Fourteen Railers Record Points in 8-2 Win Over Maine

By Bill Ballou

WORCESTER - Hockey games are like fingerprints, with no two being identical.

The Railers added to that body of evidence Saturday night with an 8-2 victory over the Maine Mariners before a well-pleased crowd of 4,285. The offensive outburst was their biggest of the season and tied the team record for most goals in a game.

It was the fourth time ever they hit that plateau, the first time since an 8-3 victory over Newfoundland here on Dec. 17, 2022.

The dominant triumph came on the heels of two of Worcester’s poorest games of the season, a 9-3 loss to Newfoundland last Saturday and a 6-2 defeat in Portland Friday night.

What was the difference, coach Jordan Smotherman was asked.

“I wish I had the answer to that,” he responded, adding, “Last night we watched the game, we chased the game, in every aspect.”

The biggest number of the night for Worcester wasn’t eight, it was two. That was how many points the triumph provided and those points tightened the North Division playoff race even more, if that is possible. After Saturday’s game Maine is in third with a .515 winning percentage and the Railers and Trois-Rivieres are tied for fourth at .500

The Mariners and Railers play again Sunday afternoon at the DCU Center in what will be Worcester’s last regular-season home game. If the Railers win they will move into sole possession of fourth place — the Mariners would retain third by a byte — with three games left, all versus Trois-Rivieres.

Worcester’s offensive onslaught was paced by Blade Jenkins and Reece Newkirk, who have turned into season-savers. Jenkins was 2-1-3 and plus-4. Newkirk was 0-3-3 and plus-4. The teammates are tied for fourth on the Railers’ all-time points list with 77 each.

Ashton Calder was 1-1-2 and 11 other Railers had one-point nights. Ryan Verrier, Trevor Cosgrove, Jake Pivonka, Connor Welsh and Anthony Callin had the other Worcester goals.

John Muse, typically steady, stopped 22 shots in earning his 15th win of the season.

The night began ominously, though, as Christian Sarlo gave Maine a 1-0 lead at 6:33 of the first period. Halfway through the period the Mariners had a big edge in shots on goal and puck possession, then Callin was whistled for slashing during a scrum in front of the Maine net that could easily been called disturbing the peace, since there wasn’t much of a slash.

The Mariners, a dangerous offensive team, went on the power play at 14:08 with a chance to make it 2-0. Instead, the Railers killed the penalty very well and momentum seemed to turn in their direction. As the period wound down, Calder controlled the puck in the neutral zone and crashed over the blue line. He snapped a 35-footer past Maine goaltender Kyle Keyser at 18:18 and it was 1-1 after one.

Worcester scored eight of the next nine goals with Keyser the victim for all of them. Ethan Ritchie broke up the string with a goal at 10:50 of the second period to cut Worcester’s lead to 3-2. The Railers bounced right back though with Cosgrove scoring another unassisted goal at 14:26 as he broke down the left wing and beat Keyser from the dot.

The game featured a once-in-a-lifetime moment at 6:56 of the first period when the Mariners had a scoring chance in deep but the puck went wide, or at least one puck did. As a result of the play, a hidden puck fell off the top of the Worcester net and wound up behind the goal line.

The red light went on — the goal judge’s job is to turn on the light when a puck goes over the line, no matter how it goes over — but a quick look at the video showed the puck dropping out of nowhere. It turned out the officials had not noticed the stray puck atop the net when they made their rounds before the faceoff.

Nobody had ever seen a play like that before except for Jenkins, who saw it once. Joey Cipollone said there were actually three pucks involved with another one dropping onto the ice behind the Worcester net.

At the time it seemed significant. Eight Railers goals later, it was just a footnote.

MAKING TRACKS - Worcester beat a hot team. The Mariners were 9-2-1 in their previous 12 games and had won three straight. … Riley Piercey and Cameron Askew squared off early in the second period with Piercey fighting well. It was just the fifth Railers fighting major at the DCU Center this season. … Hot Railers include Callin, who is 3-4-7 and plus-7 in his last six games; Newkirk at 5-5-10 in his last eight games; and Jenkins at 4-5-9 in his last four.

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