WORCESTER—It is not a particularly pleasant memory but it is a good reference point for how the Railers have started the 2025-26 season.
They opened the 2022-23 campaign with nine straight victories, still an ECHL record. The Railers did not lose their fifth game until Dec. 7, 2022, a span of 21 games.
Yet, they missed the playoffs.
The current season is merely six games old and Worcester has already lost five times, one loss in a shootout, for a 1-4-1 record. It is not the worst start in franchise history, however. Railers teams have, for some reason, traditionally been slow starters in games and seasons. Worcester was a similar 1-4-1 to begin the 2021 season and just 2-4-0 last year.
Neither of those teams made the playoffs, but both recovered and became competitive. The 2021-22 Railers finished with a .500 record and last season’s team finished 34-30-8.
What is different about this year’s slow start is Worcester’s inability to score. It has nine goals in six games, an unsustainable level of offense if the Railers are to start winning.
So far, it looks like they really miss Connor Welsh.
They have a chance to regroup this weekend when they play their first three-in-three games of the year. All games will be with the Maine Mariners, who have begun the season with a 4-1-2 record and who shut out Worcester on Opening Night, 5-0.
Last Sunday the Mariners beat Reading, 5-1, less than 24 hours after the Royals beat the Railers by the same score. Worcester will likely have to face Maine goaltender Luke Cavallin twice. He was the winning goalie on Opening Night and is 4-1-0 with a 1.57 goals-against average and .945 saves percentage to begin the season.
Cavallin has 10 career wins over Worcester, the most of any opposition goaltender and since last Nov. 16 is 6-1-0 versus the Railers.
Friday night’s game will be played in Portland. The teams face off at 6:05 Saturday night at the DCU Center and Sunday afternoon at 3:05, also in Worcester.
Friday night is the Railers Fight Cancer event and is preceded by the annual game between the Boston Bruins alumni and the Why Me All-Stars. That game starts at 3:15 p.m. Sunday afternoon is the Autism Awareness game which will feature reduced auditory and visual stimulation.
After last weekend’s games the Railers traded veteran defenseman Cole Fraser to Cincinnati for future considerations. Fraser is in his seventh pro season, a roster veteran, who led the league in PIM with 32 in six games with the Railers.
A recap of some early season developments for Worcester:
— Goaltender Henrik Tikkanen is off to a very strong start and has been in net for all three Railers points. He is 1-1-1 with a 2.22 goals-against average and .918 saves percentage. Tikkanen had a tough season last year, spending most of it playing for a Bridgeport team that was by far the worst in the American Hockey League.
He did play seven games in Worcester and posted two shutouts, one of them a 4-0 victory in Maine.
— Considering how close the Railers keep coming to making the playoffs, each standings point is huge and they could help their cause with better shootout performances. Since the start of last season Worcester is 2-6 in shootouts.
— Last Sunday was about as bad a day as it can get for some Railers, the baseball fans in particular. Not only did they lose a dreadful game to Reading, they spent the rest of the night watching the Blue Jays lose to the Dodgers in heartbreaking fashion in Game 7 of the World Series.
— Something to keep in mind as the world of college sports continues to evolve is that Justin Gill, who played 58 pro games last year between Worcester and Bridgeport, is now playing college hockey for Merrimack.
This is brand new territory in defining what a college hockey player is and could have huge implications for the future of the pro business. To date, Gill has played five games for Merrimack and is plus-18.
— Anthony Callin has moved into 24th place on the all-time list of Worcester pro point scorers with 106. IceCat Mark Rycroft is next with 107. Cole Donhauser is the reigning team ironman having played 76 straight games. He has missed one in his Railers career, the second game of the 2024-25 season
— The Railers have played four regulation games so far and the average time of those games is 2:42. Game times have been creeping up through the years. The average was 2:25 in 2017-18 and got up to 2:30 last season.
— Former Railer Andrei Bakanov was released by the Norfolk Admirals after an 0-0-0 start to the season in five games. That makes it five different teams in four ECHL seasons.
Bill Ballou covered the Red Sox for the Worcester Telegram from 1997 through 2018. He has covered pro hockey in Worcester since 1994 and currently does a weekly column for the Worcester Red Sox. Ballou can be reached at vetgoalie@aol.com
