Photo by Joe Lovell The Wheeling Nailers' Taylor Gauthier defends the net Wednesday during the Nailers' Eastern Conference Finals game against the Florida Everblades inside WesBanco Arena.

WHEELING – The Wheeling Nailers have dug themselves a hole in the Kelly Cup Playoffs that only two other ECHL teams have fought back from.

Florida broke a 2-all tie late in the second period of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday night inside WesBanco Arena and owned the third period to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 series with a 5-2 victory. Game 4 is Friday night back in the Friendly City, with Game 5, if necessary, scheduled for Saturday night, also in Wheeling.

“The goal Florida scored at the end of the second period kind of took the wind out of our sails,” Wheeling first-year head coach Ryan Papaioannou said. “I think we were pretty good through the first 40 (minutes). That’s the first rough night that I’ve seen (Taylor) Gauthier have. It’s tough and happened at the wrong time for us.

“I thought we played well. A 2-2 tie with those guys halfway through. We were outshooting them, outchancing them and outplaying them, but we were still tied,” Papaioannou said. “Unfortunately, everything that got to our net went in.”

Sometimes the puck takes funny bounces.

“Right before they made it 2-1 we hit the post,” Papaioannou recalled. “Not too long after that they made it 2-1 instead of us being up 2-1. We were right in the game until the third period. I thought we had our chances again.

“They outshot us 16-3 in the third period and took the game over,” Papaioannou added. “We had no answer for them and, as a result, we’re down 3-0.”

When asked what he said to the team in the locker room, the head coach replied, “We haven’t said much yet,” Papaioannou continued. “We’ll address it during our practice tomorrow.”

Wheeling was 0 for 3 on the power play and haven’t scored with the man-advantage yet in the series. It was o for 6 in Game 2.

The Everblades scored the first goal for the 12th consecutive playoff encounter as Craig Needham whipped the puck off the far post from low in the circle to Taylor Gauthier’s right a mere 16 ticks into the contest.

Wheeling drew even at the 12:39 mark as Tiernan Shoudy recorded his first playoff tally. Max Graham showed some yeoman’s work in the corner to dig the puck free where it popped out to Mike Posma. He was knocked off the puck but it slipped right onto Shoudy’s stick for a wrister that Florida’s Cam Johnson never saw.

The Everblades took a 2-1 lead into the locker room when Anthony Romano scored off an assist by Sam Stange at 18:34.

Following a 10-minute delay to fix a piece of glass to the left of Gauthier, Wheeling pulled even again when Brayden Edwards showed some nifty stick work before tucking the puck over Johnson’s left shoulder at 9:02. Edwards broke free and went forehand-backhand-forehand before finding the back of the net. Ryan McAllister recorded a helper.

Florida’s Carson Gicewicz scored what turned out to be the game-winner at 11:20 of the second period following a giveaway in front of the Nailers’ net.

Florida iced the game with goals at 6:56 by Hudson Elynuik and 8:45 by Cole Moberg.

Gauthier stopped 28 of 33 shots, while Johnson was good on 27 of 29 shots.

LOOSE PUCKS

– The Pittsburgh Penguins had a large delegation of front office personnel in attendance Wednesday night, including head coach Dan Muse who was seated to the left of the media press box.

– Former Wheeling Thunderbirds and Nailers Brock Woods and Vadim Slivchenko served as honorary captains.

– Florida is the oldest team in the ECHL this season, averaging 27 years old per player. Wheeling is the youngest at 24. The Everblades have just two rookies while the Nailers have 14. Florida also has 11 former Kelly Cup champions on its roster. Wheeling has zero.

– Florida is the ECHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues. Ironically, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Baby Pens just eliminated the Springfield Falcons in the AHL Calder Cup race, who are also a St. Louis affiliate.

– The Nailers suffered their first home loss of the playoffs. They had won their first six.

– Kansas City can punch its ticket in the Western Conference Finals on Sunday with a win in Fort Wayne. The Mavericks led the series 3-1.

– The Augusta (Ga.) Lynx became the league’s 32nd franchise with an announcement on Tuesday.