The Worcester Railers and Reading Royals faced off Friday night at Santander Arena in Pennsylvania in the first of their final two regular season games to determine the fourth and final spot in the ECHL’s North Division playoffs, and despite storming back from a 3-0 deficit the Railers once again stumbled in the shootout to lose 4-3. Saturday night’s winner will now claim that final playoff berth.
If there was ever a time for Worcester to not play the “Yeah, we’re not going to bother to show up in the first period” game, it was Friday. And, unfortunately, that’s precisely what they did.
It took all of 11 seconds for the Railers to fall behind 1-0 when Yvan Mongo took the first shot of the game and Worcester netminder Michael Bullion saved it, only to have the rebound go to an uncovered Matt Miller, who deposited the puck into a yawning net.
Anther uncovered player, Shane Sellar, made it 2-0 at 7:21 when he was all alone in front of the net and banged home the rebound of Austin Master’s shot. Their final goal of the frame came just 13 seconds after Pito Walton’s undisciplined and unnecessary roughing minor when Gianfranco Cassaro blasted one from the point where it was tipped by Mason Primeau at 16:42.
If that period wasn’t enough to make Railers fans sick on its own, the ones watching from home and at the team-sponsored watch party had to deal with the absolute worst camera angles and video direction in the entirety of professional hockey.
Worcester’s only power play of the game came in the second period, and it was Anthony Repaci and his 200th career Railers point that got his team on the board, with assists going to Anthony Callin and Justin Gill.
Heading to the third period Worcester really needed to get one early, and that’s exactly what they did when Tanner Schachle’s shot attempt didn’t go so well but the puck ended up on the stick of Lincoln Hatten, who flipped it past Royals netminder Keith Petruzzelli at 2:38. Connor Welsh had the secondary helper.
With 9:14 remaining in regulation, it was Repaci time again when Cole Donhauser found his captain streaking toward the net. Petruzzelli made the save on Repaci’s first bid, but Repaci was able to beat everyone to the loose puck and pushed it into the wide-open net to make it 3-3.
Neither team cares about the points for getting the game into overtime; both just need wins. So, of course, the game went to the extra session where, despite the shots being listed as 5-5, it was almost all Reading. It’s also where Worcester rookie head coach Nick Tuzzolino has some explaining to do.
Most of the players used by Tuzzolino in the three-on-three action were predictable, with Repaci, Gill, Callin, and Jordan Kaplan all getting multiple shifts. Matt DeMelis, as a center, also had more than one overtime shift, although with the Railers winning just two of the eight face-offs in extra time, a center that doesn’t score often nor set up goals seems like a waste.
But Matthew Kopperud, the team’s fifth leading goal scorer who has an overtime goal to his credit this season, only had one shift. Riley Piercey, who is second on the team with two overtime goals, never saw the ice. Neither did Tyler Kobryn, who is averaging more than a goal every three games with Worcester, which is better than most on the team.
The Railers are terrible in the shootout, with Connor Welsh the only Worcester player to score even once in the skills competition this season. Because the first team to score in the shootout has a massive statistical advantage of winning, conventional wisdom says he should be shooting first. Tuzzolino sent out Ryan Mahshie and his five goals in 73 career ECHL games. Predictably, he missed. Reading then scored on their first attempt, and once Welsh missed in round two, it was all but over.
RAILERS’ ATTENDANCE HITS 4K PER GAME
With the home regular season over, the Railers once again surpassed the 4,000 per game line this season in attendance, the first time they’ve hit that mark since the shortened 2019-20 season.
An error in the ECHL’s attendance number for the team was discovered last Sunday morning when this writer and Sr. Director of Ticket Sales Connor Haynes discussed how many tickets needed to be sold to break the 4K barrier, and our numbers didn’t match. At some point during the season, a wrong number was entered into the system, creating a discrepancy of over 500 tickets to the Railers’ gross number of attendees between the number the ECHL had and the number Ticketmaster had. Once the error was discovered and corrected, Worcester ended up at exactly 144,000 attendees, for an average of 4,000.
Haynes attributed the rise from last season’s 3,666 per game average to a change in philosophy about the types of tickets being sold. “As a staff, we decided to put a heavy focus into season tickets and single-game tickets, and we rebranded and retooled our membership platform to help increase sales in these two areas.”
Despite losing three member of the ticket staff during this season their plans were still successful. “We knew the groups would continue to come and attend. The staff bought into the changes we made, and we were able to grow our fan base and bring in many new faces to the DCU Center. And we were able to get many of these new faces to buy ticket packages. Sometimes you just need to get them to sip on a little bit of orange Kool-Aid, and they’re hooked,” he added.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Alec Cicero, Ryan Dickinson (IR/unknown), JD Dudek (IR/unknown), Kabore Dunn (3-day IR), Riley Ginnell, Griffin Loughran (IR/unknown), and Matt Ustaski (IR/unknown). Hugo Ollas was the backup goaltender. Before Friday’s game, Bridgeport loaned Riley Piercey back to Worcester.
On Monday, the Railers activated Kolby Johnson from the Injured Reserve List and suspended him to retain his playing rights after the fan-favorite enforcer left the team. The timing is odd as Johnson, who was collecting his check while on the injured list, can’t sign with another ECHL team while under the Railers’ suspension, and the SPHL team that owns his rights in that league, the Pensacola Ice Flyers, didn’t make the post season. An email sent to the Federal Prospects Hockey League to ask about Johnson’s eligibility in that league went unanswered by posting time.
In scoring changes from last week, as we suspected, Anthony Callin’s Railers’ record-breaking fifth unassisted goal of the season Friday night in Adirondack turned out to not be unassisted, with helpers added postgame to Cam McDonald and Lincoln Hatten. That goal now reads “2. WOR – Callin 23 (McDonald, Hatten), 19:18.”
For a second time this season, a Railers player who looked to be facing supplementary discipline escaped a suspension, and once again, a game-changing official’s error may have been the reason. In Sunday’s overtime loss, Matthew Kopperud was given a cross-checking major and game misconduct for his incident with Adirondack forward Kishaun Gervais in the second period, and that usually results in at least a one-game vacation. But like Jordan Kaplan’s aggressor game misconduct against Trois-Rivieres, it appears the ECHL threw Worcester a bone and ignored the infraction.
With the New York Islanders in a freefall down the NHL’s Eastern Conference standings, they recalled goaltender Tristan Lennox from the Bridgeport Islanders under emergency conditions on Tuesday after their number one goaltender, Ilya Sorokin, went down with an injury. In their game Thursday, the usual backup, Marcus Hogberg, couldn’t stop a beachball, so Islanders head coach Patrick Roy put Lennox in the game, who made one save on two shots before being lifted for Hogberg. Roy later said he made a mistake putting Lennox in the game without even so much as an NHL practice under his belt, and then decided to take him out when he realized his error. Lennox has played just four games in AHL Bridgeport this season after returning earlier in March from a major knee injury that kept him out 14 months. In playing in the NHL, he becomes the fourth former Railers player to appear in an NHL game after playing in Worcester, joining Ken Appleby, Arnaud Durandeau, and Jakub Skarek. For Lennox, Durandeau, and Skarek, it was their NHL debuts; Appleby played three NHL games with the New Jersey Devils before joining the Islanders organization. A fifth former Railers player, Eamon McAdam, was recalled by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2018 and dressed as a backup but did not appear in a game.
The three stars of the game were
1. REA – Matt Brown (#37)
2. WOR – Anthony Repaci (#81)
3. REA – Mason Primeau (#25)
The 210Sports Player of the Game was Lincoln Hatten.
Even Strength Lines
Donhauser / Callin / Repaci
Kopperud / Kaplan / Gill
Kobryn / DeMelis / Piercey
Schachle / Mahshie / Hatten
Welsh / Luce
McDonald / Klee
Rajaniemi / Walton
Press Releases
RAILERS: Railers Comeback Falls Short in 4-3 Shootout Loss To Royals
ROYALS: Royals Down Railers in Shootout 4-3
Our affiliates last night
No games scheduled
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Adirondack 5, Maine 2
Wheeling 5, Trois-Rivieres 2
South Carolina 6, Norfolk 3
BOX SCORE
Worcester 0 1 2 0 – 3
Reading 3 0 0 0 – 4
1st Period-1, Reading, Miller 14 (Mongo, Cassaro), 0:11. 2, Reading, Sellar 12 (Master, Calisti), 7:23. 3, Reading, Primeau 12 (Cassaro, Calisti), 16:42 (PP). Penalties-Repaci Wor (interference on the goalkeeper), 4:21; Walton Wor (roughing), 16:29.
2nd Period-4, Worcester, Repaci 28 (Callin, Gill), 9:57 (PP). Penalties-Nardi Rea (high-sticking), 8:22; Kopperud Wor (holding), 13:42.
3rd Period-5, Worcester, Hatten 9 (Schachle, Welsh), 2:38. 6, Worcester, Repaci 29 (Donhauser, Luce), 10:46. Penalties-McDonald Wor (kneeing), 3:58; Kobryn Wor (slashing), 10:52.
1st OT Period- No Scoring.Penalties-No Penalties
Shootout – Worcester 0 (Mahshie NG, Welsh NG, Repaci NG), Reading 1 (Brown G, Nardi NG).
Shots on Goal-Worcester 8-9-12-5-0-34. Reading 16-7-17-5-1-46.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 1 / 1; Reading 1 / 5.
Goalies-Worcester, Bullion 17-14-1-3 (45 shots-42 saves). Reading, Petruzzelli 13-16-4-0 (34 shots-31 saves).
A-3,059
Referees-Yannick Jobin-Manseau (30), Logan Gruhl (29).
Linesmen-Davids Rozitis (90), Sean Perry (92).
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