The Help Wanted sign the Railers posted last summer included the words, “Experience Necessary.”
The city’s ECHL team opened its ninth training camp Friday at the DCU Center and virtually every attendee had pro hockey experience at the ECHL level or above. The grand total was 3,054 such games. That included 1,375 games with the Railers.
It is fair to say that this will be the most experienced team the Railers have ever assembled. Of the 23 players who took the ice Friday, 18 have been Worcester teammates at some point in their careers.
The coaching staff is back as well. This will be Nick Tuzzolino’s third season as head coach, his second training camp. Assistant Chris Rumble is back for a second season, and that is unusual as well. He is merely the second assistant to return for a second year.
Derek Army did it in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
The average age of the training camp roster is 26. That includes a quartet of 30-plus players. They are captain Anthony Repaci, 32, and goaltender Parker Gahagen, 33. Leominster native Steve Moses is 37. Another new face, Tyson Fawcett, is 33.
It is an experienced roster, but not a large one. That is by design.
“The small, intimate camp we wanted we are achieving right now,” Tuzzolino said, “and I can already see the group kind of forming. We are already moving into that team atmosphere.”
Worcester opens the season here on Oct. 17. The Railers play home-and-home exhibitions against Maine next weekend. Given their history of bumpy starts to the regular season, the Railers don’t intend to treat the Maine games like glorified practices.
“Every year we’ve gotten off to kind of a slow start and had hot finishes,” Tuzzolino said, “so the goal is to have a hot start and hold it. The key is to get to that winning mentality. We’ve seen it in the second half. Now we have to understand that it can be right now.”
The collective bargaining agreement signed last season has made the ECHL a better financial option for veteran players. In general, the league should have a higher level of play. Moses is an example. He has played 14 seasons in Europe and scored 172 goals along the way.
The training camp roster includes five players with 100 or more games played for the Railers. Repaci tops the list with 291 followed by Riley Piercey, 154; Cole Donhauser, 139; Lincoln Hatten, 134 and Matt DeMelis, 132.
“How many of our guys have played in this league for me before,” Tuzzolino said. “A lot of the guys are returning here and returning to me so that’s a big thing. A lot of this group started this journey with Chris and I, and I think they are as eager to finish it as we are.”
The return of Gahagen is a good start if the Railers want to get off to a good start. He is one of the ECHL’s best goaltenders and led the team in wins last year. Gahagen had 20 in a partial season.
Worcester was 20-15-1 with him in net, 15-15-6 otherwise. Gahagen is here on an AHL contract with Springfield. The Railers expect to get, one way or another, a second goaltender from the American Hockey League.
MAKING TRACKS — Moses is the oldest player in camp, Connor Federkow the youngest returnee at 23. … Goalie Chase Clark, 22, is here on an amateur tryout. Clark was a sixth-round draft pick by Washington in 2021 and played for four different colleges in the previous four winters. … Repaci is nine games away from becoming merely the third Worcester player to skate in 300 games here. IceCats Terry Virtue (455) and Marc Brown (303) are ahead of him.
