WORCESTER – It’s been one of those weekends that feels like a month for the Railers. They’ve gone up against one of the best teams in the ECHL in the Trois-Rivieres Lions and changed coaches at the same time.
Worcester lost its last game under Bob Deraney, 5-3, on Friday night. They lost their opener to Nick Tuzzolino, 3-2, on Saturday night, but it was one of those half-baked deals. The Railers earned a point with a shootout loss.
It says something about the Lions that Worcester played one of their best games in recent weeks and still couldn’t get two points. Trois-Rivieres is loaded with attacking opportunists and impeccable goalkeepers.
The Railers outshot the visitors, 41-26, but still couldn’t outscore them.
It was, however, an encouraging start to Tuzzolino’s head coaching career, and overall he liked what he saw.
“I don’t want to say I was thrilled with how we played,” he said, “because the result wasn’t there, but we made some minor adjustments to clogging the neutral zone and our forecheck, and I thought they were pretty good.”
Justin Kaplan and Matthew Kopperud scored for Worcester, while the Lions got two goals from Cormier. The first was from Xavier Cormier, the second from Tommy Cormier. Alex Beaucage had the only goal of the shootout.
It was a good night of goaltending both ways. Zachary Emond made 39 saves for the Lions. Michael Bullion, who had been slumping, stopped 23 and saved the night early in the third period.
Stopped Logan Nijhoff with a penalty shot at 2:31. The period was Bullion’s best as he also made some big saves late to keep the score at 2-2.
Xavier Cormier put Trois-Rivieres ahead at 4:29 of the first period. It was a go-ahead goal with the Lions on a power play. Kaplan tied it at 8:45, also on a power play. He beat Emond with a rebound.
Kopperud scored from the right circle at 14:26 to give Worcester a 2-1 lead, then Tommy Cormier converted a long breakaway at 18:01.
“If we can copy what we did tonight,” Tuzzolino said, “I don’t see us losing more than a couple games here and there. It’s one of those things where that kind of system can connect some players and drive some teams ahead.
“I guess my overall goal is to work on consistency this week because we’re going to have a good stretch and really have all the stuff for Maine. It’s a really big weekend for us.”