By Bill Ballou

WORCESTER – For the Railers’ loyal fans, the 2025-26 hockey season has gone from being “wait till next year” to “we can’t wait for next year.”

The home team increased its winning streak to five games with a wonderful 3-2 overtime victory over the Adirondack Thunder Saturday night. Drew Callin, assisted by Anthony, got the winner at 4:05 of OT.

The game went into extra minutes thanks to a late goal by the Thunder.

Adirondack, though, carried no momentum into overtime. The Railers outshot the visitors, 4-0, in the fourth period. At times it looked like Worcester was playing with a two-man advantage.

The winning goal came via a short pass from Anthony to Drew in close. The older Callin had a tap-in, although a minute earlier he had missed what looked like a gimme from in close on a similar play.

The goal was Drew Callin’s 25th of the season. He is merely the fifth Railers player to reach that plateau and has two of Worcester’s eight overtime goals this year.

“We love that OT,” he said, adding, “We came into the weekend knowing it was the last weekend and we wanted to go out the right way. We wanted to get the first one and do it again (Sunday).”

MacAuley Carson and Max Dorrington had the other Railers goals, both in the first period. Dylan Wendt and Grant Loven scored for the Thunder. Loven’s goal came with only 2:09 left in regulation and just six seconds after a delay of game penalty on Adam Samuelsson had expired.

Parker Gahagen was the winning goaltender with another great performance. He made 23 saves to improve his record to 20-11-1. Gahagen is only the second individual Railers goalie with a 20-win season. Mitch Gillam won 20-plus in the team’s first two years as members of the ECHL.

It is Gahagen’s second personal 20-win year as pro, at least with the same team. He was 20-10-3 with the Florida Everblades when they won the Kelly Cup in 21-22. Gahagen has been beyond good at the DCU Center. He is 10-4-0 at home with a 1.96 goals-against average and .930 saves percentage.

The Railers got ahead early on Carson’s goal at 4:41 of the first period. He received a neat pass from Riley Piercey along the left boards and beat Thunder goaltender Tyler Brennan along the ice from about 20 feet out. It was Carson’s seventh goal of the season and third in the last five games after he endured an 11-game drought.

Worcester retained its 1-0 lead for about 14 minutes. Dorrington made it a 2-0 game at 18:26 His goal came on a bad angle shot from the right of the net with Gleb Veremyev and Adam Samuelsson picking up assists. The goal was Dorrington’s seventh and he has four in the last five games.

The Railers kept Adirondack off the scoreboard for more than half of the second period but Wendt got his team a goal at 10:41. It was a very nice play all around as Thunder defenseman Connor Hutchison slid a diagonal pass from the left point to Wendt between the circles.

He re-directed it over Gahagen’s glove into the top corner.

Worcester nearly regained its two-goal lead shortly after that as Lincoln Hatten had the puck and some space about 25 feet out but was denied by Brennan.

Adirondack’s tying goal came from in close, set up by a shot from Kevin O’Neil.

MAKING TRACKS – Attendance was 6,018. The Railers improved to 5-1-0 at home before crowds of 6,000 or more this season. The only loss was on opening night. … The game was not very physical but there was a skirmish at 7:40 of the second period involving Dorrington and Adirondack’s Tanner Edwards. … Players not in uniform for the Railers were Anthony Hora, Riley Ginnell, Max Ruoho, Jordan Kaplan, Declan McDonnell, Connor Federkow and Gabe Blanchard. … The teams close out the regular season Sunday afternoon.

#RailersHC