Nailer News Is Now... Basement News

It's kind of hard to place a blame for being in the basement.

Sure you can say Call-ups, Injuries or Coaching and all three are cop-outs really.

All teams deal with injuries and call-ups during the season. It's part of the game.
When it comes down to brass tax, the players are the ones that need to execute and they can't even get the puck beyond the red line without puking all over themselves.

We all place blame somewhere, I place blame on adversity.
It's been our biggest enemy this season and it started by not being able to win on the road. It was only a matter of time before we either got our game together on road ice or it would start to take it's toll on the friendly confines of Wes Banco Arena.

I think these next few pictures says it all about where we are in our season.

This is a must read for the team. Thanks R.L. Stine

A few pictures came our way the past couple days..
This is rumored to be Martin Houle.

Maybe the bag is screening the shots?



Jim Brooks? Rob Brooks?


This is me at the bar after the game, because the basement is too cold and dark to not be hammered.


Put me in coach... I'm ready to play.

Things are looking uglier than Jeremy Roenick.

And that's pretty ugly.

As a Nailer fan, we've all been trying to find ways to cope... this may help.

At least there's still moondog bobble head night to look forward to.

Bissonnette Named To ECHL Allstar Team

Other than Paul Bissonnette has been named to the 2007/2008 ECHL Allstar game for the second straight season, not too much news today.

Whoever runs the Nailer website must not know who Paul Bissonnette is because this is the picture that they had online to go with the story.

Justin Chwedoruk... nice. Maybe they are really in love with their photoshop, or maybe they put Chwedoruk's head on Bissonnette's body? I don't know, but if that's the case, I say we take both players and create Paulstin Chwedonnette. That'd be one intense mofo.

Speaking of intense players... The daily Gino Pisellini fight is:
Gino Pisellini vs. Scott Todd - Round 1

On this day in 1992 former Wheeling Thunderbird Darren Schwartz scored the fastest three goals in ECHL history against Roanoke Valley.
(17:51, 18:03 and 18:21 in the 3rd period) 30 seconds.

The Nailers are back in town tomorrow night to face the Elmira Jackles, who last time came to town to relax and go home with an easy win. The most action in that game was the fans giving them the business as they sat in the entrance way between periods. I guess they wanted to lengthen their stay this time and stay for two games.

Time To Make A Run...

No time like the present to make a run at moving up the standings as the Nailers play seven of their next nine games on home ice where they’ve compiled a 7-3-1-1 record. Consiquently, the Nailers are 2-10-0-1 on the road.

On a positive note,if you look at the ECHL North Division standings, the top five teams make the playoffs and the Nailers are tied for that final spot. That's a good sign considering our top six scorers have missed large parts of the season because of early season call-ups and an injury or two, not to mention that we've had more goalies start in net than Pam Anderson has had husbands with six.

"I get around"

Coach Patrick gave word earlier today that Nathan Marsters will get the nod tonight. In his debut with Wheeling on Saturday night, he stopped 50 of 52 shots to record the victory. Here's to hoping he's in beast mode tonight and the word from Marsters is that he's ready to go...

"Beast mode activated!"

Wilkes_Barre/Scrantons leading scorer Jeff Taffe has received a call-up from Pittsburgh. Not entirely sure as to why, my guess is that they're banking that Ryan Malone's (flu/leg infection) or Erik Christensen (Neck) might not be able to play or maybe Connor James is being sent back down. If James comes back down, it would have to happen today because the NHL's Christmas roster freeze begins. If James isn't sent down, one of the Nailers might get a look.

Nailers who could get a call-up if Connor James isn't sent down: Joe Jensen, Aaron Boogaard, Ned Haven, Kevin Croxton.

Besides the call-ups, injuries have begun to take their toll. Defensemen Seamus Young and Curtiss Patrick, along with rugged forward Gino Pisellini are all currently on the injured reserved list.

Curtiss had a checkup on his finger this morning and Seamus Young should be back in the lineup tonight after he received a scare a couple games ago when he took a stick between the eyes. If the stick would have been a couple inches to either side, Young’s career could have been over. Pretty serious stuff.

Francois Leroux has been placed on the 3-day IR. He's probably just out of gas and will catch back up with the rest of the team when they head back to Wheeling. We'll let you know if it's anything more than just being fatigued

Pisilleni’s injury seems to be a little more severe as he has been placed on the 30-day IR with a concussion.

Perhaps this announcer needs a beating for mispronouncing Pisilleni.



Get it right! It's PISS-ill-LEAN-E fool!

The Nailers also added forward John Burton to the team. Burton took part in Nailers training camp this summer before he was cut. In the past two seasons played 8 games in the UHL between Flint and Chicago. 0 goals, 0 assist, 0 points.

The Marsters Mash

Wheeling finally ended a 9-game skid this weekend. Nathan Marsters made his Nailer/2007/2008 season debut a memorable one as he turned aside 50 of 52 shots in the Nailers win. His save percentage is a staggering .962.

That's disgusting.

Was it just me or is Justin Chwedoruk as intense as they come? He's bringing some much needed energy to the team... and that's definitely something we've lacked since Adam Henrich was called up. By the way, looks like someone in the Nailers front office had the great idea to photoshop Chwedoruk's head on one of the other Nailers body. Nice photoshop, Picaso..




Obviously, The Champ does not approve...

"I don't like it!"

Wheeling has claimed forward Patrick Bordeleau from the Charlotte Checkers off of the waiver-wire. Bordeleau has played in 10 games for the Checkers this season and has three points on a goal and two assists.

To make room for the Bordeleau, both Jon Foster and Joe Santilli were put on waivers today.Australian for you've just been cut...

I'm kind of puzzled by this move, they could've just released Santilli, but none-the-less, they didn't and I'm puzzled, especially since Gino Pisellini is not yet ready to come off of the IR.
We really should post a daily Pisellini fight video every day until his return just to tide us over. So here it goes.

Gino vs. Louis Robitaille

Lets stay out of the basement.

With the basement looming, the Nailers have been busy tending to their depleted roster. There will be more new faces than Michael Jackson this weekend.
"weee heeee"

Former Wheeling Nailer/Thunderbird, Vadim "The Russian Rocket" Slivchenko will be suiting up for the Nailers by the end of this week, as his paperwork finally went through. Even though Vadim's 37 years of age, he's still faster than most of the players in the ECHL. He played 51 games in Germany last season for Crimmitschau ETC where he led the team in scoring with 39 points (17G,22A). It's good to have the rocket back. Hopefully he can add some scoring to our Nicole Ritchie like offense.
The Nailers have also signed rookie forward Joe Santilli. Santilli is in his senior year of college at Northeastern University. In 17 games played so far he has 11 points 2G,9A). Last season with Northeastern, he had nine points on five goals and four assists in 20 games played.

Wheeling also claimed goalie Nathan Marsters off of waivers from Augusta. Masters has spent time in the AHL for Portland going 2-3 in 5 games last season in the AHL. He was a victim of a numbers crunch as the Anaheim Ducks have too many goalies under contract in their system. Marsters was 4-3-2 for the Lynx.

Hell Froze Over

In some good news today Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguin and former Nailer Joe Jensen has been assigned to the Nailers earlier today. Jensen should help our offense who're been more anemic than Nicole Ritchie lately.

Jensen, has appeared in 18 games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton accounting for two points (1G,1A) and 23 penalty minutes. The second year pro spent half of his rookie season with the Nailers in 2006-07. He scored 29 points (11G,18A) in 28 games for Wheeling while registering 11 points (6G,5A) in 26 games with the Penguins.

Pittsburgh has also recalled the peoples champ, Paul Bissonnette. I guess hell has froze over.

Biss seemed to be in the doghouse with the Penguins organization this past offseason as he was told not to report to Penguins training camp or Wheeling because they were pursuing a trade.

Kyle Rank was also assigned to the Baby Pens. Rank played 10 AHL games last season with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers scoring 4 points (2G,2A)

Garbage Day!

I forgot today was garbage day when I woke up. In unrelated news, the Nailers claimed goalie Brett Jaeger off waivers from Utah. He's 0-5 this season so far, but he did win 40 games in two seasons for Fresno.

Here's a look at Jaegers time with the Falcons. Not too shabby.

Season  Team           GP  GA  SO   GAA   W   L   T   Pct
04-05  Fresno Falcons  37  85   2  2.49  19   9   6  .927
05-06  Fresno Falcons  37  98   0  2.63  21   6   8  .912

Here's to good luck... don't bomb.

Say goodbye to Michael Handza, as the Nailers traded him to Bakersfield for forward Justin Chwedoruk. 
This actually seems to be a great trade for us on paper.  Chwedoruk's been pretty beast this year too,
scoring 11 points in 19 games (7G,4A) and racking up 37 penalty minutes. Handza had 3 points with the Nailers, 
all assist.

Curtiss Patrick's two game suspension is over after he was assessed a match penalty for Deliberate Injury of an opponent. What the heck do you call fighting? You don't just punch someone without trying to inflict pain, do you?

Gino Pisellini has been placed on the 7-day injured reserve he's a little banged up.

Skidding out of control

When you saw warm-ups today you noticed two things.

You were glad to see David Laliberte back with the team and then you noticed that you threw up all over yourself when you saw that our two goalies were Ray Jean and Billy Higgins. Or as they're known in hockey circles...
Billy JeanDisgusting.

Well they say that hindsight is 20/20 my friend. So who would've thought that two trades would come back to haunt us this very moment? When we traded Jason Tejchma and Terry Denike we were stacked in net and we were pretty set offensively. Tejchma has 12 points in 14 games with the Mississippi Sea Wolves right now and Denike is the go-to-guy in Reading with a 2-0 record.

To quote Lloyd Christmas,"We're in a hole, we just need to dig ourselves out."

Word out of Pittsburgh is that Marc-Andre Fleury will miss two-to-four weeks with his ankle injury. This means that Dany Sabourin will carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for a little while, while John Curry and Dave Brown do the same in Wilkes-Barre. That being said... Martin Houle cannot come back fast enough from a groin injury. There's only one person who can help us now...
Barring the second coming, we're in serious trouble.

Since Lane Manson's retirement, the Nailers have won a grand total of two games.

Francios Leroux is a minus-7 and he looks gassed every time he comes off of the ice.

Frustration's setting in. Nothing is going right lately. Nothing.
So we're changing things up here at Nailer News. While others may go green, but we're going black with a new site look to help get outta this funk. Anything helps. Right?

Goalie Swap Continued...

With Marc-Andre Fleury day-to-day with an ankle sprain, the Pittsburgh Penguins recalled goalie Ty Conklin and reassigned John Curry from Wheeling to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. So it appears that the Baby Pens will go with the rookie tandem of Curry and Dave Brown until Fleury is healthy. It's a great chance for the kids to show what they can do. Too bad we traded Terry Denike a week too early.

You Cant Touch A Flame When It's, Red Hot

With Marc-Andre Fleury suffering an ankle injury tonight in Calgary, Ty Conklin may awake to a phone call telling him to get up and fly to Vancouver to back up former Wheeling Nailer, Dany Sabourin... This kind of makes you wonder if the Baby Pens will sign someone or call Curry up for a while. If they call Curry up the Baby Pens will have two rookie keepers with very limited AHL net time.
Check out this 1987 video with the Calgary Flames... Look close and you'll see Pittsburgh Penguin Gary Roberts. Good Stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9eF6DVI0tk&feature=related

Goalie Swap

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have switched around their goalies as they sent John Curry to Wheeling and called up Dave Brown to take his place.

WBS picked kind of an odd time to take Brown, as he probably has played his two worst games of his brief professional career, but none-the-less it's a good thing for Brown to experience life int he AHL and to get some time facing higher caliber players.

Curry, assigned to the Nailers in the preseason, was sent by the parent Penguins to the Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL to get some playing time. While playing for the Wranglers Curry put up impressive numbers going 4-1 with a 2.81 GAA and a .905 save percentage earning him his first AHL call-up.

Curry has played in 3 AHL games for the Penguins going 1-2-0 with a 2.66 GAA and a .901 save percentage.

Curry had also played for the United States National Team this season at the Deutschland Cup in Hannover, Germany, posting a 1-0-1 record with a 1.92 goals against average and a .946 save percentage.

The Nailers then sent goalie Terry Denike to Reading for "undisclosed considerations."

Hang on, Help Is On It's Way

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins assigned Ned Havern back to Wheeling today as well as defenseman Jonathan D'Aversa. Both players will be in uniform tonight as the Nailers travel to take on Johnstown.
D'Aversa, 21, spent the previous four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League with Sudbury. He scored 26 goals and 150 points over that span. In his rookie season with the Baby Pens, D'Aversa, has played in 6 games scoring 1 goal and adding an assist.
To make room, Vin Hellemeyer was waived after scoring the lone goal for the Nailers in a 3-1 loss at Trenton last night.