hard work has paid off. According to Haynes, season tickets are up over 175% over last season. Group sales are also up over last year, with significant sales already made for both the IceCats and Star Wars nights. What does this mean for current fans? It means that buddy passes and banked tickets should be redeemed as early as possible as many key dates already have sections filling up quickly. Haynes suggests emailing your ticket rep to redeem them as that’s the fastest and easiest way to guarantee the best seat selection.
The three stars of the game were:
1. WOR – 19 Riley Piercey
2. TR – 86 Jakov Novak
3. WOR – 81 Anthony Repaci
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Matthew Kopperud.
Even Strength Lines
Randl / Kaplan / Repaci
Piercey / Callin / Loughran
Kopperud / DeMelis / Donhauser
Johnson / Bakanov / Hatten
Luce / Welsh
Rons / Klee
Verrier / Dickinson
Our affiliates last night
Seattle 2, NY Islanders 1
Bridgeport 5, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 2
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Wheeling 5, Indy 2
Toldeo 6, Norfolk 2
Adirondack 4, Reading 2
South Carolina 6, Maine 1
BOX SCORE
Worcester 0 1 3 1 – 5
Trois-Rivières 1 1 2 0 – 4
1st Period-1, Trois-Rivières, Novak 6 (Jandric, Guay), 15:30 (PP). Penalties-Beauchamp Tr (slashing), 3:52; Welsh Wor (hooking), 15:19; Loughran Wor (slashing), 19:22.
2nd Period-2, Trois-Rivières, Novak 7 (Jandric, Beauregard), 12:13. 3, Worcester, Kopperud 4 (Repaci, Welsh), 16:19 (PP). Penalties-Yantsis Tr (interference), 15:36; Jandric Tr (slashing), 18:06.
3rd Period-4, Worcester, Piercey 5 (Callin, Repaci), 0:52 (PP). 5, Trois-Rivières, Nijhoff 2 (Jandric, Novak), 9:41 (PP). 6, Trois-Rivières, Yantsis 1 (Hylland), 11:21. 7, Worcester, Repaci 8 (Kaplan), 13:02. 8, Worcester, Repaci 9 (Welsh, Kopperud), 17:44 (PP). Penalties-Kaplan Wor (fighting – major), 0:44; Novak Tr (instigating, fighting – major), 0:44; Verrier Wor (roughing), 9:35; Hatten Wor (roughing), 16:04; Cormier Tr (slashing), 16:04; Nijhoff Tr (roughing), 16:04.
1st OT Period-9, Worcester, Piercey 6 (Klee), 6:38. Penalties-No Penalties
Shots on Goal-Worcester 7-11-17-4-39. Trois-Rivières 11-9-17-3-40.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 3 / 5; Trois-Rivières 2 / 3.
Goalies-Worcester, Muse 2-1-0-0 (40 shots-36 saves). Trois-Rivières, Jones 2-0-2-0 (39 shots-34 saves).
A-1,936
Referees-Emile Charron (43), Ben Betker (56).
Linesmen-Maxime Carre (77), Ben Fortin (44).
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