Valiant Comeback Effort Falls Short
Friday October 16th, 2009 | Game Recap

Team Stat Comparison
	WHE	SC
Score	4	5
Shots	28	31
Power Play	0/5	1/5
Penalties	7	7
Points	10	12

North Charleston, SC - The Wheeling Nailers came back from a 4-1 deficit to close within 5-4 of the defending league champion South Carolina Stingrays but were denied on their push to get the equalizer in a season opening road loss.

Andrew Lord, Joey Haddad, T.J. Fox and Thomas Beauregard all lit the lamp for the Nailers who gelled in the latter half of the game after some tough breaks out of the gate. Casey Pierro-Zabotel had a pair of assists for the Nailers and Thomas Harrison dropped the gloves a couple of times with different Stingrays opponents in efforts to spark his teammates.

Still reveling in the excitement of their Championship Banner raising pre-game ceremony, the Stingrays rode their wave of emotion to a 4-1 lead in the first including a pair of goals from Rob Ricci. South Carolina features 11 returning players from last year’s Kelly Cup Championship team.

Andrew Lord scored the lone 1st period goal for the Nailers at 14:39 firing it off South Carolina goalie Todd Ford and then tracking down the rebound in the right-wing corner and appearing to shoot it off the back of the goalie and into the net for a fluky goal.

Just 29 seconds after Wheeling had closed the gap to 2-1 the Stingrays would score a disputed goal when Rob Ricci appeared to beat Wheeling goalie Jordan Parise over the shoulder. The goal was initially waved off by referred Tim Meyer and play actually continued for a few seconds but after the officials had a chance to conference they decided that the shot had actually gone off the underside of the netting and quickly popped out instead of off the crossbar as they had initially ruled.

With Joey Haddad sitting a 4 minute double-minor for a high-sticking infraction that drew blood the Stingrays’’ Keith Johnson deflected a power-play blast from the point at 18:04 past Parise to boost the lead to 4-1.

Wheeling rookie Joey Haddad would light the lamp from between the circles with a top shelf goal over Todd Ford’s shoulder to close the gap to 4-2 at 10:35. Blair Yaworski won the puck in the right-wing corner and nicely centered to Haddad to set up his first professional goal for the 20 year old from Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Nick Kashirsky took advantage of a Stingrays odd-man rush to beat Parise past his right hip on a perfectly placed shot at 13:33 of the 2nd to give South Carolina 3 goal advantage again at 5-2.

After that it would be the Nailers who would mostly dominate the play. T.J. Fox took a headman feed from Casey Pierro-Zabotel and would quickly pick up the pinballing rebound off his own shot as he would glide it in past Ford’s right skate to close the gap to 5-3 at 15:37 of the 2nd.

South Carolina was outshooting the Nailers 28-19 after the first two periods of play but the Wheeling defense would put the clamps down during the final 20 minutes and Wheeling would outshoot the hosts 9-3.

Several good opportunities for the Nailers were turned aside by Ford who appeared to be just hanging in there on a few occasions. Pierro-Zabotel dug the puck away along the end-boards and flipped it out to T.J. Fox on the right-wing side of the crease who opted against shooting and instead slid the biscuit across the blue to the awaiting Thomas Beauregard on the left-wing side for the easy slam home. That goal at 15:42 got the Nailers to within a goal at 5-4.

A couple minutes later the Stingrays had a bad breakdown in their own zone as Blair Yaworski found himself right between the circles without anyone near him. The centering pass was perfect and Yaworski got off a good shot but Ford got just enough of it to deny him the tying goal.

The Nailers were still buzzing and pressuring in the South Carolina zone and with 1:36 left after South Carolina was forced to take an icing Nailers head coach Greg Puhalski called timeout. He pulled goalie Parise in favor of the extra attacker at that point but 1 second after the face-off drop to resume play a Stingray player went flying and T.J. Fox was tagged with a tough tripping minor.

Wheeling was able to pull the goalie a couple more times after that even though they were on the penalty kill but never challenged Ford after that.

South Carolina outshot the Nailers 31-28 on the game. The Stingrays went 1-for-5 on the power play while Wheeling was 0-for-5.

The Nailers season opening road trip continues with games at the Gwinnett (Georgia) Gladiators Saturday at 7:05 and Sunday at 4:05. Broadcast coverage begins 20 minutes prior with the Subway Countdown to Faceoff on flagship stations The Mix 97.3 and the Nailers Hockey Network presented by Amica Insurance/

Wheeling will play the South Carolina Stingrays a total of 6 times this season. SC comes up to West Virginia on November 6th. The teams will play a 4 game series against each in late January with a pair of games in South Carolina followed by a couple games in Wheeling.


Nailers Notes:

The Nailers will host a team Meet and Greet at the River City Ale Works in downtown Wheeling on Tuesday, October 20th at 6pm. C'mon out and meet the 2009-2010 Wheeling Nailers just a few days before their home opener.

The Wheeling Nailers officially open the 2009-2010 campaign on October 16th at the South Carolina Stingrays. The home opener for the 18th season of professional hockey in the Friendly City is October 23rd when the Nailers host the Cincinnati Cyclones. The first 2500 fans in attendance get a Wheeling Nailers season magnet schedule courtesy of Stoney Hollow Tire. Get your WTRF-Friday Family 4-Packs in advance and get great value! 4 tickets, 4 sodas 4 tickets and a large popcorn for only $44.

Home opening weekend continues on Sunday, October 25th against the Elmira Jackals at 6:35. It's a Sunday Family FunDay featuring an open post-game skate with the Nailers players. Be sure to bring your skates and gloves. It's also an NFL Sunday Special. Wear an NFL jersey to the game for a special $10 adult ticket.

Season tickets are on sale now for all 36 exciting Nailers home games at WesBanco Arena. Great season ticket plans are available for every budget. Also take advantage of the Nailers new $87 package for 7 Nailers home games. Call the Wheeling Nailers at (304) 234-GOAL, that's 234-4625. Or log on to wheelingnailers.com for more information.