The Nailers enjoyed a strong showing in their first weekend at home, earning a 3-2 victory last Saturday followed by a 7-4 win on Sunday, both over the Reading Royals. What are your takeaways from these games?
Boy, if you’re a fan of the Nailers, you couldn’t imagine last weekend going much better for the hometown team. Wheeling came home with a strong 2-1 record but with some question marks after their 7-3 loss in Fort Wayne. The obvious hope was that the Nailers would find a way to win both games, and they absolutely succeeded in that despite the change in goal that was necessitated by the advancement of Taylor Gauthier to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
David Tendeck inherited the starting role and played well enough to win, allowing a total of six goals on 41 total shots in the two games combined.
On Saturday, the Nailers were able to get on the board first, as Cedric Desruisseaux was able to pop his fourth of the season into the net with 9:21 left in the frame. Wheeling managed to make it 2-0 before the end of the first as Isaac Belliveau got his first of the season (and first as a professional) with less than a minute left in the period. Reading was able to get one back late in the second to have a 2-1 difference going into the third, but Wheeling got the third and decisive goal just past halfway through the third, as Davis Bunz scored his first of the year.
The Royals were able to get one back just over two minutes later but would get no closer as Wheeling shut the door and Tendeck made a few good saves to hold on and get the victory.
On Sunday, Wheeling was able to start the game early yet again (more on this shortly), as Thimo Nickl became the second player in as many nights to score his first professional goal only 1:36 into the contest and give the Nailers an early lead. Reading was able to respond a minute and a half later, but then it turned into the Jordan Frasca show, as the forward was able to score a natural hat trick. Even stranger was the fact that they were all different types of goals, as he scored at even strength, then shorthanded, then a power-play goal in that order to get his first three goals on the season.
While Reading was able to get the deficit back to within three goals before the third period, Wheeling kept up the pressure, scoring one more in the third before Reading scored closer to the end of the game to give the 7-4 final and earn a strong four standings points for the home team.
There are a number of things I saw from the Nailers this weekend that gave me a lot of hope for this season. It’s always great when you can score 10 goals in a two-game series, but what I thought was an excellent sign was that those goals were scored by eight different players. The only repeat scorer was Frasca with his natural hat trick in the Sunday tilt. Considering how many of those goals were also scored by players who hadn’t found the back of the net to that point in the season when they did, including players who are in their first seasons as professionals, shows that they’re finding a way to spread the puck around and getting offense from all over the ice.
This team has shown an ability to get on teams early, put pucks in net, and keep pressing to keep the game in their direction. If they can keep that up over a 72-game season, they should have a good chance of playing hockey long past the end of the regular season.
Coming up this weekend, the Nailers will be hosting the Idaho Steelheads, the runners-up for the Kelly Cup last year and looking just as strong this season. What do the Nailers need to do in these games to show they can hang with such a powerhouse team?
Idaho comes into town with a 6-1 record, with their only loss happening on opening night against Allen by a 5-2 score. The Steelheads had four of the top six scorers in the entire playoffs last year and have returned two of those players for this year’s team (Wade Murphy and Ty Pelton-Byce). Idaho had quite possibly the strongest team in the entire league last year, earning 119 standings points en route to winning the Brabham Cup and cruising through the playoffs until they ran into their kryptonite in the Florida Everblades in the Kelly Cup finals.
While Idaho does bring one of the strongest teams in the ECHL to town, they aren’t without their faults. Their powerplay has only seen a success rate of 14.3% to this point in the year, while their penalty kill has had a pretty bad showing thus far as well, with only a 76.7% success rate. Those numbers simply won’t cut it when playing against a Wheeling Nailers team who has one of the best powerplay units in the entire league with a 31.8% success rate.
The Wheeling penalty kill is still holding strong as well despite giving up two powerplay goals to Reading on Sunday, maintaining an 85.2% kill rate through their first five games. These are a couple of areas that the Nailers can look to exploit when playing against a tough opponent like the Steelheads.
The one thing I would emphasize with the Nailers going into this big three-game set this early in the season would be to get to your game and stick with it. I’ve noticed that Wheeling has managed to use their speed to their advantage to this point, creating numerous odd-man chances and forcing bad play from their opponents in their zone with their forecheck. Don’t be afraid to try to make a play for the team, while never losing sight of what your overall objective is when you step on the ice. If you’re a defenseman, pinch and contribute when you can, but don’t allow it to get you out of position to make plays coming back too. Forwards will need to be on their toes and ready to skate hard to create havoc.
heir goaltenders have split the games thus far this year and both have relatively mediocre numbers, so if you can create scoring chances, take advantage. I fully believe the Nailers have a good chance to put their names out there early as the team to watch for in the ECHL this year after this weekend.
There have already been an interesting number of storylines around this team this year through only three weeks, both on the individual player side as well as for the team as a whole. What have you seen so far that you plan to keep an eye on as the season progresses?
This team definitely has some statistical anomalies this season, and that’s without considering the pace at which the powerplay and penalty kill have succeeded this year, which have both cooled a bit since their fever pace the previous two weeks.
Wheeling has managed to score the first goal of the game in four of their five games thus far, all wins, and in three of those instances, their first goal came within the first three minutes of the game. While this is over a rather small sample size, it’s definitely something worth keeping in mind if the Nailers can continue to put pucks in the net early and force their opponents to play from behind quickly. The real issue with this is holding onto this lead, as the Nailers have only managed to extend the lead once this season when scoring first, when they went ahead 2-0 against Reading on Saturday.
In each of the other three games, the opponent was able to score shortly after Wheeling did, finding a way to get back into the game. If the Nailers are able to find a way to earn and hold those early leads, and hopefully extend them as the period moves on, it should go a long way towards helping them hold off opponents as they go through this season.
On the individual player side, there are definitely some fantastic trends that have come about already that I want to see continue. Through the first five games, there are four players (Justin Addamo, Cedric Desruisseaux, Jordan Frasca, and Lukas Svejkovsky) who have managed to have at lease one point in each game, with Desruisseaux having multiple games with two plus points in each.
I know it’s a statistical impossibility, but I would love to see just how deep into the season these guys can keep those streaks alive. Having your best players out on the ice scoring points can absolutely help your team win games, as those are the guys you should be able to count on. They’ve absolutely shown up in a big way already to this point.
Another interesting development is the fact that two of the newcomers we’ve already spoken about (Thimo Nickl and Isaac Belliveau) are currently leading the team in plus/minus at a +7 and a +6, respectively. Having newcomers to the league show up and play as strong as they have thus far on the defensive end is a fantastic sign as well, as you would expect it to take some time for them to adjust to the new league and new style.
Of all the defensemen on the team, only one currently has a plus/minus below zero, so I think that shows your defense is playing very tough thus far this year, with those younger players showing they have what it takes to play at this level and possibly beyond as they get acclimated to the professional game. Hopefully they can stick here in Wheeling for a while and help us compete as the season progresses.
Through the first three weeks of the season, the Nailers have only played five games thus far, one of the lowest totals in the league (the Toledo Walleye have the fewest played at four). That obviously means things will be ramping up in the coming weeks. How do you think this will affect the team?
As I’ve said a couple times already, it’s hard to look at the stats at this point with such a small sample size. It’s hard to think that things happening this early in the season can affect your team as we get further along. One thing I like to do to give a better feel for how important this part of the season is to look at it in segments. With a 72-game season, that breaks down to nine segments of eight games each. You could say 12 segments of six games each, but I feel like that’s still a small grouping for data to matter.
After the three games this weekend, the Nailers will be finished with the first segment of this season, so that should help us have a better feel for how that can expand out over the full season.
Of course, as I said in the last question, there are already some fantastic signs of how the team is going. The powerplay and penalty kill have some very impressive numbers so far, the forwards have managed to find ways to create offensive chances and create takeaways to keep pressure on opposing defenses, the defense has chipped in on the offensive end while managing to help out their goalies, and I’ve noticed the keepers have been working hard to cut down on rebounds that stay right in front.
If this team can keep those trends going, both through this weekend against the Steelheads and beyond, I feel like we should see enough winning records in those nine segments to push the team into the Kelly Cup playoffs.
Through only two home games so far, the Nailers have enjoyed some fantastic crowd sizes, welcoming over 6,000 fans to the two games combined. What do you think this means for their attendance through this season, and what do you think this means to the team on the ice?
Any time you have a chance to talk to hockey players, especially at a level like Wheeling, they are more than happy to talk about how important it is to them to have the fans in the building. When people come and pour their energy into the arena and the team, they can feel it and it really does push them to play harder and do the work to make those people pulling for them happy.
Attendance last year was great, as the team easily outpaced the previous year for the full season, but they only had 4,008 fans in the building through the first two games last year at The Bank, as we didn’t know what to expect out of the new team.
This season, that number has climbed to 6,047 fans for the first weekend at home, an increase of 2,039 for those two games alone. If the fans can continue to find a way to keep attendance numbers high this year, this could turn out to be one of the best-attended seasons the Nailers have ever seen, and that support is so apparently appreciated by everyone in the organization.
When looking ahead at the schedule, there are a number of fun events scheduled for this year, starting on Thanksgiving Eve with the IWC wrestling show prior to the game, to the second Wizards and Wands night (last year’s event was so fun they just had to bring it back), Wheeling Wonderland night in December with the annual teddy bear toss, and Super Nailers World in January with a special Super Mario theme, there are definitely plenty of reasons to get your tickets now.
Let’s see how many nights we can pack the building and show the team we’re there for them.
