Another tough weekend for the Nailers, earning only three points in the standings in three games. Did you see any improvements from what you had seen in weeks prior, and where do the Nailers still stand to improve even more?
Every week, I go into the weekend with high hopes that the Nailers will get everything figured out for their games. And, while I did see some improvement overall in these three games, there are evidently still areas where the team needs to find a way to pull it together for a full 60 minutes in all three games. I really believe that this team has the talent needed to take that step forward and assert themselves as leaders in this division, but they have to find a way to put it together every night, game in and game out.
For example, on Friday night against Toledo, the Nailers came out strong, applying pressure to the Walleye and finding the back of the net first, as Matt Koopman gave Wheeling a 1-0 lead that they managed to hold onto through the end of the first. Unfortunately, David Jankowski took a penalty very late in the period that carried over into the second, and Toledo managed to get that score back a minute into the period on that carryover power play which gave the Walleye all of the momentum.
They used that momentum to score twice more before Koopman was able to get his second of the night to bring it back to a 3-2 difference before the second intermission. You would expect a lot of hard work out of the Nailers in the third, but they managed only three shots on goal in the period, none of which tickled the twine, and ended up losing the game by that same 3-2 score.
Not only did their penalty kill give up the goal that swayed the momentum, but the Wheeling power play also failed to get a score themselves on five opportunities. As I’ve said multiple times this season, you have to expect your power play to succeed when needed in those situations, and they just couldn’t get the job done on this night.
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As I mentioned last week in my article, it was a rather strange travel situation for the Nailers, as they had to go play a game five hours away in Indy sandwiched in between home games on Friday and Sunday, which is obviously not optimal in terms of player rest and physical readiness to play a game. The Fuel came out ready to take advantage of that, but Wheeling was ready off the jump, even though they failed to keep Indy off the scoreboard in the period and entered the first break down 1-0 on another power-play goal by an opponent. Indy found a way to make it 2-0 in the second before the Nailers got two of their own, the second on the power play, from Tanner Laderoute followed by Dillon Hamaliuk.
At that point, you had to think Wheeling was ready to bring it the rest of the way, but Indy found a way to get another one in the net behind Michael McNiven with only 1:11 left in the second to take the 3-2 lead into the break. After a lot of back-and-forth action in the third, Wheeling finally found the equalizer off the stick of Davis Bunz with only 4:04 left in the game and forced overtime, where Indy turned up the pressure and found a way to earn the extra point with the 4-3 OT win for the home team.
Coming home for the final game of the weekend, the Nailers knew they had to find a way to salvage something more than one single point out of these three games in their game against Kalamazoo. Despite getting back into town around 3 am that morning, Wheeling came out and pushed hard, leading to a 13-8 advantage in shots and a 1-0 lead off the stick of Bobby Hampton. The Nailers continued their play in the second, getting two more goals, both from Hamaliuk, taking a 3-0 lead into the third.
In past seasons, there might have been a little concern that they would take their foot off the gas and let the Wings back into the game, but Wheeling didn’t allow it on this night, scoring once more in the third from Isaac Belliveau and Taylor Gauthier hung strong, making 24 saves to earn the shutout victory.
Wheeling was able to get one power-play goal on the first Hamaliuk goal in the second period, while the penalty kill went perfect on the night in four tries. I feel like this game needs to be a blueprint for how the Nailers can win moving forward, by finding some success on the man advantage, playing tough when a man down, and really applying the pressure consistently to force the opponents into bad situations.
Three more games over this weekend for the Nailers, as they travel to Indy yet again to take on the Fuel on Friday before hosting the Tulsa Oilers on Saturday and Sunday. What does Wheeling need to do in these matchups to hopefully come out on top?
For some reason, Indiana Farmers Coliseum has become a house of horrors for the Nailers. They are 0-2-1 there so far this year, with three more games scheduled there this year, including the game this Friday. That’s after going 1-4 in that building last year, which tells me it’s a place where Wheeling struggles to get into the games.
I know there’s been a bit of an issue with traveling the day of the game in the past, but after my conversation with coach Derek Army (on the Derek Army coaches show Wednesday night on River Talk), he said the hope is that the team would be able to travel to Indy the day before and allow the players to get their bearings before going into the game.
I really do believe something as simple as that can help reverse fortunes for the Nailers, and I look for them to come out and jump on them early. I think if Wheeling can find a way to score quickly, and hopefully get one with a man advantage, they can come out of this matchup with two big points.
After that, the Nailers return home to face a team that has only made it to the Friendly City twice before in the Tulsa Oilers. Tulsa currently sits in third place in the Mountain Division, with a record of 10-6-3 heading into this weekend’s games and will be coming to town after a game Friday night against Ft. Wayne.
Looking over their team stats, Tulsa doesn’t appear that different from Wheeling overall. Their power play is slightly more successful (26% success rate to 19% for Wheeling), but their penalty kill is less effective than the Nailers (73% to 78%, respectively).
While I’ve been saying it time and time again, this is really the time when Wheeling needs to get that power play back on track. Seeing some success last week can give them the confidence going into two games against a team whose penalty kill is susceptible to giving up goals.
In looking over the Tulsa roster, I feel like their weakest link is in between the pipes.
Their best option, Julian Junca, is 3-1-1 on the season and he has a decent enough 2.38 goals against average, but his save percentage is only .906, which is relatively average in terms of goaltending. Their other option, Tomas Suchanek, has a slightly better .908 save percentage, which still isn’t that good, but a 2.68 goals against average. By comparison, Taylor Gauthier for the Nailers has a .917 save percentage and 2.53 goals against average with 10 games played, which I would say is a clear starter level performance.
If those are the two goalies the Nailers face this weekend (Tulsa has four on their roster currently, according to the ECHL website), they have to be ready to take advantage of this matchup and really pour the pressure on these guys and make them make mistakes.
As the Nailers prepare to finish their first big stretch of division games with the Indy game on Friday, Wheeling has only gone 4-6-1 during this stretch. The Nailers had similar problems last year against division opponents as well. What do they need to do in order to reverse their fortunes when faced with long stretches against these opponents moving forward?
The Nailers don’t have another streak against divisional opponents like this again until March, when their final 19 games of the season are all against division foes. They have a few smatterings of three or four games in a row, but that’s the only other time when they will have this sort of streak happen again.
In such a situation, you really need to take advantage of these moments, which the Nailers unfortunately couldn’t do this time around. These are the guys you will be battling with for potential playoff positioning as we get further along in the season, so seeing success against them and keeping them from getting points is important.
When this stretch of games began, Wheeling sat in third place in the division and had a chance to put themselves in a position to be the team to contend with, since they had games against Toledo and Iowa, the teams ahead of them.
While they did succeed in the games against the Walleye during this stretch and managed to split with the Heartlanders, failing to win against Indy has really dragged them down along with a couple one-off losses to Cincinnati and Ft. Wayne.
If the Nailers want to find a way to be a playoff team this year, they will need to improve against the teams they’re competing with for those four spots. Wheeling finds themselves with 15 games left on their schedule against the three teams currently ahead of them in the standings (Toledo, Iowa, and Cincinnati) and 18 games against the three teams behind them (Indy, Ft. Wayne, and Kalamazoo), including eight games against the Fuel alone (including the game on Friday).
That’s where standings points matter the most, not only in earning two points for yourselves every time, but also keeping them off the board. That can mean a lot come April and managing to stay within the top four in the division.
Last week, you noted in your column just how important scoring first has been not just to the Nailers but in the league overall. Are there any other odd facts you’ve noticed about the Nailers this season that might give you an idea as to how they will do in that game?
When this question first came up, I decided to look into first period numbers and how they relate to the end of the game, whether leading in shots in the first or leading the game overall after the first had anything to do with the resolution of the contest. The odd thing is, it isn’t as strong of a correlation as I would have expected. Through their first 19 games, the Nailers have led in shots after the first in 10 of them but have a record in those games of 4-5-1.
In the eight games where they had less shots after one (in one game, they tied in shots and lost that game), Wheeling has a record of 5-3-0. I would expect them to have better odds of winning in games where they are outshooting their opponents like that.
If you look at first period scoring instead, it does play a little bit more of a role in how things go overall. The Nailers have led after the first period in six of their games this year and have a record of 4-2-0 in those games. In seven games where the Nailers trailed after one period, their record stands at 2-4-1, and the other six games where the score was tied after the first, they currently stand at 3-3-0. With stats like that, I think it shows just how important it is to Wheeling to have that early lead and find a way to hold onto it.
Not saying it works that way every time, but when your record is that good when leading and that bad when trailing, it’s something worth keeping in mind if you are the Nailers.
But when I started researching all of this, I found a statistic that I thought was even stranger, and that’s the split of how the Nailers specialty teams perform at home versus on the road. Wheeling’s power play on the road has 12 goals on 47 chances, for a success rate of 25.5%, the eighth best in the entire league. At home, however, they have four goals on 38 opportunities, giving them a success rate of 10.5%, third worst in the ECHL. On the penalty kill side, it’s very similar, where they have 35 successful kills on 41 chances to give them a 85.4% success rate, the ninth best in the league.
At home, the Nailers have 28 successful kills in 40 chances, to have a 70.0% success rate, the fourth worst in the ECHL. I would love to know if there’s a reason why their specialty teams are so substandard at home, while they go on the road and somehow succeed at rates much higher than league average. Maybe if they can analyze what the difference is, they can bring some of what works on the road to their home ice with them and see better success there as well.
Saturday’s game against the Tulsa Oilers is the Wheeling Wonderland game, with a nice pom-pom hat giveaway and the annual Teddy Bear toss after the Nailers’ first goal in the game. What are your thoughts on what should be a very fun night at Wesbanco Arena?
Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am the personification of the Grinch. I’m not a fan of any holiday really, but I just don’t really get into this season, which is probably a bit of a shame, considering just how much my wife actually does enjoy Christmastime. She began doing some decorating in our house back in early November, but after I did the couple of tasks I try to help her with every year, I was done and told her she could do what she wanted, but don’t expect me to contribute too much.
I know how that makes me sound, but it’s just never been my thing in my almost 40 years on this Earth, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
That being said, this is honestly my favorite game to attend for the Nailers every year. I may not get into the season much myself, but I know how much this means to a lot of other people, and I love watching people care for other people in their community where those stuffed animals go to help make Christmas special for someone in need. I really love watching the other team’s goalie hide in his net after giving up the goal as stuffed animals rain down on him. I love watching the players enjoying the onslaught of toys flying down at them as they go out and try to help collect what has already landed.
I know from my talk with Coach Army just how much they really do enjoy this event every year too and how much they look forward to it.
In addition to that, the pom pom hat is always a nice giveaway at this time of the year. As temperatures continue to get colder, having a nice hat to help keep the heat on your head will always be helpful. They will also have a small business holiday village set up in the concourse, allowing fans to see some companies that they may not have encountered before. And helping local businesses helps out the community as a whole, by keeping money here in the area.
I really look forward to this game on Saturday, and I hope to see as many of you as possible there that night to be a part of this event.
