The Nailers took care of business last weekend, beating Adirondack both Friday and Saturday. What went well for Wheeling in those two games?
There’s an old saying that goes “the best offense is a good defense.” While that was originally intended to be about football, it can apply to hockey as well, especially around this time of year. However, in these games, not only did the Nailers play good defense, but they also played some great offense as well to ensure the sweep and continue to rack up some much-needed points.
Friday’s game started off as a back-and-forth affair, with both teams having a few chances but nothing of note happened. Late in the frame, Wheeling finally found a way to break through as Max Graham sent a rebound into the cage to break the ice and give the lead to the home team.
The second period started off hot for Wheeling as they doubled their score less than two minutes in thanks to Tommy Budnick. The score remained 2-0 until less than six minutes left in the middle frame when Ryan McAllister scored to make it 3-0 heading into the third. The Thunder pushed hard to get back into the game, but Taylor Gauthier slammed the door and maintained the shutout, and an empty netter by Raivis Ansons late in the third finished the scoring and gave the Nailers the 4-0 victory.
Saturday’s game saw Adirondack come out firing in the hopes of avoiding a similar fate as the night before. They sent 12 shots flying at Gauthier, but he managed to stop all of them to keep the score tied at zero through the first 20 minutes of play.
Unlike the night before when their power play was held off the board in three tries, the Nailers finally took advantage of being a man up six minutes into the second when Matthew Quercia broke the tie with a power play goal. Unfortunately, the Thunder finally found the back of the net less than five minutes later, then scored again late in the frame on their own power play chance to take the lead at 2-1 heading into the third.
In the third, Wheeling worked hard to tie the game just over three minutes in after a Jack Works goal and, just two minutes later, Matty De St. Phalle gave the Nailers the lead again. Wheeling took another penalty, but just 10 seconds into the shorthanded opportunity, Raivis Ansons scored his second goal of the weekend to extend the lead to two. Gauthier once again slammed the door down the stretch, and the Nailers came away with another huge win.
The Nailers now go on the road this weekend, playing three games in three days at Trois-Rivières. How can Wheeling avoid overlooking this team and coming away with six points?
The Nailers will head north of the border to face the top team on the outside looking in at the playoff picture in the North Division. One year after defeating Toledo in five games to win the Kelly Cup, there’s a very good chance that the Lions will miss the postseason completely, trailing Reading by seven points with only 15 games left to their season.
With that being said, that just means that they’ll be out for as many points as they can get to hopefully stay alive, or to at least play spoiler for a team looking to keep their hold on the top spot in the North. Luckily, Wheeling has played very well against Trois-Rivières this season, holding a 3-0-0 record in their contests thus far, with this weekend possibly being the last three games they will play against one another this year.
Trois-Rivières has been a better team at home than on the road this season, with a record of 17-10-0-1 at Colisée Vidéotron against 11-15-1-2 when away from home. Their real problem at home has been when they are trailing at the end of a period. The Lions are 1-5-0 in games where they trail after one and 1-8-0 when trailing after two. If the Nailers are able to jump on them early, they should be able to find a way to keep it and earn those important points.
The Nailers are sitting relatively pretty in the standings thanks to Maine’s overtime loss on Wednesday. What will it take for Wheeling to maintain their hold on first place in the North?
At this point, the Nailers are four points clear of the Mariners and six ahead of the Thunder heading into the weekend, with both of those teams still having a game in hand on Wheeling. At this point, the Nailers find themselves in the driver’s seat with about a month to go, but I’ll talk more about that in a little bit.
The problem is, Maine only has two games remaining on their schedule against teams currently slated to make the playoffs, while Adirondack has three on theirs. By comparison, of their remaining 14 games in the regular season, the Nailers will have eight contests against teams currently expected to be in the playoffs. In fact, it’ll be their last eight games on the season after three this weekend against Trois-Rivières and three against Worcester next week.
That being said, it really is as simple as just winning games to stay where they are. Only four teams in the entire ECHL have a better points percentage than Wheeling at this point, although the Nailers will face one of those teams (Toledo) twice more down the stretch, both times away from home. If they can find a way to take care of business against teams that are technically worse than them in the standings overall, then they control their own destiny for their playoff positioning.
The Nailers’ magic number heading into competition this weekend is 13. What does that mean, and how close are we to seeing Wheeling clinch at least a spot in the postseason?
While it would be nice to keep that first seed in the North and have everything flow through Wheeling, the most important thing is just making the postseason. A team’s magic number is representative of the combination of points earned by the leading team and points lost by the first team outside of the playoffs that will help them clinch a spot in the postseason.
For the Nailers, that means it would take 13 points between them winning and the first team outside (currently Trois-Rivières) losing that will help them clinch. Obviously, winning all three games head-to-head this weekend would give them 12 points, meaning their magic number could be as low as one coming out of this road trip.
Of course, that’s dependent on the Lions staying in that fifth spot, which is a little dicey for the Nailers. Worcester, the next team down the list, play two games against Maine followed by one against Adirondack, meaning wins by them pushes Wheeling further ahead in the standings and closer towards clinching first in the North, but also keeps their magic number in double digits. So, while it would be nice to say we’re just one point away from guaranteeing a spot in the race for the Kelly Cup, I would prefer to see the Railers winning these games and helping the Nailers keep the teams behind them at bay.
With only five regular-season contests remaining to be played on home ice, what promotion that is left on the schedule are you the most excited for?
You might think that, with so few games remaining at home, there can’t be that many fun things still happening down at WesBanco Arena this year, but you would be wrong. It all begins with next Friday, dubbed Romance at the Rink, where people are encouraged to bring books to read, meet authors, and there will be books available for sale on the concourse. This is the one my wife is most excited about, as she is an avid reader and definitely has certain genres she enjoys reading more than others (ACOTAR is one of her favorite series, for those who understand).
Then the next night is Fan Appreciation Night, where the Nailers will be giving away a vacation to one lucky fan in attendance and cowbells to the first 2,500 people through the door. They will also be auctioning off their jerseys that night along with other giveaways that are scheduled.
But for me personally, I’m really looking forward to their makeup game scheduled for April 18th against Indy, which will be 80’s Night. There will be a postgame concert featuring music performed by Tongue-N-Cheek, who I’ve heard perform before and they are quite good. If any of these events sounds fun to you, I encourage you to go find your tickets for any and all of these games, and I’ll see you at the rink.
