Couture making points.

Byline: Bill Ballou

COLUMN: SHARKS NOTES

WORCESTER - Logan Couture wears No. 9, and he was No. 9 in 2007 NHL Draft, so the Sharks - both the Worcester and San Jose varieties - are expecting a lot from him.

So far, in his first full season as a professional, Couture is delivering. He had the fourth Worcester goal in the Sharks' 5-3 victory over Albany yesterday and in five games is 3-5-8 to lead the team in scoring.

Last year, Couture was 2-1-3 in 16 games, four in the regular season and 12 in the playoffs.

"Part of it," he said of his increased production, "was being able to get more comfortable. Last year was great for me, and having that long playoff run gave me the chance to play in some really intense hockey games."

"When he came to us last year," coach Roy Sommer said, "it didn't seem like he had a lot of energy, but this year, he's really becoming a force for us."

Fine start

The Sharks are off to the second-best start in their history and the fourth-best in 15 years of AHL hockey here. Worcester is 3-1-1 in five games, good for seven points. The 2007-08 Sharks were 4-0-1 in their first five games for nine points, as were the 1996-97 IceCats. The 1998-99 IceCats were 4-1-0 in their first five games for eight points.

Wearing A's

Ryan Vesce is with San Jose, and scored his first NHL goal on Saturday against the Islanders, just a few miles from his hometown of Lloyd Harbor, N.Y.; and Mike Moore is injured, so the Sharks had three alternate captains yesterday - Derek Joslin, Steven Zalewski and Joe Callahan. Only Joslin was a captain at the start of the season.

He and Jamie McGinn returned from stints with the NHL Sharks. Dan DaSilva is on the injured list along with Moore. McGinn took DaSilva's spot on the first line with Andrew Desjardins and John McCarthy.

That 25-man roster

Including Moore and DaSilva, the Sharks have 25 players on their roster. Worcester has three veterans - defensemen Danny Groulx and Callahan, and center Dwight Helminen. The Sharks have 12 rookies and seven second-year players.

Ten of the rookies had never played in a professional game until this season.

Six Sharks have NHL experience - McGinn, Zalewski, Callahan, Joslin, Frazer McLaren and Dwight Helminen - totaling 101 games among them. McGinn, with 40 games, has the most NHL experience.

Down to business

The AHL schedule begins to get serious next weekend. Worcester is off the next four days, then has its first three-in-three of the season. The Sharks play Springfield here on Saturday. They are at Providence Friday night and in Hartford on Sunday afternoon.

Triple-down effect

The snow, the Patriots, the economy - it was an attendance hat trick for the Sharks, who played before a painfully small crowd. The official figure was 2,012, the smallest regular-season attendance in franchise history. The previous low was 2,071 last Dec. 3 vs. Wilkes-Barre.

Shark Bites

Worcester presently has one player assigned to its new ECHL affiliate in Kalamazoo - defenseman Will Colbert. The president of that team is Paul Pickard, who was an IceCats assistant coach under Jim Roberts and Greg Gilbert. ... At 11:27 of the second period, Nick Petrecki took a slap shot from about 40 feet out that was deflected all the way over the safety netting and landed in the second tier of seats.

NAME: WORCESTER SHARKS

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: Worcester's Jamie McGinn is defended by Albany's Jonathan Paiement while River Rats goalie Mike Murphy looks on.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/JIM COLLINS