SHARKSPAGE

Evan Trupp gets hat trick, WorSharks melt IceCaps 6-3

The Worcester Sharks, fresh off a sweep of last weekend’s three-in-three with a pair of victories over the Norfolk Admirals and a Sunday win in Manchester, went into Friday night’s game against the St John’s IceCaps with a little revenge in mind after being banged around a bit on The Rock two weeks ago and eventually blowing a four goal lead. Worcester got some payback both on the ice and on the scoreboard with a mammoth tone-setting fight from Jimmy Bonneau at the opening puck drop and a timely offensive outburst to defeat the IceCaps 6-3 at the DCU Center. Evan Trupp led the WorSharks with his first professional hat trick and an assist, while Trevor Parkes had his first three assist game as pro. Aaron Dell had 29 saves in the victory. The two teams play again Saturday at 7pm.

Worcester Sharks forward Evan Trupp scored his first pro hat trick
in the WorSharks 6-3 win over the St John's IceCaps Friday night
at the DCU Center. File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll point to the Worcester Sharks YouTube channel, where 2008–09 James H. Ellery Memorial Award winner Kevin Shea joined WorSharks play by play man Eric Lindquist with the call.

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Chris Crane, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (Foot), and Daniil Tarasov. Troy Grosenick was the back-up goaltender. With this writer being off for nearly two weeks we’re a little behind in the transactions. Since our last update Dylan DeMelo, Matt Tennyson, and Tarasov have all been assigned to Worcester by San Jose, while the WorSharks have sent three down to the ECHL in J.P. Anderson (Allen Americans), Kyle Bigos (Ontario Reign), and Nick Jones (Indy Fuel).

With his hat trick Trupp became the second WorSharks player to score a hat trick and assist on all three goals of another player’s hat trick in the same season. Trupp assisted on all three of Langlois’ goals on January 21st in Portland. Mathieu Darche was the first to do it, scoring the franchise’s first hat trick on December 22, 2006 against Manchester and then assisting on all of Mike Iggulden’s goals on March 31, 2007 in Houston. Tarasov has also accomplished the feat, although it took two season for him to do it, scoring his hat trick October 26, 2013 at Springfield and then exactly one year later assisting on all three of Freddie Hamilton’s goals against Portland.

The Worcester Sharks booster Club announced their player of the month awards for the first portion of the season in a pregame ceremony, with Micheal Haley winning for October, Matt Taormina for November, and captain Bryan Lerg for December. After the ceremony the WorSharks surprised longtime season ticket holder Chris O’Shea by having her take part in the ceremonial puck drop.

To call Friday night’s contest one of the poorest officiated games in recent memory would be a massive understatement. Referee Garrett Rank, working alone for the game, apparently panicked after the opening faceoff battle between Jimmy Bonneau and Blair Riley and ejected both players for “continuing altercation”, a rule that exists solely for the purpose of referees ejecting players. Rank then seemed to forget he was officiating a hockey game and let everything go until late in the second period when Taylor Doherty had enough and absolutely went bonkers on IceCaps forward JC Lipon, literally picking Lipon up and driving him into the boards. In the third period Rank called Eriah Hayes for high sticking even after watching Hayes get slashed multiple times beforehand. Somehow the least penalized team in the AHL was the only team killing penalties in the game. Seems a tad odd to this writer.

The three stars of the game were
1. WOR – 13 Evan Trupp (hat trick, assist)
2. WOR – 39 Trevor Parkes (3a)
3. STJ – 24 Scott Kosmachuk (g,a)

The Sharkspage player of the game is Eriah Hayes.

Even strength lines
McCarthy/Carpenter/Hayes
Lerg/Trupp/Parkes
Haley/Oleksuk/Hamilton
Bonneau (everyone)/Schwartz/Coetzee

Taormina/Tennyson
DeMelo/Doherty
Young/Fedun

BOX SCORE

St. John’s 2 1 0 – 3
Worcester 2 2 2 – 6

1st Period-1, Worcester, Trupp 11 (Parkes, Taormina), 1:12. 2, St. John’s, Albert 15 (Lipon, Kosmachuk), 4:17. 3, Worcester, Hayes 5 (Carpenter), 8:42. 4, St. John’s, Balisy 13 (Kichton, Armia), 16:11. Penalties-Riley Stj (unsportsmanlike conduct, fighting, game misconduct – continuing altercation), 0:02; Bonneau Wor (unsportsmanlike conduct, fighting, game misconduct – continuing altercation), 0:02.

2nd Period-5, Worcester, Schwartz 2 (Trupp, Parkes), 12:33. 6, St. John’s, Kosmachuk 12 (Lipon, Albert), 13:17. 7, Worcester, Trupp 12 (Lerg), 15:41. Penalties-Doherty Wor (roughing, roughing), 16:21.

3rd Period-8, Worcester, McCarthy 9 18:12 (EN). 9, Worcester, Trupp 13 (DeMelo, Parkes), 19:35 (EN). Penalties-Hayes Wor (high-sticking), 9:55.

Shots on Goal-St. John’s 8-10-14-32. Worcester 14-6-9-29.
Power Play Opportunities-St. John’s 0 / 3; Worcester 0 / 0.
Goalies-St. John’s, Hellebuyck 24-16-1 (27 shots-23 saves). Worcester, Dell 8-3-0 (32 shots-29 saves).
A-3,203
Referees-Garrett Rank (48).
Linesmen-Ed Boyle (81), Chris Low (88).