The Worcester Railers hosted the Trois-Rivieres Lions Friday night in the first of a pair of contests between the ECHL North Division rivals this weekend at the DCU Center and couldn’t take advantage of a Jordan Kaplan Gordie Howe hat trick, dropping the opener 5-3.
There is no shame in losing to a better team, and there is no question that Trois-Rivieres is the better team. In terms of points percentage, the Lions are the second-best team in the ECHL at .763 while the Railers are languishing at the bottom of that chart, ranking tied for 25th at just .400. The Lions are on an 11-game points streak, while Worcester has points in only 11 total games this entire season. The Railers are also one of two teams that haven’t scored an empty net goal this season. The woeful Cincinnati Cyclones are the other.
So, yes, there’s no argument that Trois-Rivieres is better.
The problem is the Railers are working hard and accomplishing nothing. They don’t have enough players who can consistently put the puck in the opponent’s net, and they also don’t have enough who can help stop the puck from going into their own goal. They take undisciplined penalties, often at the worst moments, as if there’s a great time to take a dumb penalty, and their 28th ranked penalty kill often puts them behind the eight-ball.
The first step to fixing any problem is admitting there’s a problem to be fixed. Here’s to hoping that they’ve done that behind closed doors and have a plan to get this team back on track and headed in the right direction. Because that plan needs to be implemented, and quickly. Even the even-keeled Bill Ballou is saying that, so it must be obvious to the Railers hockey operations people, right?
Right?
As for the game, Kolby Johnson did his best to fire up his team when he took on Mathieu Boislard at center ice two and a half minutes into the first in what would be a headlining bout in any arena.
We have more on this fight, and its aftermath, in the notes section below.
Despite Johnson winning the battle Worcester didn’t gain any real momentum from it as both clubs played about evenly as the period progressed. Eventually Cam McDonald would grab his first pro goal when his attempted centering feed to Anthony Repaci went a bit wide, hitting Lions defender Vincent Sevigny in the skate and deflecting past Trois-Rivieres’ goaltender Zachary Emond and into the net at 9:30.
The Lions would grab the next two in the period, the first being one of those unlucky bounces that seems to always go against a struggling team when Alex Beaucage attempted a shot that broke his stick, only to have the puck end up right on the tape of Anthony Beauregard, who flipped it over John Muse to make it 1-1 at 14:10.
Just when it looked like the teams would be heading to intermission tied Beaucage was able to give Trois-Rivieres the 2-1 lead with 21.3 seconds left in the first period after J.D. Dudek wiped out Muse during a poor attempt to check Nicolas Guay as Guay crashed the net.
It got worse from there as referee Austin Rook was completely fooled by Sevigny’s dive and sent newcomer William Provost off for tripping early in the second period. And as happens far too frequently, the Railers followed that poor call up with another more deserving penalty, a double-minor for high sticking to Matias Rajaniemi, and it was five on three.
And then it was 3-1 on a Beauregard power play goal. And then it was 4-1 on an Isaac Dufort power play goal. And then the Railers fans were vocal about their displeasure.
You could get an entire blog post about the rest of the idiocy referees Rook and Evan Reddick called in the remainder of the second period, but we’ll just say they got far more wrong in both directions than they got right. And they did it in front of Dan Petrino, the ECHL’s Vice President of Hockey Operations, who will probably turn a blind eye to it. They also didn’t call a single non-automatic penalty in the third period.
Odd that the teams combined for 44 penalty minutes in the first two periods and only two in the third, isn’t it?
Repaci would stop the bleeding at 13:48 of the middle period with his 22nd career power play goal for Worcester, tying him with Dan Corso for 5th all-time in Worcester pro hockey history.
After a first period assist and a second period fight all Kaplan would need was a third period goal for the Gordie Howe hat trick and he’d get that on the power play at 1:23 of the frame.
But that would be it for the comeback, and Beaucage added an empty net goal with a minute remaining to make it the 5-3 final.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Matt DeMelis (14-day IR/unknown), Christian Krygier, Collin Jacobs, Griffin Loughran (3-day IR/unknown injury), and Brenden Rons (14-day IR/unknown). Michael Bullion was the backup goaltender. Zack Nazzarett, who didn’t get a real opportunity to show anything, was released Friday.
The Kolby Johnson vs Mathieu Boislard first-period battle was one of the best we’ve seen in quite some time, and unfortunately, Boislard appeared to be staggered by a late Johnson punch and went down. He looked a bit unstable on his feet after slowly getting up, and seeing that, linesman Jack McQuesten prevented Boislard from heading to the penalty box and instead sent Boislard off the ice with Lions trainer Audrey-Anne Binet. About 20 minutes of “real-time” passed before Boislard returned to action. During the second intermission, I asked Railers COO Mike Myers about the league’s concussion protocols, and he said that while the ECHL doesn’t have concussion spotters like the NHL all ECHL on-ice officials have received training in spotting possible concussions and have the authority to send players off for evaluation. He added that team trainers preform the initial evaluation, which includes several league-mandated tests that must all be passed before the player is cleared to return. While a doctor is not required to be involved the trainer can, obviously, request the physician in attendance take part in the evaluation. Myers also praised linesman McQuesten’s initial intervention, saying “that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen”.
On Wednesday, before their 5-2 loss to Reading, Worcester acquired Riley Ginnell from the Allen Americans to complete the future considerations deal for Artyom Kulakov. As of the moment of the trade, the forward Ginnell had fewer points this season, two, than the defenseman Kulakov, three. This continues the long streak of the Railers receiving less from players they’ve acquired in trades than those that they’ve given up are giving their current teams. And when you figure in that Zach White gave Greenville no points before being traded to Fort Wayne, the accomplishment of getting less than zero for White is quite impressive.
In some Railers alumni news, Brendan Less, now of the Adirondack Thunder, has signed a PTO with the Syracuse Crunch. He joins Drew Callin as the only two players to start their pro careers with the Railers to be in the AHL this season. Less played six games for Worcester at the end of the 2021-22 season, notching one assist. Because it’s a PTO there’s a chance Less could be back to Adirondack before you even read this. Such is life in the ECHL.
The three stars of the game were
1. TR – 16 Alex Beaucage
2. WOR – 10 Jordan Kaplan
3. TR – 91 Anthony Beauregard
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Connor Welsh.
Even Strength Lines
Randl / Kaplan / Repaci
Piercey / Callin / Provost
Ginnell / Donhauser / Kopperud
Johnson / Dudek / Hatten
Luce / Welsh
McDonald / Klee
Rajaniemi / Dickinson
Our affiliates last night
Providence 5, Bridgeport 3
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Maine 5, Adirondack 2
Wheeling 4, Reading 1
Norfolk 6, Cincinnati 1
BOX SCORE
Trois-Rivières 2 2 1 – 5
Worcester 1 1 1 – 3
1st Period-1, Worcester, McDonald 1 (Kaplan, Randl), 9:30. 2, Trois-Rivières, Beauregard 5 (Beaucage, Jandric), 14:10. 3, Trois-Rivières, Beaucage 5 (Nijhoff, Proctor), 19:38. Penalties-Boislard Tr (fighting – major), 2:32; Johnson Wor (fighting – major), 2:32; Dufort Tr (cross-checking), 11:33; Provost Wor (slashing), 15:37.
2nd Period-4, Trois-Rivières, Beauregard 6 (Beaucage, Jandric), 3:07 (PP). 5, Trois-Rivières, Dufort 1 (Guay, Martin), 3:56 (PP). 6, Worcester, Repaci 17 (Welsh, Kopperud), 13:48 (PP). Penalties-Provost Wor (tripping), 1:52; Rajaniemi Wor (high-sticking – double), 2:55; Cormier Tr (fighting – major), 10:02; Kaplan Wor (fighting – major), 10:02; Paiement Tr (tripping), 11:17; Proctor Tr (hooking), 12:49; McLeod Tr (cross-checking), 14:43; served by Provost Wor (bench – too many men), 16:06; Donhauser Wor (unsportsmanlike conduct – disputing decision), 16:42; Dufort Tr (double – roughing), 19:23; Donhauser Wor (roughing), 19:23.
3rd Period-7, Worcester, Kaplan 3 (Repaci, Welsh), 1:23 (PP). 8, Trois-Rivières, Beaucage 6 19:00 (EN). Penalties-Muse Wor (delay of game), 2:41.
Shots on Goal-Trois-Rivières 9-13-7-29. Worcester 6-11-11-28.
Power Play Opportunities-Trois-Rivières 2 / 7; Worcester 2 / 5.
Goalies-Trois-Rivières, Jones 5-0-3-0 (28 shots-25 saves). Worcester, Muse 3-3-1-1 (28 shots-24 saves).
A-2,201
Referees-Evan Reddick (21), Austin Rook (11).
Linesmen-Jack McQuesten (53), Sam Schildkraut (46).
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