The Worcester Railers headed north to Cross Insurance Arena in Portland Saturday morning for a matinee matchup against the Mariners and committed mistake after mistake, allowing two shorthanded goals while mustering just 15 shots on goal in a 3-0 loss to their North Division rivals.
The game was nowhere near as close as that score would make it seem.
Worcester had an early opportunity when they headed to the power play just 17 seconds into the contest, but not only did they waste it by not recording a shot on goal, they allowed a two-on-one when Cole Donhauser all but handed the puck to Maine forward Josh Bloom. Ryan Wheeler was unable to get into the passing lane, and Max Andreev had the shorthanded tally at 2:02.
Robert Cronin made it 2-0 Maine at 9:25 when all five Railers players ended up to the right of Worcester netminder Parker Gahagen, and Antonio Venuto was able to find Cronin all alone between the circles.
Andreev’s second shortie of the game came at 2:36 of the middle frame when Worcester won the initial faceoff, but the Mariners jumped on the loose puck, blowing by Stevie Moses’ poor attempt to corral the rolling puck. Like Wheeler before him, Vinny Corcoran couldn’t prevent the pass from the onrushing Mariners, and none of the Railers could get back to help out.
Worcester’s offensive ineptness continued the rest of the game. Three of the Railers five second-period shots came on a late power play, but never once was Luke Cavallin forced to make any difficult saves. In the third period, down three goals, Worcester didn’t record their first shot on goal until 11:05 had elapsed, and they didn’t have a shot on goal in over 90 seconds of extra attacker time with Gahagen pulled.
The last 23 seconds took longer than a basketball game as shenanigans took over.
To put this all in proper perspective, this writer’s wife, who usually pays attention to what’s going on on the ice about as much as I pay attention to Russian ballet, asked, “How can they be this bad?” and that’s a question that the Railers’ front office and ownership must be asking themselves. To be blunt, they should have been asking that question in August.
The good: The Railers’ penalty kill went 4-for-4, including killing off three minutes of major power play time.
The bad: Pretty much everything else.
The obvious: This team is not going to win many games unless somehow some offense shows up and they straighten out what is a pathetically bad power play.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Gabe Blanchard, Riley Ginnell (7-day IR/unknown), William Lavallière, Anthony Repaci (7-day IR/Upper body), and Adam Samuelsson. Gabriel Carriere was the backup goaltender. Repaci was once again behind the bench with head coach Nick Tuzzolino and assistant coach Chris Rumble, standing with the forwards.
In this week’s transactions, Springfield lost two forwards to the Blues on Monday, so the Thunderbirds recalled Sam Stange from the Railers. On Tuesday, the Hartford Wolf Pack sent goaltender Gabriel Carriere to Worcester, and the Railers released netminder Chase Clark. On Friday, Springfield announced they’d signed Railers forward Matt DeMelis to an AHL deal, and assigned him back to Worcester. Totally guessing here, but perhaps other AHL teams were showing interest in DeMelis, so the Thunderbirds grabbed him to keep him in the organization. Again, just a guess. Also on Friday, GM Nick Tuzzolino traded Dalton Duhart to Florida for “cash considerations”, which is better than the nothing the Railers would have gotten if they’d just released him and had to pay to get him back home.
Looking back at last weekend, sometimes those Sunday games cause some small things to be missed in the blog posting, and such was the case in the Railers’ embarrassing 5-2 loss to Trois-Rivières when we failed to notice that Michael Suda, who this writer called out for a brainless minor penalty late in the third period, was actually in the penalty box for all three power play goals against. It’s the first time since at least the 2006-07 season that a Worcester player was in the penalty box for three goals against. We’ll be talking with Bill Ballou in the near future about whether it ever happened during the IceCats years. A good guess is that it hasn’t, but we’ll try to make it official if we can. To complete the record, Suda was in the sin bin only once last season for a power play goal against.
Speaking of last weekend, we have the expected scoring change of Ryan Wheeler gaining an assist on Sam Stange’s second-period goal on Saturday. That goal now reads “2, Worcester, Stange 1 (Carson, Wheeler), 1:02.” That was the only Railers’ stats change of the weekend.
Since we forgot last weekend, we’ll take a look at the roster and area connections between the two teams today. For Maine, one of the original Railers players, Connor Doherty, returns to the Mariners after two seasons with Florida, winning the Kelly Cup last season with the Everblades. Defender Nick Anderson played one season at UMass-Lowell, while fellow blueliner Jack Bar spent four years at Harvard University, captaining the Crimson his final season there. For the forwards, Wyllum Deveaux also attended Harvard University, playing five seasons for the Crimson. Ryan McGuire spent a season at Northeastern University, Antonio Venuto spent a season at Merrimack College, and Robert Cronin was born in Plymouth, MA. Lastly, goaltender Max Lundgren spent two seasons at Merrimack College. On the Railers, defenseman Adam Samuelsson played eight games for the Mariners in 2023-24, scoring a goal.
The three stars of the game were
1. MNE – #23 Max Andreev
2. MNE – #37 Lule Cavallin
3. MNE – #17 Josh Bloom
The 210Sports Player of the Game was no one.
Even Strength Lines
Piercey / DeMelis / Moses
Hatten / Carson / McDonnell
Donhauser / Kaplan / Fawcett
Federkow / Abgrall / Hobbs
Suda / Corcoran
Wheeler / Kehrer
McDonald / Moore
Press Releases
RAILERS: Railers fall in first road game of the season 3-0 to Maine
MARINERS: Andreev’s Shorthanded Pair Gives Mariners Home-opener Win
Our affiliates last night
Carolina 4, St. Louis 0
Ottawa 7, NY Rangers 4
Springfield 2, Charlotte 1
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 3, Hartford 2
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Trois-Rivières 4, Norfolk 3 SO
Reading 4, Kalamazoo 1
Greenville 2, Greensboro 1 OT
Trenton 4, Adirondack 1
BOX SCORE
Worcester 0 0 0 – 0
Maine 2 1 0 – 3
1st Period-1, Maine, Andreev 1 (Bloom), 2:02 (SH). 2, Maine, Cronin 1 (Venuto, Francis), 9:25. Penalties-Bellamy Mne (tripping), 0:17; Bloom Mne (delay of game), 11:28; served by Francis Mne (bench – too many men), 13:51.
2nd Period-3, Maine, Andreev 2 (Bloom, Underwood), 2:36 (SH). Penalties-Cavallin Mne (tripping), 2:26; Hobbs Wor (roughing), 5:30; Doherty Mne (tripping), 17:13.
3rd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Federkow Wor (boarding – major, game misconduct – boarding), 1:55; Cronin Mne (roughing), 2:38; Bar Mne (slashing), 12:04; Piercey Wor (tripping), 14:07; Kaplan Wor (hooking), 18:49; Wheeler Wor (charging), 19:37; Anderson Mne (cross-checking), 19:37; Abgrall Wor (misconduct), 19:51; Hobbs Wor (slashing), 19:51; Suda Wor (misconduct), 19:51; Primeau Mne (slashing), 19:51.
Shots on Goal-Worcester 7-5-3-15. Maine 6-6-12-24.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 0 / 6; Maine 0 / 4.
Goalies-Worcester, Gahagen 1-2-0-0 (24 shots-21 saves). Maine, Cavallin 1-1-0-0 (15 shots-15 saves).
A-5,243
Referees-Alex Berard (36), Will Kelly (7).
Linesmen-Ben Leaton (98), Michael Tarquinio (45).
—
Do you have something you loved (or hated) about the post? Head on over to the 210Sports Facebook page and leave a comment. You could comment on this post too, but fair warning: the spam filter catches a lot of stuff it shouldn’t, and it might be weeks before we see your comment. While you’re there, please give the page a like and a follow.
You can also follow along and comment on the following sites:
Twitter/X (210Darryl), Twitter/X (210Sports), Bluesky, and Mastodon.
-30-
Leave a Reply