SHARKSPAGE

WorSharks make it seven in a row against Providence with 4-3 OT win

The Worcester Sharks in recent seasons have found a variety of ways to win games, but on Saturday night at the DCU Center against the Providence Bruins after the WorSharks came back from three different one-goal deficits for the first time in franchise history the Worcester Sharks used an overtime penalty shot goal, by captain Bryan Lerg, to gain two points as they defeated their route 146 rivals 4-3 in overtime. Dylan DeMelo, Willie Coetzee, and Daniil Tarasov had the regulation goals for the WorSharks while goaltender Troy Grosenick contributed 26 saves in the winning effort. Worcester is now 6-0-0-0 against Providence this season, and has seven wins in a row against them dating back to last season.

Worcester Sharks captain Bryan Lerg became the first WorSharks player to score an
overtime penalty shot goal. It was the first in the AHL since Doug Janik had one
for the Grand Rapids Griffins on April 10, 2012. File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll once again use the WorSharks YouTube channel

Worcester head coach Roy Sommer went with the same line-up as he used against Binghamton Friday night, with Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Micheal Haley (sick), Eriah Hayes (shoulder), and Nick Jones all scratches. J.P. Anderson was the back-up goaltender.

As you can tell by the video that Providence goaltender Jeremy Smith disagreed with referee Olivier Gouin calling for a penalty shot after determining PBruins defenseman Chris Casto covered the puck in the crease. Turns out Smith may have been right, because according to some fans sitting behind the net it was indeed a bad call because the reason Casto had his hand over the puck was he was pulling it out of the net. Lerg’s post-game comments to WorSharks beat reporter Bill Ballou of the T&G echo that point as he said “I was smothered in the crease, and I thought the puck was in, but one of their guys pulled it out of the net with his hand.”

Some penalty shot facts for the WorSharks: Lerg became the first Worcester Sharks player to have two attempts in a row, his first being earlier this season against Kristers Gudlevskis in Syracuse where Lerg did not score. Lerg joins Brandon Mashinter as the only Worcester Sharks player with two penalty shot attempts for the team. Mashinter missed both his attempts. It wasn’t the first OT penalty shot for the WorSharks, Michael Connelly had one against Springfield’s Manny Legace 11/16/2011 on November 16th, 2011. Obviously Connelly didn’t score on that one. Lerg’s goal makes the franchise 5-15 in penalty shot attempts all-time.

In the house last night was ESPN personality John Buccigross, who appeared and signed autographs as part of the “#bucciovertimechallenge” bobblehead giveaway. This writer had a brief conversation where I asked if it was his first bobblehead. He laughed and replied “and likely last”. I then mentioned he needed another so he could use them as bookends, which drew more laughs from him. After signing autographs, which included a short break for a ceremonial puck drop, Buccigross the spent the rest of the game in one of the luxury boxes and tweeted out several pictures as we had “An in person @TheAHL #BucciOvertimeChallenge”. Buccigross gave Lerg some “swag” for scoring in OT and tweeted out “Find video of @BLerg11 penalty shot/OT winner for @WorcesterSharks. It was pure filth. 50 miles of dangles-backhand-thin mints-pot sticker”. There’s no need to find video, just scroll up to the highlight.

The three stars of the game were
1. WOR – 11 Bryan Lerg (OT PS GWG)
2. WOR – 19 Daniil Tarasov (g,a)
3. WOR – 26 Willie Coetzee (g,2a)

The Sharkspage player of the game is usually not one of the top two starts as we like to shine a little light on someone that didn’t get noticed enough, but seriously, how is it not Lerg for Saturday night.

Even strength lines
Tarasov/Tierney/Coetzee
Hanson/Oleksuk/Carpenter
Lerg/Trupp/Langlois
Bonneau/Brace/Burish

Taormina/Doherty
Abeltshauser/DeMelo
Young/Fedun

BOX SCORE

Providence 3 0 0 0 – 3
Worcester 2 0 1 1 – 4

1st Period-1, Providence, Stuart 1 (Flick), 1:41. 2, Worcester, DeMelo 3 (Coetzee), 6:10 (PP). 3, Providence, Ferlin 6 (Casto, Eminger), 7:57. 4, Worcester, Coetzee 4 (Tarasov), 17:17. 5, Providence, Khokhlachev 8 17:44. Penalties-Cherniwchan Pro (interference), 6:08.

2nd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Coetzee Wor (tripping), 14:29.

3rd Period-6, Worcester, Tarasov 8 (Tierney, Coetzee), 3:58. Penalties-Khokhlachev Pro (holding), 10:39.

OT Period-7, Worcester, Lerg 5 6:14 (PP PS). Penalties-Eminger Pro (holding), 4:43.

Shots on Goal-Providence 10-11-6-2-29. Worcester 5-11-15-6-37.
Power Play Opportunities-Providence 0 / 1; Worcester 2 / 3.
Goalies-Providence, Smith 10-6-1 (37 shots-33 saves). Worcester, Grosenick 12-6-1 (29 shots-26 saves).
A-6,083
Referees-Tom Chmielewski (43), Olivier Gouin (66).
Linesmen-Ed Boyle (81), Luke Galvin (2).