First-place Growlers not taking last-place Railers lightly

There are no easy games in the North, says Snowden

Earlier this week, as the Newfoundland Growlers got ready for their current four-game homestand, consisting of two games each against North Division rivals, the Reading Royals and Worcester Railers, Growlers’ head coach John Snowden suggested the North might be the best grouping in the four-division ECHL.

“It doesn’t matter which team, which night or what their record is, there are no easy games in this division,“he said.

Snowden was commenting on the home stay that saw Newfoundland facing what was then, the division-leading team in Reading, and the Railers, who sit last overall in the 26team league.

Newfoundland (15-8-0), which now officially owns first place in the division after a pair of wins over Reading, takes on the Railers (6-12-1) tonight and Saturday at Mile One Centre.

Snowden’s assertion about the strength of the North might seem subjective, especially considering the Growlers have only played two non-divisional opponents so far this season; they swept the both Toledo Walleye and Atlanta Gladiators in two-game series at Mile One.nevertheless, the numbers back him up.

Heading into Thursday, the combine record of the North Division teams was 66 wins and 60 losses (including overtime and shootout setbacks). Since the six teams will be .500 overall in head-to-head games, that means the North is plus-six in wins/losses when it comes to games against clubs from other divisions.

By comparison, the seven-team South Division (66-73) is minus-seven, the six-team Central Division is plus-one (60-59) and the seven-team Mountain Division (74-74) is even.

Mind you, ECHL teams have limited schedules outside their divisions. For example, of the Growlers’ 72 regular-season games in 2019-20, only 15 are not against teams from the North. And there will be 12 teams Newfoundland doesn’t face at all this season.

The reasoning is that travel within divisions is usually less expensive, something important in a cost-conscious league. Of course, geography means the Growlers always will have an extensive travel schedule, but even for Newfoundland, there some excursions that are anomalies. For example, the Growlers’ next road trip will take them across three-anda-half time zones to Salt Lake City for three games against the Mountain Division’s Utah Grizzlies next Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

And then there is the welltimed late-february road swing that will have Newfoundland play three games in the Sunshine State, against the Jacksonville Icemen, Orlando Solar Bears and Florida Everblades. ———

Friday and Saturday’s games will be the fourth and fifth of the season for the Growlers against the Railers. Newfoundland has won two of three so far, but Worcester had a 6-4 victory in their last meeting, a week ago in Massachusetts.

The top scorers for the Railers, the ECHL affiliate if the New York islanders, include one-time NHL draft picks Jordan Samuels-thomas (710-17), Matt Schmalz (5-6-11), and Cody Payne (5-5-10), along with Barry Almeida, who won an NCAA Division championship with Boston College in 2010, and was once the No. 1 centre on a Terriers team that also had Chris Kreider and Johnny Gaudreau playing down the middle.

Payne was a fifth-round draft pick of the Boston Bruins in 2012, but didn’t turn pro until this season. A former OHLER, he had gone to the University of Prince Edward Island, where he was a teammate of the Growlers’ Marcus Power.

And there is one more name on the Worcester roster that might be familiar to some local fans. That defenceman Mike Cornell, who played 15 games for the AHL’S St. John’s Icecaps in 2014-15.