WHEELING, WV- The Wheeling Nailers will have less than 24 hours to shake off a difficult night, as they were beaten 7-1 by the Toledo Walleye on Friday night at WesBanco Arena. Toledo got goals from seven different players in a game that got wild at the end. Ryan Pitoscia was the lone goal scorer for the Nailers.
The first period only saw one goal, but that tally came right away, as Toledo needed just 34 seconds to take a 1-0 lead. Kyle Gaffney twisted a backhander on goal from the right circle, which got bodied away by Nailers goaltender Nolan Lalonde. However, the rebound landed in the left side of the crease, where it got batted into the cage by Quinn Preston. Wheeling responded by taking seven of the next nine shots, but remained down by one.
The Walleye added to their advantage with a pair of strange goals in the middle frame. The first one came at the 4:34 mark. Nick Andrews attempted to sling a pass ahead from his own trapezoid to a teammate at the opposite blueline. The pass didn’t connect, and appeared to be going wide to the left of the net. Lalonde reached his stick out, but the puck glanced off of it, then found its way in over the goal line. Less than five minutes later, Tag Bertuzzi tossed a shot toward the goal from the left point, with Nolan Moyle providing a screen in the low slot. Lalonde got a piece of the attempt, but the puck squeezed out of his gear and trickled in over the goal line by a few inches to make the score 3-0…