Game Story

Portland, ME — Looking to extend their season-long five-game point streak, the Worcester Railers traveled to Portland, Maine on Sunday to face the Maine Mariners for the sixth time this season. With a solid attempt at a comeback in the third period, the Railers were unable to gain the lead and their point streak gets cut at five games with a 4-2 loss on Sunday.

Evan Buitenhuis made his third consecutive start for Worcester with Mitch Gillam still on recall with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Mariners held the edge throughout the game with goals from Ryan Ferril (3rd), Ryan Gropp (2nd), Justin Breton (3rd), Morgan Adams-Moisan (5th). Nick Sorkin kept the Railers in the game with two goals (2nd, 3rd) in the third period.

Mariners and Railers got the fireworks going early with a scrap between Alex Adams and Yanick Turcotte at 25 seconds. The game almost had its second fight at 2:59 as Mike Cornell and Luke Stork exchanged some words with Cornell jumping to the punch early, and Stork backing out to draw Cornell’s league-leading 17th minor of the season for unsportsmanlike conduct. Alex Vanier drew a questionable four-minute double minor for Cross-Checking and Slashing at 9:59, which the Mariners capitalized on with Ryan Ferril picking up his third goal of the season with less than a minute left on the power play. Railers skaters produced some solid pressure on the net in the closing two minutes but Brandon Halverson was able to keep the puck out of the net as time ran out. With the first frame of play in the books, Maine held a one-goal lead with the shots being 11-9 in Maine’s favor.

Worcester started the second period with their first power play of the day that would turn out to be unsuccessful, with Joe Kalisz heading to the box for a holding call at 1:49. Railers would get another opportunity later in the period with Alex Adams being called for a cross-checking call at 9:32. Maine would extend their lead to two after the face-off, Ryan Gropp tapped in a puck that rebounded off Buitenhuis’ pads from a shot by Garrett Cecere. Maine’s lead would be extended to three by the end of the period with a goal by Justin Breton on a rush to the Railers zone. It was 3-0 Mariners with the shot count being 24-23 Worcester.

Nick Sorkin got the Railers on the board with his second goal in his second straight game to bring the game back to within two at 5:01 in the third. Sorkin would score again at 6:53 for his third of the season. Evan Buitenhuis was pulled for the extra attacker with about three minutes remaining in regulation. Morgan Adams-Moisan put the game away with an empty-net goal with 1:10 remaining in the game.

The three stars of the game were:

  1. Ryan Ferril (Maine) – 1 goal, 1 assist
  2. Nick Sorkin (Worcester) – 2 goals
  3. Brandon Halverson (Maine) – 40 saves, win

Worcester drops back under .500 and down to seventh in the north division with a record of 10-11-3 on the season.

Like a steam locomotive rolling down the track: The Railers will host the Manchester Monarchs for the first of three games back in Worcester on Wednesday. As usual, the puck will drop at 7:05 at the DCU Center.

Box Score

Scoring 1 2 3 T
Worcester Railers 0 0 0 0
Maine Mariners 1 2 0 0
Shots 1 2 3 T
Worcester Railers 9 15 18 42
Maine Mariners 11 12 4 27

 

Railers Roster # Name G A +/- SH PIM
G 34 E. Buitenhuis 0 0 0 0 0
G 39 R. Hubbard 0 0 0 0 0
D 3 A. Vanier 0 0 -2 2 4
D 4 R. MacKinnon 0 0 -2 1 0
D 6 M. Cornell 0 1 0 1 2
F 7 T. Barnes 0 0 0 3 0
F 8 N. Sorkin 2 0 0 3 0
F 9 A. Block 0 0 -1 1 0
F 10 I. Kosorenkov 0 0 -1 3 0
F 12 J. Holmstrom 0 0 0 3 0
F 19 B. Almeida 0 0 -1 3 0
D 20 D. Quenneville 0 1 +1 2 0
F 21 M. Gaudreau 0 1 -1 1 0
F 23 W. Hudson 0 0 0 3 0
D 24 T. Mueller 0 0 +1 2 0
F 27 R. Hitchcock 0 0 0 9 0
D 28 C. Doherty 0 0 +1 3 0
F 51 Y. Turcotte 0 0 -1 2 5
Team:
Totals: 2 3 -6 42 11
No Name Min SH SVS GA
34 E. Buitenhuis (L) 57:16 26 23 3
Empty Net 1 1
Totals: 57:16 27 23 4
Mariners Roster # Name G A +/- SH PIM
G 35 B. Halverson 0 1 0 0 0
G 40 C. LaCouvee 0 0 0 0 0
D 3 A. Adams 0 0 0 1 7
F 6 J. Kalisz 0 0 0 0 2
D 7 D. Pratt 0 0 0 2 0
F 9 D. Melanson 0 0 -1 1 0
F 10 R. Bourbonnais 0 0 -1 0 0
F 11 J. Salvaggio 0 1 0 6 0
D 14 B. Martin 0 0 +1 1 0
F 15 L. Stork 0 1 +1 2 0
F 16 M. Adams-Moisan 1 0 +1 3 0
F 18 R. Ferrill 1 1 +3 2 0
F 19 R. Gropp 1 0 -1 3 0
D 21 J. Furgele 0 0 -1 0 0
F 22 J. Breton 1 0 +2 4 0
F 24 M. McNicholas 0 1 -1 1 0
D 29 G. Cecere 0 1 0 1 0
D 41 S. Day 0 1 +2 0 0
Team:
Totals: 4 7 5 27 9
No Name Min SH SVS GA
35 B. Halverson (W) 60:00 42 40 2
Totals: 60:00 42 40 2
P T Player M Offense Time
1st V Y. Turcotte 5.00 Fighting – Major (46.14) 0:25
1st H A. Adams 5.00 Fighting – Major (46.14) 0:25
1st V M. Cornell 2.00 Unsportsmanlike conduct – minor (75.2) 2:59
1st V A. Vanier 2.00 Cross-Checking Minor (59.2) 9:59
1st V A. Vanier 2.00 Slashing – minor (61.2) 9:59
2nd H J. Kalisz 2.00 Holding – minor (54.2) 1:40
2nd H A. Adams 2.00 Cross-Checking Minor (59.2) 9:31

Notes

  • Railers Injuries: Malcolm Gould, Tommy Kelley, Kyle McKenzie
  • Railers Scratches: Tommy Panico, Matt Schmalz, Dylan Willick
  • As announced on the pre-game show, the Railers were involved in two trades earlier today. Nick Bligh was traded to the Atlanta Gladiators for future considerations. The other trade was for Matt Schmalz from the Orlando Solar Bears, which will also be for future considerations. The word from Eric Lindquist’s interview from the pre-game show with Jamie Russell is that the team had been chasing Schmalz for the past few weeks when Schmalz was with the Witchita Thunder. Schmalz ranked third in goals for Manchester with 23 goals (23-17-40) last season. He is expected to arrive in Worcester on Tuesday and could be in the line-up as soon as Wednesday’s game.
  • Nick Sorkin has three goals and an assist in two games.
  • Tommy Kelley was Tom Matthews’ guest during the first-period intermission and mentioned that he should be back “sooner rather than later”, with a mention that he could be back in a week or two. Kelley has been seen in the background of practice videos on Railers’ social media wearing the red “no-contact” jersey for the past month or so.
  • Sunday’s game had a number of questionable calls and no-calls from referee Jeremy Tufts. The most notable of the night was a missed call on a Mariners’ skater right before their first goal. Alex Vanier got called for a double-minor on a play where there was cross-checking, but slashing was no-where to be seen. There were multiple missed calls for cross-checking throughout the game.
  • Friday’s game had two corrections to the score sheet with Mike Cornell being credited with the first two assists originally credited to Alex Vanier. As the “three stars” don’t really mean a whole lot, Vanier is still listed as the third star.
  • For up-to-date news on all things Worcester Hockey, Like us on Facebook at Woo Hockey – Worcester Hockey News, Follow us on Twitter @WooHockeyNews, and join our Facebook Group – Worcester Railers Fan Club.

Railers Lines (Observed by order in which they appeared):

LW C RW
Forward Line 1  B. Almeida #19 “A”  R. Hitchcock #27  T. Barnes #7
Forward Line 2  N. Sorkin #8  J. Holmstrom #12 “A”  M. Gaudreau #21
Forward Line 3  Y. Turcotte #23  A. Block #9/ I. Kosorenkov #10  W. Hudson #23
LD RD
Defense Line 1  T. Mueller #24  M. Cornell #6 “C”
Defense Line 2  D. Quenneville #20  C. Doherty #28
Defense Line 3  A. Vanier #3  R. MacKinnon #4
G
Starting Goaltender  Evan Buitenhuis #34
Backup Goaltender  Ryan Hubbard #39

Highlights