Saturday night the Worcester Railers visited WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia for the first time since March 2018 to take on the Nailers, the top team in the ECHL, and lost a one-goal lead in each of the three regulation periods before losing 4-3 in a shootout.
WesBanco Arena is an older building with an ice surface that’s 185′ x 85′, or 15 feet shorter than the normal size used in North American hockey. While this wasn’t uncommon in the early days of hockey, it’s so rare now that it’s a definite advantage for the home team. Still, it wasn’t a big enough advantage to hinder the Railers in holding those leads.
No, they did that themselves.
Worcester’s first lead came just 2:54 into the contest when Anthony Repaci was able to tip Ryan Dickinson’s point shot past Wheeling netminder Sergei Murashov. Jordan Kaplan had the secondary assist.
As you can hear from the video Railers play-by-play man Tim Foley had the call correct as it happened, but the official scorer initially gave Dickinson’s assist (#25) to Connor Welsh (#26). An easy numerical mistake to make, but we’ll have to ask Tim where his broadcasting position is in Wheeling compared to where the scorers sit.
Later in that opening period, Mason Klee, who had no Nailers player near him, fired the puck out of play from the defensive end and earned himself the automatic delay of game minor. Seven seconds and one shot later, it was 1-1 at 16:06.
Throughout their franchise history, the Railers have had the annoying habit of allowing quick goals after scoring one themselves. While they haven’t done it lately it generally happens many times during the season. Saturday, they did it to Wheeling as J.D. Dudek scored his first career road goal for Worcester after converting on a two-on-one break with Justin Gill at 16:58.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Anthony Callin is awarded a secondary assist on the play, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he isn’t.
It took until 15:05 of the middle period for Wheeling to tie it, and it was Matt Koopman lighting the lamp after the Railers got caught running around in their own zone trying to recover from a Nailers odd-man rush. You could argue that Matthew Quercia interfered with Worcester netminder Hugo Ollas earlier in the play and Ollas never recovered enough to make the save, and you might win that argument in the NHL, but probably not in the ECHL.
Either way, the Railers didn’t argue at all.
Another thing Worcester has done a lot in their franchise history is allowing a goal in the first or last minute of a period. And like their quick answering goal in the first period the Railers bucked the trend again and scored one against Wheeling with 34.9 seconds left in the middle period.
Kaplan picked up his 20th assist on the season on the play.
Halfway through the third period, the Nailers would knot the score for a third time when they converted on a rush into the Worcester zone. The Railers, who had three players back, played it well until some miscommunication between Kaplan and Dickinson allowed Gabe Klassen to skate virtually unhindered to the Worcester net where he was able to deflect a shot past Ollas at 10:41.
Neither team could light the lamp for the remainder of regulation and through overtime, and the Railers’ woes in the shootout continued as they once again lost the skills competition, and the extra point went to Wheeling.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Matthew Boudens (IR/upper body), and Brendan Rons (IR/unknown). Michael Bullion was the backup goaltender. On Friday Bridgeport recalled defender Christian Krygier, and Saturday Matthew Kopperud was recalled.
Worcester Head Coach Nick Tuzzolino has not hired an assistant yet, and this late into the season it’s more likely it won’t happen until the summer months. Railers COO Mike Myers previously said it would be “assistant by committee” for the time being, and on Saturday night that committee included injured forward Matthew Boudens. On the broadcast, Tim Foley mentioned it wasn’t the first time Boudens had taken that role in his career, and it wasn’t the first time in Railers franchise history an injured player was behind the bench. Barry Almeida did it a couple of times after Jamie Rusell was fired and Dave Cunniff was brought in. The first time was on December 04, 2019, in Worcester’s 2-0 in Brampton. In the WorSharks days, Jimmy Bonneau joined Roy Sommer and Cunniff behind the bench on several occasions, and it happened several times in the IceCats inaugural season as Jim Roberts had no official assistant, with Walt Poddubny being the most common helper behind the bench.
On Thursday goaltender Dante Giannuzzi was traded to the Iowa Heartlanders for the ever-popular “future considerations”. This is essentially a nothing transaction. Simply put, Iowa needed a goaltender and wanted Giannuzzi, and instead of having to risk claiming Giannuzzi of waivers from the Railers, which would take an extra day assuming no other team claimed him, Worcester essentially gave Iowa Giannuzzi’s contract. It’s a standard arrangement between teams in the ECHL, and since you can’t trade something for nothing, the “future considerations” involved will likely be a small amount of cash at the end of the season.
It’s the first time this season that Worcester and Wheeling have hooked up, so we’ll take a look at some roster and area connections between the two teams. For the Nailers, forward Matt Koopman was born in Marblehead, MA, and spent the 2022-23 season at UMass-Amherst. Fellow forward Matt Quercia was born in Andover, MA, and spent three seasons at Boston University. Wheeling head coach Derek Army was an assistant coach for Worcester at the beginning of the franchise in 2017 until being fired along with head coach Jamie Russell on November 27, 2019. For the Railers it’s just head coach Nick Tuzzolino, who played three games for the Nailers in the 2010-11 season, notching an assist and eight penalty minutes.
In the same week as the 14th anniversary of the passing of former Worcester Sharks forward Tom Cavanagh, who took his own life while battling schizophrenia, the NHLPA announced their mental health training program launched a year ago would expand to the players in the American Hockey League and ECHL. The NHLPA and Professional Hockey Players’ Association announced Tuesday that the First Line initiative in conjunction with the Mental Health Commission of Canada now will be available to the PHPA’s more than 1,000 players who have AHL or ECHL, rather than NHL, contracts. The Associated Press article with more information can be found right here.
The three stars of the game were
1. WHL – 43 Jack Beck
2. WHL – 64 Gabe Klassen
3. WHL – 18 Chris Ortiz
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Jordan Kaplan.
Even Strength Lines
Repaci / Kaplan / Loughran
Gill / Callin / Dudek
Donhauser / DeMelis / Mahshie
Ginnell / Hatten / Johnson
Welsh / Luce
Rajaniemi / Dickinson
McDonald / Klee
Our affiliates last night
NY Islanders 2, Utah 1
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Reading 5, Trois-Rivieres 4
Orlando 4, Adirondack 3 OT
Norfolk 10, Maine 3
BOX SCORE
Worcester 2 1 0 0 – 3
Wheeling 1 1 1 0 – 4
1st Period-1, Worcester, Repaci 20 (Dickinson, Kaplan), 2:54. 2, Wheeling, Ortiz 3 (Beck, Jackson), 16:06 (PP). 3, Worcester, Dudek 1 (Gill), 16:58. Penalties-Klee Wor (delay of game), 15:59.
2nd Period-4, Wheeling, Koopman 5 (Ortiz, Quercia), 15:05. 5, Worcester, Loughran 6 (Kaplan), 19:25. Penalties-Johnson Wor (tripping), 0:17.
3rd Period-6, Wheeling, Klassen 8 (Calvert, Jackson), 10:41. Penalties-Ortiz Whl (tripping), 3:30; Welsh Wor (tripping), 5:05; Gill Wor (roughing), 5:15; Roehl Whl (roughing), 5:15; served by Beck Whl (bench – unsportsmanlike conduct), 6:47; Donhauser Wor (diving/embellishment), 13:06; De St. Phalle Whl (hooking), 13:06.
1st OT Period- No Scoring.Penalties-No Penalties
Shootout – Worcester 1 (Welsh G, Loughran NG, Callin NG), Wheeling 2 (Klassen NG, Jankowski G, Beck G).
Shots on Goal-Worcester 13-5-12-2-0-32. Wheeling 10-8-11-5-1-35.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 0 / 2; Wheeling 1 / 3.
Goalies-Worcester, Ollas 3-7-0-2 (34 shots-31 saves). Wheeling, Murashov 15-2-1-0 (32 shots-29 saves).
A-4,051
Referees-Logan Gruhl (29).
Linesmen-Felix-Antoine Voyer (57), Chad Fuller (76).
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