MANCHESTER, N.H. — With about five minutes left in the third period Friday night at SNHU Arena, a bunch of fans behind the Manchester Monarchs net began shouting, “Boring! Boring!”
That was exactly what the Railers wanted to hear.
They shut down the first-place Monarchs for most of the night, goalie Mitch Gillam getting much of the credit for that, and eventually prevailed, 2-1, on Matt Lane’s goal in overtime. It was the first OT winner in franchise history.
The victory improved Worcester’s record to 3-2 on the six-game road trip that concludes here Saturday night.
Barry Almeida had the other Railers goal. Spencer Watson scored for Manchester.
Lane beat Charles Williams with a wrist shot to the glove side from the left circle with 1:16 left in overtime.
“I was happy to see it,” Railers coach Jamie Russell said of the play. “He had some great chances early in the year where he was snake-bitten a little bit. Matty’s really cleaned up his game in terms of the defensive side of it, and he’s getting good minutes now.”
Gillam stopped 30 of 31 shots in his second straight excellent performance here.
“I thought our penalty kill came up big,” Russell said, “and Gillam made some big saves. We had some big kills, especially when they were back-to-back (late in the second, into the third). That can be tough.”
Despite the fact that it is second from the bottom of the ECHL in goals scored, Worcester remains in playoff contention because it does not give up many goals.
“It’s surprised me that we haven’t scored a lot more goals than we have,” Russell said. “Our goaltending’s been real solid, and the guys have committed to playing defense. As offensive as Patrick McNally was —12 goals where we were at in the season is tremendous — but he was up ice an awful lot, and we gave up a lot of odd-man rushes. Our young defensemen are keeping it simple.”
The Monarchs had a flurry of very good chances early, and Watson scored to finish a two-on-one with Matt Buckles. Watson kept the puck all the way and slipped a backhander past Gillam at 5:50 from just outside the crease.
The Railers gradually regrouped and held the deficit to 1-0. That allowed Almeida to tie the game with his 10th of the year at 17:04. Kellen Jones fed him the puck on the left side, and Almeida's 25-footer seemed to baffle Williams.
It was Almeida’s eighth point in the last nine games.
The second period was downright dreary, with neither side mounting much in the way of sustained offense. Matt Schmalz had a breakaway early, and Gillam made yet another pad save to keep it at 1-1.
Later in the period, Manchester’s Zac Lynch weaved his way through the Railers' defense and was about to snap a short shot at Gillam when defenseman Mike Cornell leveled him with a crunching shoulder check to cancel that scoring chance before it really happened.
It turned out that the Railers needed all the cancellations they could get.
Rail Life
Rookie Brian Bowen made the trip, but did not dress. The Railers’ latest newcomer was playing for the University of Vermont when signed and was 1-4-5 in 10 games. Russell said that Bowen had made it known he was available, and the Railers were sure to contact the Vermont coaching staff when recruiting him. “He’s been contacted by other ECHL teams,” Russell said. “I think school was a challenge for him, and he was champing at the bit to get his pro career underway.” … Cornell returned from his call-up to Bridgeport where he skated in one game. … Ashton Rome is hurt, although not on injured reserve yet. Rome has been hampered by a series of injuries, and “we’ve got to get him fixed,” Russell said. With Rome out for a while, Chris Langkow has assumed the duties of captain. … Matty Gaudreau and Josh Monk are injured along with Rome. Defensemen Sean Gammage and Conor Doherty also were scratched. … The teams play again here at 6 tonight, then go on the All-Star break.
—Contact Bill Ballou at william.ballou@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillBallouTG.