Wheeling Nailers ‘Fyten’ To the End
Wheeling Defeats Fort Wayne in Shootout, 3-2
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WHEELING -- One-goal games have been a theme for the Wheeling Nailers this year.
Entering Friday's game against Fort Wayne, the Nailers were 3-4-4 in games decided by one goal -- 11 of their 15 contests.
The tides may have turned on Friday, however, as it was Wheeling that pulled out the 3-2 victory over the Komets in a shootout inside WesBanco Arena.
It was Austin Fyten who delivered the dagger for Wheeling -- the only successful shot of the shootout. The left-handed forward didn't waste any time when he took the puck from center ice. He went right at Fort Wayne netminder Stefanos Lekkas and buried a back-hander into the cage to give the Nailers the upperhand.
"I had the opportunity last year to get in a couple of shootouts but I haven't been in a lot," Fyten said. "I had an idea of what I wanted to do and it worked out."
Goalie Francois Brassard didn't allow a goal in the shootout and made brilliant saves all night, including three to help Wheeling kill off a penalty.
"He played unbelievable for us," Fyten said. "He stole us one I think. He was the top guy back there and we're going to need that."
Brassard finished the game with 40 saves to earn his first win as a Nailer.
"Some games you need your goaltender to be your best player and he was (Friday)," Nailers coach Mark French said.
Friday's game was the first of the season for Fort Wayne after many teams in the league postponed the start of the campaign.
With no film to study, French was happy to just focus on his team and it worked.
"It's different for sure but you can really focus on yourself," French said. "We're going to be so familiar with this team by the end of the year but we're still trying to refine our game and find chemistry so it's still OK to focus on us because we had no other choice."
Following a scoreless first period, Fyten took matters into his own hands 42 seconds into the second frame when he collected his own rebound and lit the lamp for the 1-0 lead.
"We talked in the room about just staying on them," Fyten said. "They were fresh and they came out and played hard. I thought we matched them in the first period and we wanted to continue that and then we got the goal.
"That was huge for us."
Brassard shined in the crease gathering 20 saves through the first two periods and keeping the Komets off the scoreboard.
That changed when former Nailer Brandon Hawkins delivered the equalizer not even 2 minutes into the final stanza.
Less than 3 minutes later, Shawn Szydlowski put the Komets ahead on an assist from Anthony Petruzzelli.
Now the Nailers were faced with a deficit -- and they responded.
Patrick McNally grabbed a pass from Tyler Drevitch and scored his first goal of the year on a laser from the right circle to tie the game with 13:42 remaining.
"The defining moment was when they scored to make it 2-1 and for us, it was important to fight back and how quickly we did it was a good show of mental toughness for our guys.
"I think back to the second Tulsa game. They scored with 7 or 8 minutes to go. (Friday) we could have very easily had a memory of some of those games but we decided to fight so I thought that was a good step."
Brassard made sure the Komets didn't strike again as the Nailers won their first game on home ice since Dec. 31.