Wheeling’s Winston Day Chief, right, plays keep away with Reading’s Garret Cockerill during Wednesday’s game at WesBanco Arena. Photo by Joe Lovell

WHEELING — As one game after another passed, Jordan Ruby patiently went about the business of preparing for his chance. If Wednesday night is any indication, Ruby intends to take advantage.

A veteran of seven teams — in two different leagues — the past four seasons, perhaps Ruby has found a home in Wheeling. He made a career-high 43 saves and Cam Brown returned from the American Hockey League to register three points as the Nailers (22-22-6 — 50) earned a 5-2 victory against the Reading Royals (21-20-8 — 50) at WesBanco Arena.

Wheeling pulled within one point of Kalamazoo for the fourth and final Central Division playoff spot, and two points of third-place Fort Wayne with games remaining this week with Brampton (Friday and Saturday at home) and Fort Wayne (Sunday on the road).

”It’s something you don’t want to think about too much, but we did need this win,” Ruby said. ”We got outshot (45-23) but sometimes when you get outshot you can kind of play with that momentum.

”We played well defensively, I’m making the saves and guys are feeling good out there. We capitalized on our chances and that’s what really helped us.”

Brown, who played 11 games in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton before returning to the Nailers, wasted no time getting back into an ECHL groove. His cross-ice pass to Renars Krastsenbergs who tapped in his 13th for a power-play goal at 10:09 of the first got Wheeling off and running and extended Brown’s points streak to a league-high 13 games.

”This is a huge win and a huge two points, and hopefully we can keep it rolling on the weekend here,” said Brown, who has produced multiple points in seven of his last nine games in a Nailers uniform. ”The power play was working there and we got a couple of fortunate bounces.”

The Royals tied things 1-1 after one as Chris McCarthy tallied on the man advantage — their only conversion in seven chances. But Wheeling retook the lead at 9:29 of the second just after its own power play had expired.

Kevin Spinozzi, himself just back from the AHL, chased down a loose puck along the boards and turned and fired it toward the net, where it went off Reading’s Steve Johnson and into the net for his 12th goal, which is one off the league lead for defensemen.

”He got us out of the zone a number of times and was threatening from the blue line all night,” Nailers coach Mike Bavis said of Spinozzi, who extended his point streak to eight games. ”He was a part of that first goal on the power play because the puck moved so quickly.

”Not that we ever want to see guys come back in terms of advancing their careers, but he’s a good kid and it’s a big boost.”

The Royals again knotted the score, this one just after the Nailers had killed off a four-minute minor for a high-stick infraction. Tyler Brown did the honors 24 seconds into the third.

However, the Nailers took the lead for good at 5:19 as Alex Rauter won a battle below the goal line and got the puck to Trevor Yates. To earn his first point in a Wheeling uniform, Yates found Dan Fick at the right face-off dot and he whistled his career best-tying fourth of the season past Branden Kromm who had 19 saves on 23 shots. It also allowed Fick to set a career-high with his 24th point.

The lead doubled to 4-2 a little more than four minutes later as Alec Butcher somehow sneaked his third past Kromm at 9:35. Brown put the finishing touches on things as he gathered in a rebound of a Winston Day Chief shot that rang the post and deposited it into an empty net.

But the star was clearly Ruby.

”He’s done that since he’s been here, really. He’s both competitive and really sound,” Bavis said. ”He makes the saves he’s supposed to and he steals some other ones.

”He’s been a great teammate and the guys love him. We were under the gun on special teams and I thought he made a lot of big saves.”