By Bill Ballou

WORCESTER – As the weekend approached, the Railers were pretty cold and the Florida Everblades pretty hot.

The weekend is over and from the Worcester perspective, it ended up to be lukewarm.

The Railers got two points of a possible six and did that even though they never led in more than 184 minutes of play. The victory came in sudden-death overtime.

Still, the points were a positive considering that they played a team that has earned at least one point in 22 of its last 24 games. Since the Everblades are not in the North Division, neither of the two Worcester defeats were the dreaded 4-pointers.

Florida won Sunday’s game, 5-3, with the last goal going into an empty net. The match was a good one, in doubt until the last couple of minutes when Worcester took a heartbreaking too-many-men penalty and could never get a chance to tie it.

The Railers played from behind almost all afternoon. It was 2-2 when Jett Jones scored for Florida at 8:59 of the second period to give the Everblades a lead they never relinquished.

The visitors made it 4-2 at 19:24 of that period when Gianfranco Cassaro scored a miracle goal at 19:24. With the puck on the goal line to the left of the Railers net, Cassaro snapped a no-angle shot that wound up bouncing off the right post and in.

Worcester closed to within 4-3 on Anthony Repaci’s shorthanded goal at 5:45 of the third. Reid Duke found an empty net at 19:50 to finish the scoring.

Goaltender Will Cranley made 17 saves for the Everblades.

The last two games of the weekend provided great hockey entertainment. If the teams meet again in 2026 it will be in the playoffs. That would be something to look forward to.

Michael Suda and Jesse Pulkkinen had the other Railers goals. That’s something Worcester can take from the weekend. Those two defensemen combined to score three goals on Saturday and Sunday. As a team the Railers had gotten two goals from defensemen in their first 29 games.

Pulkkinen has show excellent offensive skills in his brief time down from Bridgeport. Suda has been very productive in general and is 2-13-15 in his last 14 games.

Repaci’s goal snapped a six-game drought for him and was the fifth shorthanded goal of his Railers career. He and Nic Pierog are tied for the franchise lead.

Tristan Lennox stopped 33 of 37 Florida shots and made some spectacular octopus saves. His 2025-26 numbers are not impressive to date but the way he moved around Sunday shows that he is certainly physically capable for Worcester.

Florida was in charge of the early minutes of the first period and took a 1-0 lead. Six minutes into the game the Everblades had an 8-0 edge in shots on goal and a 1-0 edge in shots in goal.

The goal happened at 4:05 and was a sorry one from the home team’s standpoint. An ugly clearing attempt wound up on the stick of Kade Landry just inside the Railers’ blue line.

He had time and space and a teammate near the net, Anthony Romano. Romano tipped in the shot-pass to give Florida the lead.

Worcester came back to tie it a bit more than three minutes later as Suda finished off an odd-man rush nicely. He converted a pass from Ross Mitton from the bottom of the left circle. Seconds earlier, Mitton had kept the rush alive by making a late maneuver to remain onside.

Romano put the Everblades back ahead at 13:04 with a power play goal. He connected via a wrist shot from the left circle. Worcester re-tied the score early in the second period as Pulkkinen beat Cranley from 35 feet after taking a pass from Anthony Callin.

MAKING TRACKS – The homestand continues Wednesday night with a game against the Reading Royals. It is a chance for Worcester to make up some ground in the playoff race. … Attendance was 3,752. It was a good weekend at the gate for the Railers. They drew 16,203 for the series. That is an average of 5,401. … Lennox was issued a roughing penalty at the end of the second period. It was the first penalty called on a Railers goalie this season.

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