Wheeling Nailers forward Zach Urdahl (34) looks for a scoring opportunity in front of Reading Royals goaltender Keith Petruzzelli and defenseman Miles Gendron (43) during Sunday’s game at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling.
WHEELING – Sunday afternoon’s weekend finale between the Wheeling Nailers and Reading Royals at WesBanco Arena refused to end.
The two division rivals battled through a 2-2 tie in regulation, then overtime, and eventually a 14-round shootout, before the Royals ultimately escaped with the 3-2 win. Miles Gendron scored the deciding goal in the longest shootout in Wheeling hockey history in a game that took three hours and five minutes to play.
For the second time in three games, the Royals scored an early goal to take a 1-0 lead in the first period. Jeremy Michel swept a pass to defenseman Victor Hadfield, who was located just inside of the left point. Hadfield let a wrist shot go through a pile of bodies, and the puck found its way in. Shots on goal in the stanza were a mere 5-5.
The teams went over 40 minutes without scoring again, before Wheeling drew even at the 4:09 mark of the third. Tanner Andrew delivered a perfect pass into the crease for a tap-in by Mike Posma. Reading regained the lead 1:39 later on the power play, when Kyle Haskins wired a wrist shot into the top-left corner of the cage. The Nailers got a power play marker of their own to tie the score with 3:58 left. Craig Armstrong one-touched a pass from Tristan Thompson to tee up Scooter Brickey, who clobbered in a one-timer from above the right circle.
Little did everyone know at the time that there was still a lot more hockey left to be played. Overtime wasn’t able to decide a winner, so the match progressed to a shootout. Zach Urdahl gave Wheeling the lead in the first round, but Jacob Frasca kept the Royals alive in round three. Taylor Gauthier and Keith Petruzzelli exchanged saves in rounds four and five, before Matty De St. Phalle of the Nailers and Nolan Burke of Reading were both successful in the sixth round. Seven rounds of unsuccessful chances followed, before the game finally ended in round 14. Connor Lockhart came up empty for Wheeling, while Miles Gendron converted to give the Royals the 3-2 win.
Keith Petruzzelli was the victorious netminder for Reading, as he stopped 29 of 31 shots during the game, then 12 of 14 shootout shots. Taylor Gauthier made 19 saves on 21 shots in the game for the Nailers, then went 11-of-14 in the shootout.
The Nailers will have nine days off before hitting the ice again for their next game on Feb. 25 against the Fort Wayne Komets at 7:10 p.m. This is the make-up game from the originally scheduled match on Jan. 25.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theintelligencer.net ’
