SHARKSPAGE

McCarthy becomes WorSharks all-time points leader in 5-1 win over Bridgeport

The Worcester Sharks went down to the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut on Wednesday night with a little revenge in mind after losing to the Sound Tigers at the DCU Center on Saturday, and behind a record setting night by John McCarthy and a near flawless game by goaltender Troy Grosenick the WorSharks defeated Bridgeport 5-1 to jump into sixth place in the American Hockey League’s Eastern Conference standings. Dylan DeMelo, Daniil Tarasov, and Eriah Hayes were the other goal scorers for Worcester, while Willie Coetzee extended his point streaks to four games with an assist.

Worcester Sharks forward John McCarthy had two goals an and assist Wednesday night in
Bridgeport to become the WorSharks all-time points leader with 145 points. McCarthy is
also tied with Dan DaSilva for the Worcester Sharks all-time goal lead at 60.
File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’re going to point at AHLlive.com. Usually the Sound Tigers put together a great video package on their website, but for Wednesday’s game there was an obvious issue with the upload.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (foot), Bryan Lerg (knee), Matt Tennyson (lower body), and Evan Trupp (undisclosed injury). Aaron Dell was the back-up netminder. None of the recent injuries are thought to be serious, but it did make for an interesting stat for the game: half of Worcester’s top ten scorers out of the line-up with Trupp, Lerg, and Langlois injured, Chris Tierney still on recall to San Jose, and Freddie Hamilton traded to Colorado. Earlier in the week Worcester GM Joe Will made a trade with the Manchester Monarchs, getting forward Vincent Arseneau in exchange for future considerations. Arseneau made his WorSharks debut Wednesday wearing #16.

As noted above, John McCarthy continues to write his name in the WorSharks record books. Now possessing the Worcester Sharks all-time points record he needs just one goal to take over that category from Dan DaSilva, and seven more assists to catch Tom Cavanagh’s 92 for that record. McCarthy’s 85 is actually third on the WorSharks career assist list, with Steven Zalewski’s 87 next up. McCarthy also needs 13 games to catch Nick Petrecki at 277 for most games played for the Worcester Sharks. On the Worcester all-time list McCarthy is tied for 7th (with DaSilva) in goals but likely will not catch Marc Brown’s 79 for the IceCats. In assists McCarthy is tied with Daniel Cosro for sixth all-time, in career points he is sixth by himself, and games played he’s in fifth place. In those categories McCarthy has no chance of catching “Mr IceCats” Terry Virtue.

In Saturday’s game between the two clubs Colton Gillies was given a major and ejected for his hit on WorSharks captain Bryan Lerg, and even though Lerg came back to finish that game he’s been an injury scratch since. The AHL decided the hit wasn’t worthy of a suspension despite it being much more serious that the hit they suspended Jimmy Bonneau for last week. It was presumed that with Bonneau available to play Wednesday Worcester head coach Roy Sommer would send his tough guy out to extract some frontier justice, but Sommer scratched Bonneau. Worcester plays in Bridgeport one more time this season–the game rescheduled because the Sound Tigers allegedly had travel troubles in January–so we may still see Bonneau introducing himself to Gillies.

The three stars of the game were
1. WOR – 17 John McCarthy (2g,a)
2. WOR – 1 Troy Grosenick (25 save win)
3. WOR – 7 Eriah Hayes (g)

We don’t usually give the Sharkspage player of the game to one of the top two stars, but we’ll make an exception for Wednesday’s game and give it to John McCarthy.

Even strength lines, courtesy of Michael Fornabaio from the CT Post:
Haley(A)-McCarthy(A)-Parkes
Tarasov-Oleksuk-Coetzee
Schwartz-Carpenter-Hayes
Arseneau-Crane-DeBlois

Taormina(A)-Doherty
Stollery-DeMelo
Young-Fedun

BOX SCORE

Worcester 0 2 3 – 5
Bridgeport 0 0 1 – 1

1st Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Fedun Wor (tripping), 10:20; Coetzee Wor (goaltender interference), 18:57; Reinhart Bri (roughing), 18:57.

2nd Period-1, Worcester, Hayes 6 (Carpenter, Schwartz), 6:06. 2, Worcester, McCarthy 10 (Haley, Fedun), 7:09. Penalties-Carpenter Wor (high-sticking), 15:31; Mouillierat Bri (slashing), 19:59.

3rd Period-3, Worcester, Tarasov 12 (McCarthy, Stollery), 7:46 (PP). 4, Worcester, DeMelo 6 (Coetzee, Oleksuk), 13:34 (PP). 5, Bridgeport, Zolnierczyk 18 (Ness, Mouillierat), 14:49 (PP). 6, Worcester, McCarthy 11 (Parkes), 18:58. Penalties-Parkes Wor (boarding), 3:34; Carkner Bri (tripping), 6:47; Mayfield Bri (boarding), 12:31; Hayes Wor (high-sticking), 14:27.

Shots on Goal-Worcester 8-12-9-29. Bridgeport 9-9-8-26.
Power Play Opportunities-Worcester 2 / 3; Bridgeport 1 / 4.
Goalies-Worcester, Grosenick 18-8-1 (26 shots-25 saves). Bridgeport, Poulin 15-15-1 (29 shots-24 saves).
A-2,881
Referees-Ryan Hersey (8).
Linesmen-Paul Simeon (66), Mike Baker (11).