Friday night in downtown Reading as the Wheeling Nailers visited for a two-game set marking their final appearances in the regular season. The league schedule has never been based on any kind of balance, it's more a matter of geography. In '24-25 the Royals play sixty of their seventy-two games against divisional opponents, the Nailers play only thirty within the division (there are simply more teams from other divisions that are geographically closer to West Virginia than the teams in the North Division). Through the first one-third of the season the Royals' offensive struggles have been well-documented, on this weekend the issues were magnified. The club currently has ten players out of the lineup, on Friday they played two men short due to a shortage of healthy bodies. In the Friday opener Todd Skirving scored in the game's first two minutes to give the Good Guys a 1-0 lead but the Nailers retaliated with three within six minutes late in the period, another Wheeling goal in the second period ended the scoring in a 4-1 Nailer win. On Saturday the game unfolded in a different manner but the result was exactly the same. Wheeling took a 2-0 second-period lead before Austin Master (a '23-24 Royal recently resigned) put the Home Team on the board but early in the third two more Nailer scores salted away a second consecutive 4-1 victory, Keith Petruzzelli was goaltender of record both nights for the Royals. Wheeling entered the weekend on a 12-0-1 streak not having lost in regulation time since November 1st, that run was extended with these two games. The Royals stand at 8-14-4 overall and just 2-5-3 at home, they'll have a chance for some quality practice time and hopefully get some people healthy before the next home game on December 20. Take care, thanks for reading.
