Sunday afternoon saw the Worcester Railers taking on the Wheeling Nailers for the second and final time at WesBanco Arena this regular season and they got two points each from Justin Gill and J.D. Dudek and 33 saves from Michael Bullion to defeat Wheeling 2-1 and hand the Nailers just their second home regulation loss of the season.
In what has suddenly become a trend it was the Railers once again opening the scoring when Gill converted on a textbook wraparound goal at 10:18 of the opening period to make it 1-0 Worcester. Dudek and Mason Klee got the assists on the play.
And it was that 1-0 score after twenty minutes thanks to Bullion as the ice seemed to be tilted toward him for most of the period despite the shots being about equal with Wheeling holding a 13-9 advantage.
The middle frame was just about all Railers, but they could only beat the reigning ECHL Goaltender of the Year Taylor Gauthier once, but it was a nice combo of Gill and Anthony Callin at 1:22 of the frame. If you blink watching the video, you’ll miss Dudek’s secondary assist.
Almost nothing has come easy for the Railers this season, and 40 seconds into the third period Logan Pietila cut the Railers lead to 2-1 with a nice put-back goal.
But the next nine shots would all be stopped by Bullion, and when the final horn sounded Worcester had two points and Bullion had tied WorSharks netminder J.P. Anderson for the most career wins by a right-catching goaltender in Worcester pro hockey history at six.
With the Railers beating the Nailers it took everything this writer has to not make a hammer pun, but hopefully there will be other opportunities next weekend when Wheeling visits the DCU Center on Saturday and Sunday.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Matthew Boudens (IR/upper body), and Brendan Rons (IR/unknown). Hugo Ollas was the backup goaltender.
In the ECHL’s infinite wisdom, and please denote the obvious sarcasm there, there won’t be an All-Star game this season but instead it has been replaced with the “Warrior/ECHL Hockey Heritage Classic” on Saturday, January 18, 2025, in Kalamazoo, Michigan where the K-Wings will host the Toledo Walleye in a regular season match-up. In what the ECHL deemed worthy of a press release, they announced that Austin O’Rourke and Rocco Stachowiak had been named as referees for the game. They were at least smart enough to turn off the comments on their Facebook page posting the announcement. Oddly, there are no comments on the Twitter/X post, which knowing the cesspool that place can be certainly seems odd. How ECHL Director of Officiating Operations Riley Yerkovich can let O’Rourke, son of NHL veteran referee Dan O’Rourke, anywhere near a highlighted game like that boggles the mind. Sure, the ECHL is a developmental league for officials too, but time and time again O’Rourke has shown he has no feel for the game. It’s one thing to know the rulebook, but it’s another to understand the game, and for someone who played three seasons of college hockey at UMass-Lowell you’d think O’Rourke would have some understanding of what’s going on out there. But, alas, example after example shows he needs massive improvement in that area. M-I-C…
Continuing about the lack of an ECHL All-Star game this season, imagine being a player who was named an All-Star, because the ECHL is still going to announce teams, only you don’t get to play in the actual game. It’s bad enough when you’re named to an All-Star team but don’t get to play because you were recalled and got to sit in the stands and watch a game, which is what Bridgeport did to Railers defender Trevor Cosgrove last season, but the players this season won’t even get that as now as the ECHL is too cheap to host an actual game and instead is highlighting a regular season game. For some of the players named it would have been their only opportunity to take part in All-Star festivities, and it was essentially stolen from them. Perhaps they’ll get some sort of commemorative jersey they didn’t get to wear. Maybe they could even get ECHL Commissioner Ryan Crelin to autograph it. That would be a treat, wouldn’t it? K-E-Y…
Since we’re picking on the ECHL, what dolt thought that putting Wheeling in the North Division and then having them play so few divisional games was the right thing to do? While the Nailers play Reading 11 times, they face off against Norfolk just twice and Maine only three times. The Railers see Wheeling four times, while Trois-Rivieres matches up with the Nailers six times, and Adirondack and Wheeling meet five times. It’s an absolute joke. M-O-U-S-E.
May as well continue giving the ECHL some crap, right? Many fans of all sports believe that referees shouldn’t decide games, and that the officials should let the players determine the outcome on their own. Saturday night in Glens Falls, ECHL referee Yannick Jobin-Manseau did not call a penalty on the play shown below, and by not calling the obvious penalty, Referee Jobin-Manseau did decide that game.
Based on how the ECHL does things, we can pencil Referee Jobin-Manseau into the Kelly Cup Final, right?
The three stars of the game were
1. WOR – 32 Michael Bullion
2. WOR – 7 Justin Gill
3. WHL – 49 Logan Pietila
The 210Sports Player of the Game was JD Dudek.
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
Bridgeport 5, Lehigh Valley 0
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Reading 4, Trois-Rivieres 3
Maine 5, Norfolk 3
Orlando 3, Adirondack 2
BOX SCORE
Worcester 1 1 0 – 2
Wheeling 0 0 1 – 1
1st Period-1, Worcester, Gill 3 (Dudek, Klee), 10:18. Penalties-No Penalties
2nd Period-2, Worcester, Callin 9 (Gill, Dudek), 1:22. Penalties-Repaci Wor (slashing), 15:24.
3rd Period-3, Wheeling, Pietila 4 (Klassen, Roehl), 0:40. Penalties-No Penalties
Shots on Goal-Worcester 9-17-3-29. Wheeling 13-10-11-34.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 0 / 0; Wheeling 0 / 1.
Goalies-Worcester, Bullion 6-10-0-2 (34 shots-33 saves). Wheeling, Gauthier 6-4-0-0 (29 shots-27 saves).
A-1,875
Referees-Logan Gruhl (29).
Linesmen-Chad Fuller (76), Joe Sherman (46).
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