By Bill Ballou
WORCESTER – The Railers lost Saturday night to the Maine Mariners, 8-1, and their record fell to 1-6-0-1.
One silver lining to the season’s start is that Saturday night the Railers went over the 1 million mark in all-time attendance for regular season games. The crowd of 4,766 lifted the overall figure to 1,000,882. That is an average of 3,976.
The Railers trailed 3-0, when Matt DeMelis created a shorthanded breakaway for himself at 15:15. He could not convert and 27 seconds later the Mariners scored a power play goal.
Instead of trailing by a more manageable 3-1, Worcester was down by 4-0. Maine scored again at 17:55 and 18:20 to make it 6-0 heading into the third period.
Worcester got on the board thanks to Jesse Nurmi’s goal at 10:07 of the third period. It was his first professional goal.
The Mariners got three goals from Lyndon McCallum, who had registered one point in eight games heading into the night. It marked the second straight game a Maine forward had a hat trick against Worcester. Xander Lamppa scored twice for the Mariners. Linus Helstrom, Jaxon Bellamy and Jacob Hudson had the other goals for the visitors.
It was 1-0 after one period, 6-0 after two. Brad Arvanitis made 25 saves to post the win in net. Henrik Tikkanen was pulled after Lamppa made it 6-0 in the second period. Tristan Lennox finished up and Lamppa scored again at 18:41 of the third period, then Bellamy made it 8-1 at 19:45
MAKING TRACKS – Forwards Anthony Callin and Riley Piercey both served the second games of their long suspensions, Callin for four games, Piercey for seven. The punishments were a result of the ugliness in the third period versus Reading two Saturdays ago. … Defenseman Calle Odelius was sent down from Bridgeport with Jesse Pulkkinen going back to the AHL. … The Boston Bruins Alumni beat the Why Me All-Stars, 6-3, in the preliminary game. Two of the best players on the ice were Former IceCats forward Jason Zent and former Sharks defenseman Marc Busenburg. … Lennox’ 45-save performance Friday night in Maine made him tied for the ninth most in a regulation game in team history. Mitch Gillam holds the record with 54 stops in Brampton on Dec. 19, 2018. … Both Schachles, Tanner and Porter, made their season debuts Friday night. They are the fifth brother combo in team history. They joined the Saracinos, MacKinnons, Harts and Callins. … The weekend concludes with a match between the same two teams at 3:05 Sunday afternoon. It will be the Autism Awareness event. … Rookie defenseman Michael Suda made his DCU Center debut.
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