WORCESTER—The Railers have been playing well since their dreadful start to the season, which hits the halfway point in Norfolk this weekend.
Worcester is 15-9-2 beginning with its 6-4 victory over Trois-Rivieres on Nov. 14. That figures out to be a .615 winning percentage. If the Railers keep performing at that rate they will finish with 77 points.
That might be good enough to qualify for the Kelly Cup playoffs, but it is not a guarantee. They earned 76 points last season and did not make it. Reading finished fourth with 77. If there is a magic number for making the post-season, it is probably 80 points. No North Division team with that many points has ever missed the playoffs.
Worcester closed strongly last season with a 20-13-3 record in the second half, but that left the Railers one point short again. Their best second half was a 22-11-3 explosion in their first season, 2017-18. It remains their only playoff appearance to date.
All but three games the rest of the way are against North Division opponents, Rapid City being the exception, so Worcester controls its destiny. Because of the players strike after Christmas and rescheduled dates, the Railers will finish the regular season on home ice.
A good omen? The only other time that happened is 2017-18.
Rookie defenseman Jesse Pulkkinen is on his way to becoming a crowd favorite, although as a Bridgeport contract he may not be here very long. He has a fabulous shot, makes things happen, and is not afraid to take a chance. Pulkkinen was scoreless and minus-2 in two early games here, but is 4-4-8 and plus-2 since returning.
Before memories of the Everblades’ visit here slip away, two things come to mind. One is that, considering how the Dolphins and even the Texans struggle with weather when they make their winter trips to New England, should the Railers play Florida teams outdoors when they come up this way?
Also, Everblades owner Craig Brush has a rule change worth thinking about. When a team gets a split power play, starting in one period and ending in the next, shouldn’t the opening faceoff for the next one come in the offensive zone? A roster suggestion for the Railers: they should comb the hockey world and find some player whose first name is Manhattan or Staten Island, etc., to put in the lineup when Maine comes to town with Brooklyn Kalmikov.
Cam McDonald has been one of the Railers’ best defensemen this season but is still looking for his first ECHL goal, or pro goal of any kind. He has not had one yet in 57 Railers games including last season. That is a club record for most games without scoring a goal. There is an asterisk with this streak, though. McDonald was originally credited with a goal on Dec. 13, 2024, but had it switched upon further review.
His 83 shots in that span are a Worcester pro record, breaking the mark set by Ross Wilson in 1994-95, the IceCats debut season. Wilson went 77 straight shots between goals.
If every Railers game seems like a one-goal match, with not many goals being scored, the entire North Division is like that. The only two North Division players in the ECHL Top 20 scorers are Brannon McManus of Adirondack and Anthony McManus of Florida. In contrast, eight of the top 13 goaltenders are in the North.
Anthony Repaci has moved into sixth place on the city’s all-time list for games played with 254. He just passed Mike Moore of the Sharks and Blake Evans of the IceCats, who had 253 apiece.
With age comes wisdom, among other things. Two of Worcester’s top three scorers are 30-something. Repaci is 31, Drew Callin 30. The Railers’ winningest goaltender, Parker Gahagen, is 32.
Scoring early can lead to scoring often, but not always. Max Dorrington’s goal Sunday before the game was a minute old marked the 10th time in team history the Railers scored in the game’s first minute. They won each of the first seven times that happened but have lost the last three.
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
