ADMIRALS TAKE SERIES OPENER 4-1 OVER RAILERS

By Bill Ballou

WORCESTER – The Railers played a strong game against the Norfolk Admirals, but ultimately fell 4-1 on Thursday night. They remained tied with Reading for fourth in the North Division with both teams at 60 points.

For the second straight game Worcester was victimized by superb goaltending. This time it was Thomas Milic, who stopped 30 of 31 shots. At Trois-Rivieres Sunday, Lions goaltender Luke Cavallin repulsed 45 of 46 Railers shots in a 3-1 Trois-Rivieres triumph that included an empty net goal.

The totals for the two games have Worcester outshooting the opposition by 77-46 but being outscored, 7-2, including two into empty nets.

Both goalies, Milic and Cavallin, are among the ECHL’s best, certainly in the top five category. Cavallin has the league’s best numbers at 17-7-1 with a 1.87 goals against average.

Milic is 8-4-0, 1.83 but has not played enough to qualify as a league leader.

This victory improved his career record versus Worcester to 4-1-0 with a 1.79 goals against mark. He has stopped 134 of the 143 shots the Railers have fired at him. Thursday night, anyway, most of those shots were good ones. Worcester did not hit him with a lot of 50-footers into the gut.

The Lions took an early 2-0 lead on goals by Brady Fleurent, his 25th, at 7:15 of the first period and Filip Fornaa Svenson, also his 25th, at 10:31. Andrei Bakanov tallied two for the Admirals in the third to make it a 4-1 game.

Anthony Callin had the Railers goal, his 18th of the year. It came on the power play at 7:17 of the second period to make it a 2-1 game. Connor Welsh and Anthony Repaci got the assists as Repaci returned after an absence of 12 games due to injury.

He had missed 15 of 18 games prior to Thursday.

Hugo Ollas made 17 saves on 20 shots for Worcester on the night.

The teams meet again here Friday and Saturday nights. Meanwhile, Reading will be playing host to first place Trois-Rivieres on the same schedule.

MAKING TRACKS – There has been a lot of roster movement since Worcester’s last homestand. Riley Piercey is back from Bridgeport; Cam McDonald is up. Mark Cheremeta was released and defenseman Pito Walton was acquired in a trade. Forward Alec Cicero, who spent four years at Holy Cross, was signed out of Canisius. Walton made his Railers debut. Cicero did not play. … Welsh’s assist gave him 46 points for the season. That is tied for the second-most points by a Worcester defenseman. Nick Naumenko also had 46 for the 1997-98 IceCats. … The Railers had to kill two penalties and were successful on both. They are are 50 for 56 (.893) in their last 19 games. They were 103 for 140 (.736) in their first 40 games. … Attendance was 1,968. … The last 2:22, tied for the shortest of the season at the DCU Center.

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