The Nailers took two out of three last weekend, winning Friday in Indy and then Saturday against Worcester before dropping the Sunday game against the Railers. What did Wheeling do well to earn those four points?
It’s always nice when you can earn points in two games out of a three-game weekend, especially when you throw travel into the mix like the Nailers did between Friday’s and Saturday’s games.
I wish the lost points would’ve been against the team not in the North Division, but sometimes you have to take what you can get. The other bit of good news from the weekend is that Trois-Rivières managed to lose two of three, both in regulation, to Reading, to allow Wheeling to extend their lead in the division to four points, although the Lions still have two games in hand.
The Nailers wasted no time getting a lead on Friday, with Kyle Jackson finding the back of the net just over five minutes into the contest. Four minutes later, Matthew Quercia doubled the Wheeling lead and from there, Taylor Gauthier slammed the door to preserve the 2-0 score to the intermission. The second period worked rather well for Wheeling also, as Quercia netted his second of the night on a power play almost seven minutes in to extend the lead to 3-0 before Indy finally cashed in with just over four minutes left to make it a two-score game heading to the third.
The final period had a lot of back-and-forth action with neither team changing the score until the Fuel pulled their goalie late and Gabe Klassen found the empty net to give Wheeling the 4-1 victory.
The win put Gauthier into sixth place all-time in wins as a goaltender for the Nailers with 38.
Saturday’s game was almost a complete 180 from the night prior, with Wheeling needing to play from behind at almost every turn. It all started with Worcester getting the scoring started just three minutes in, and it stayed that way until Chris Ortiz managed to knock one home on the power play to even the score with just under four minutes left in the period.
Unfortunately, 50 seconds later the Railers got one through Sergei Murashov to take the lead into the break. The score didn’t change until late in the second when Matt Koopman scored with less than five left, and it appeared the score would remain tied into the third until Worcester scored again with 35 seconds left to take the lead going to the third.
The Nailers managed to break through again halfway through the final period as Gabe Klassen got one, and neither team scored again in regulation or the overtime period to force a shootout. Worcester shot first and scored on their first try but wouldn’t do it again while Wheeling would manage to score twice and bring home the victory.
The Nailers pushed hard early in the Sunday game to get a lead in the hopes of sweeping the weekend, but the Railers were able to get a lead halfway through the first period against Gauthier and, despite Wheeling having 13 shots in the period, the score was 1-0 Worcester after 20 minutes of play. Early in the second, Worcester managed to score again and put together their best period of hockey for the weekend and took a 2-0 lead into the final period. Wheeling got on the board early in the third as Logan Pietila lit the lamp just 40 seconds in, but that’s as close as the Nailers would get.
Despite outshooting the Railers 11-3 in the period, nothing else went in, and Wheeling finished the weekend with the loss.
The Nailers now head on the road for Saturday and Sunday games against their opponent from last weekend, this time in Worcester. What does Wheeling need to do in these games to maximize their point earnings?
Now that we’ve gotten a taste for what the Railers like to do, it’s time to go on the road and take the fight to them. Worcester comes into the weekend in fourth place in the division, three points ahead of fourth-place Reading, and on a 5-game point streak (3-0-0-2). They will also play a game on Friday at home against Adirondack before welcoming the Nailers in.
The Railers come in averaging the seventh most penalty minutes per game in the ECHL at 14.69 minutes per game. Conversely, Wheeling is third from last on that list at 9.44 minutes per game (only Atlanta at 8.92 and Tahoe at 8.77 are lower). Worcester’s penalty kill group is not very good on home ice, with a 74.0% success rate, ranking them 26th in the 29-team league. Meanwhile, Wheeling’s power play on the road this year is tied for third-best in the league with a 25.9% success rate and is 3rd overall in the league with a 25.2% success rate. If the Nailers are able to get to the man advantage and cash in, they should be able to take care of business.
Something else interesting I noticed when looking over the stats is that Worcester does not do well when trailing after two periods of play. Their record in games they find themselves trailing going into the third is 3-15-0. For Wheeling, they are 14-1-0 in games where they lead after the first and 19-0-0 in games where they lead after 40 minutes of play.
The Nailers need to find a way to attack early and get the lead, and if they can, the stats show they can hold on through the final frame to bring home the win.
After the games this weekend, the Nailers will officially be halfway through the 2024-25 season. What do you hope they continue with from the first half into the second, and what areas do you think the team can improve on?
Boy, time sure does fly when you’re having fun, and it’s hard to not have fun when your team is doing as well as the Nailers are this season. Depending on the outcome in Worcester, as well as the games being played in Norfolk between Trois-Rivières and the Admirals, Wheeling will find themselves in either first or second place in the division as they hit the halfway point.
The other good news is, after having played only 16 games on home ice this season so far (to a record of 13-2-1), the Nailers will find themselves on WesBanco Arena ice 20 more times in their final 36 games this year. Considering how well they’ve done at home this year, that feels like something that will be very beneficial to this team coming down the stretch.
As for what to continue, I’ve stressed it in this space a number of times over the last few years, but specialty teams make the difference in a lot of hockey games. Wheeling has both power play and penalty kill groups sitting in the top five in the league overall. For a team like the Nailers that is one of the least penalized teams in the ECHL, to have their penalty kill group be that successful in so few chances can help shape the course of a game.
And on the other side, if your man advantage group is finding the net on one out of every four chances, as long as you average four power plays a game, you’re practically guaranteeing yourself a goal a game, which is huge. I’m not saying they absolutely must stay that high, but if these groups can continue to contribute like that, this team should see a lot of success in their remaining contests.
It’s harder to come up with things to improve on when your team is doing as well as Wheeling has done this year. But I will say, one thing I’d like to see is trying to avoid having dead periods too often. By that, I mean periods where they have five or less shots in the frame and being outshot by a considerable margin. Generally, I’ll notice them when the team already has a healthy lead, and the other team is pushing hard to get back into it.
But in those instances, I would like to see the Nailers be a little more cutthroat in trying to put the other team away. It may not happen extremely often, but the concern there is if the opponent does find a way to get a goal or two, then Wheeling has to turn it back on and struggles to do so. I feel like Coach Derek Army can recognize when things like this happen and can refocus the team and keep pushing them to finish games better.
While it’s a little early to look too deeply at this, the Nailers enter the weekend 22 points clear of the first team out of the playoffs in their division. What does Wheeling need to do the rest of the way to stay above that cutoff line?
Anything can happen in the second half of the season, so I try very hard to not take anything for granted with how well the Nailers have done so far this year. Injuries at the other levels in the organization can lead to necessary call-ups that can draw the best players off the roster. As we’ve seen recently, players under contract to the NHL and AHL teams can get traded at those levels, which requires guys to move around.
There have been a number of teams who have had very good seasons early, just to squander it all away and crash out.
But from what I’ve seen of this team and these players, I don’t see that happening. Every player up and down the lineup each night has bought into what it means to play Wheeling Nailer hockey, and they all work hard for 60 minutes each night when they’re on the ice. Giving yourself this sort of cushion from the bottom is nice, but considering where the team currently sits, I’m more focused on staying at the top, which only has a four-point difference (while Trois-Rivières has two games in hand).
If your team is good enough to be where Wheeling currently sits, that should be the focus, and every player should want to stay right where they are. Seeing continued success against teams in the lower half of the league, while staying tough against better opponents, should keep the Nailers pushing for that division lead into April.
The ECHL announced the 30th member team joining the league for next season, the Greensboro Gargoyles. Do you see more division/conference realignment coming with this and how could that affect Wheeling?
It’s always exciting when your league has a chance to expand again, especially considering they just expanded with two new teams this season in Bloomington and Tahoe. As it currently stands, only three NHL teams (Ottawa, Carolina, and Columbus) currently do not have an affiliate down in the ECHL, so it’ll be interesting to see if one of those teams ends up linking up with the new team in Greensboro (it would make sense to be the Hurricanes, but it’s the NHL, so there’s no guarantee they’ll ever do what actually makes sense).
Unlike the expansion this season that pushed the Nailers from the Central Division in the Western Conference to the North Division in the Eastern Conference, I don’t see this move having much of an effect on Wheeling. It’s possible that it would give a new team the Nailers could see on their schedule, but as it currently stands, every division (aside from the Mountain with eight) currently has seven teams in it.
The new team, being located in North Carolina, would geographically fit very easily into the South Division. I will also throw it out there to Nailer fans that, if they were looking for a chance to follow the team on a road trip should Wheeling ever go down there, it’s only a six-and-a-half-hour car ride from here to there. So maybe, someday in a future season, if Wheeling finds themselves playing a weekend series down there, it might be worth taking a little road trip to see the team in action in a different arena.
