Nailers Feel Good About Themselves
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WHEELING -- With his team in a stretch where it has won 9 of 11 games to climb within two points of first place in the ECHL's North Division, Wheeling Nailers coach Jeff Christian said Tuesday following practice at WesBanco Arena that complacency is the biggest adversary right now.
"You can see (Tuesday) that we gave them a little 3-on-3 competition, but we expect them to work," Christian said. "They're singing on the bus and they're getting together.
"It's taken some time with some new faces, but we'll take it one at a time."
Wheeling is coming off a weekend in which it took four of a possible six points on the road. The Nailers were beaten 6-1 on Friday night in Indy before rebounding to sweep Quad City, which equaled its total of home losses this season.
"Friday night the referees and the league kind of admitted we should have had a goal (to make it 3-2),'' Christian said. "The referee had it as a good goal and the linesman overruled him ... it was a good goal.
"I told (the players) over the course of the year we're going to have things like that. Everybody makes mistakes.
"Go onto Quad City and we played extremely hard and battled the whole way. You saw that with our team last year. We never quit, could come back from anything and we believed in ourselves.''
That character is quickly becoming the hallmark of this Wheeling team early in the season. When adversity strikes, the Nailers respond.
"It's a credit to them because they just keep battling,'' Christian said.
"Toledo spanked us (6-1 on Nov. 4) and the message was we've got to compete. The question is not, did you lose? The question is, how did you lose? And we didn't go down fighting.
"They've responded and we've shown that character.''
Christian would like to see a few more games in which the team gets out to a big lead and maintains the cushion. Offensively there have been flashes, but the coaching staff wants to see it on a more consistent basis.
''Yeah, we'd like to score a few more goals where it isn't always a one-goal game or a two-goal game,'' Christian said. "We'd like to get our offense going a little bit.''
Help in that area appears to be on the way in the form of Milos Bubela, a 24-year-old forward who hails from Slovakia. He's a graduate of R.P.I. and played eight games in the American Hockey League last season with the Utica Comets.
''Bubela is coming in this weekend so he will help our scoring,'' Christian said. "He may be our most highly skilled forward. We will wait and see what he looks like in a game. In practice he looks like a million bucks.
"There's obviously a difference when he starts getting hit, but he's got high-end skill."
The Nailers get their only look at South Division foe Greenville this weekend. The Swamp Rabbits are in town for games Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. With little time to prepare and not much to go on, that can make preparation tough.
"It is difficult, but that's our league,'' Christian said. "We can watch a couple of games and get a good feel, but we anticipate they're going to make adjustments just like we do.
"But how do we play? We can make in-game adjustments to what they're doing, but if we don't play our game we've got nothing.''
Christian confirmed that J.P. Anderson will be in goal for the Nailers on Saturday night. He is 4-0-0 with a goals-against average of 1.50 to go with a save percentage of .947.
"J.P. is a good goaltender and he did a good job for us last year,'' Christian said. "Doug Carr has obviously been pretty good.
"It's great to have two (goalies) right now. They push each other and they cheer for each other, and I think it's a really healthy thing.
"In my opinion they could both No. 1 goaltenders."