NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The year was 1993. The Wheeling Nailers team name did not exist but the Wheeling Thunderbirds did. The Toledo Storm were in the process of winning back-to-back ECHL Riley Cup championships right after John Brophy and the Hampton Roads Admirals had won two straight titles. All that matters little now because the Nailers reached the promised land Tuesday night.
Jarrett Burton ignited a three goal blitz early in the third period to propel the Nailers to a 5-2 victory over the South Carolina Stingrays in game seven of the Eastern conference finals at the North Charleston Coliseum. The victory earned Wheeling a date with the defending Kelly Cup champion Allen Americans in the 2016 title series beginning Saturday night in Allen.
Wheeling’s three goals in the first 5:03 of the final frame allowed it to do something that few if any teams have done: win games six and seven of a conference final series on the road. Added to an overtime win in game two in North Charleston, the Nailers took three of its four away games to spoil the Stingrays’ plans for a repeat of the 2015 finals matchup between South Carolina and Allen – a series that went the limit before the Americans prevailed.
What some expected to be a tight defensive struggle with so much on the line started off with a bang. The Nailers opened the scoring for only the second time in the series when Cody Wydo won the puck in the corner of the Stingrays defensive zone and fired a pass to the front where John McCarron took the feed and beat goalie Vitek Vanecek over the shoulder through a screen for his eight goal of the playoffs just 2:21 in.
South Carolina’s response was swift. It took the Stingrays a mere 1:08 before David Pacan redirected a shot from the point by Wade Epp past Nailers netminder Brian Foster for the forward’s fourth tally of the post-season. Pacan’s effort was a thing of beauty as he got the shaft of his stick on the Epp drive to send it into the net.
Wheeling regained the lead at the 8:03 mark of the opening frame when McCarron made a perfect stretch pass to Wydo who sped into the Stingrays end. His initial shot was stopped by Vanecek but the rebound dropped into the crease area. Before the goalie or any of this defensemen could get there, Wydo followed up and poked the puck across the goal line for his eighth playoff score.
Both sides survived a penalty killing stint during the middle stages of the period but when the Nailers’ Brett Stern took a cross checking penalty with 1:40 to go before the intermission, the Stingrays needed to score and they did. It took all of six seconds for Bobby Shea to knock down a clearing attempt and fire a cross-ice feed to Austin Fyten who buried a one-time slap shot for his eighth goal of the 2016 playoffs and a tie at the break. The score also extended Fyten’s point streak to eleven straight games.
The second period was all about the goalies as Foster and Vanecek matched save for save. Foster had a brilliant early stop with his toe on a shot by Brett Cameron and stood tall in the late stages when the Stingrays made a big push on the way to ten recorded shots on net. Vanecek all nine Wheeling shots he faced, most of them coming in the first fifteen minutes of the stanza.
The question of which team would have the most energy left after Monday’s game six overtime thriller was answered before many of the 3,017 in attendance had returned to their seats. Twenty-four seconds into the third period, Wheeling’s Derek Army kept the puck in the South Carolina defensive zone at the blueline. He proceeded to slide the disc to defenseman Clark Seymour. Seymour fired and Vanecek made the initial save but Burton cleaned up the rebound for his fifth playoff goal and what would prove to be his third game-winning score of the series.
Shortly after the frame passed the one minute mark played, the Nailers struck again. This time Ty Loney drove down the wing and put a shot on net. Again the South Carolina netminder made the first save but failed to control the rebound. Jordan Kwas was in the right place to get to the loose puck and shove it into the net for his fourth goal and a two-score margin.
Wheeling was in total control of the flow of play, building a 5-1 edge in shots on net. That margin became 6-1 at the 5:03 mark when Loney converted a third straight rebound – this one coming off a shot by Wydo – into his sixth post-season score. The goal pushed the visitors lead to 5-2 and took what little hope the Stingrays fans had left and crushed it.
The Nailers defense did an outstanding job of keeping the potent South Carolina offense in check. Despite getting two more power play chances, the Stingrays had a hard time getting shots on net. They recorded only five in the first twelve minutes of the period on the way to a total of seven in the final twenty minutes.
Foster gave Wheeling interim head coach Jeff Christian yet another clutch performance. The Nailers goalie picked up his eighth win of the 2016 playoffs against five losseswith a solid 28-save effort. Foster’s counterpart Vanecek made 27 saves in seeing his post-season record fall to 6-2-2.
The Nailers will not have much time to celebrate after getting back to Wheeling on Wednesday morning. They will have to turn around on Thursday and head to Texas ahead of the start of the finals in Allen. Game one on Saturday will be quickly followed by game two Sunday afternoon before the teams go north for games three and four in Wheeling on Wednesday, June 1st and Friday, June 3rd.
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