SHARKSPAGE

WorSharks use quick start to defeat Springfield 5-2

The Worcester Sharks started off slowly Wednesday night, and looked determined not to let that happen against another division leader as the WorSharks came out on firing on all cylinders. Worcester eventually got three assists from Yanni Gourde and two goals each from Dan DaSilva and Travis Oleksuk to defeat the Springfield Falcons 5-2 Friday night at the DCU Center in front of 2,685 fans. Troy Grosenick had 19 saves for the win in his first game back since injuring his knee on January 12th.

Worcester Sharks forward Dan DaSilva (#22) fights for position with Falcons defenseman
Blake Parlett as Springfield goaltender Mike McKenna makes a blocker save on Travis Oleksuk's
shot. DaSilva and Oleksuk would each score twice in the WorSharks 5-2 win.
Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For highlights, as we usually do we’ll once again point to AHLlive.com.

Scratches for Worcester were J.P. Anderson (upper body), Adam Comrie, Chris Crane, Dylan DeMelo, Matt Pelech (hand), Daniil Tarasov (concussion), and Marek Viedensky (unknown injury). Harri Sateri was the back-up goaltender. On Friday the San Jose Sharks put John McCarthy on waivers, and David Pollock of the San Jose Mercury News reported that should McCarthy clear waivers he will be headed to the WorSharks.

While it may take time to get to Jamie Koharski levels, referee Graham Skilliter certainly seems to be headed along that route. The number of clearly missed calls was astounding, and even the ones he called he wasn’t entirely accurate on. Skilliter called six penalties and got half of those wrong. He correctly got the fighting majors to Jimmy Bonneau and Dalton Smith, which was basically a hug-fest, and the tripping call to Sena Acolatse. The interference call on Nick Petrecki was a clean hit on the puck carrier, the minor to Falcons forward Andrew Joudrey for high-sticking Freddie Hamilton should have been a double minor as Hamilton was cut. This writer still hasn’t found anyone other than Skilliter that saw WorSharks PTO’er Scott Fleming hook anybody. Add to that Skilliter missing one of the most obvious hand passes ever. Luckily for him his linesmen saw it and blew the whistle because it looked odd having all ten skaters stop while Skilliter was washing out the call. It doesn’t get better for Worcester Saturday night as the aforementioned Koharski will be officiating their “Pink in the rink” game against Providence.

Speaking of Petrecki, the interference call, deserved or not, was his 500th regular season penalty minute for Worcester. That joins him with Frazer McLaren (577) as the only two WorSharks players at the milestone mark. Petrecki is sixth all-time in Worcester hockey penalty minutes, with Tyler Willis (515) and Reed Low (517) catchable this season. Just behind McLaren on the all-time list is Kevin Sawyer at 567 for third. There’s virtually no chance Petrecki–or anyone else, for that matter–will catch the all-time penalty minute leader. As with most things Worcester hockey, that record is owned by Terry Virtue at a whopping 1,083 minutes.

During the game I tweeted that there was no reason for referee Graham Skilliter to be reviewing DaSilva’s first goal because the AHL only reviews if the puck is in the net and the net on the pegs to determine if a goal was good, and both those things were obviously true without video replay. Turns out those were the rules last season, and this season referees can use the single camera replay system to determine if it’s a good goal by looking for a long list of incidents that mirror the current NHL rule. Skilliter was checking to see if DaSilva kicked the puck in the net. Feel free to watch the video highlights to see how ludicrous that thought was. My apologies for any confusion my error caused.

The three stars of the game were
1. WOR – 22 Dan DaSilva (2g,a)
2. WOR – 21 Travis Oleksuk (2g)
3. WOR – 37 Yanni Gourde (3a)

The Sharkspage player of the game was Rob Davison.

Even strength lines
Gourde/Oleksuk/DaSilva
Scheidl/Hamilton/Reid
Gron/Schwartz/Livingston
Gogol/Fleming/Bonneau

Abeltshauser/Acolatse
Petrecki/Tennyson
Davison/Doherty

BOXSCORE

Springfield 1 1 0 – 2
Worcester 3 2 0 – 5

1st Period-1, Worcester, Oleksuk 8 (Gourde), 1:15. 2, Worcester, Reid 5 (Hamilton, Scheidl), 9:57. 3, Springfield, Collins 8 (Chaput, Madaisky), 14:20. 4, Worcester, DaSilva 9 (Doherty, Davison), 18:42. Penalties-Petrecki Wor (interference), 4:48.

2nd Period-5, Springfield, Sedlak 7 (Aleardi, Erixon), 7:56. 6, Worcester, Oleksuk 9 (DaSilva, Gourde), 15:48. 7, Worcester, DaSilva 10 (Gourde, Acolatse), 18:46. Penalties-Smith Spr (fighting), 6:36; Bonneau Wor (fighting), 6:36; Joudrey Spr (high-sticking), 6:49; Acolatse Wor (holding), 7:06.

3rd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Fleming Wor (hooking), 8:15.

Shots on Goal-Springfield 6-8-7-21. Worcester 18-20-2-40.
Power Play Opportunities-Springfield 0 / 3; Worcester 0 / 1.
Goalies-Springfield, McKenna 10-5-0 (40 shots-35 saves). Worcester, Grosenick 9-5-0 (21 shots-19 saves).
A-2,685
Referees-Graham Skilliter (48).
Linesmen-Brian MacDonald (72), Todd Whittemore (70).