ECHL Preview: Greenville vs. Wheeling

It’s a quiet night in the ECHL with just game on the schedule for this Tuesday evening: a 7 p.m. matchup between the Greenville Road Warriors and the Wheeling Nailers, who hold fourth and fourteenth place in the Eastern Conference, respectively.

• Greenville: 17-10-1-1, 36 pts/29 GP — 96 GF, 88 GA — 5-4-0-1 in last ten
• Wheeling: 8-10-2-3, 21 pts/23 GP — 62 GF, 79 GA — 5-3-0-2 in last ten

Warriors forward Brandon Wong is averaging a point per game this season and leads the team in goals (11), assists (18) and points. Forward Marc-Olivier Vallerand also has a 1.00 pt/g average, with nine goals and 16 assists in 25 games. He is especially dangerous on the special teams, with four of his goals coming on the power play and three coming shorthanded.

Also for the Road Warriors, Brendan Connolly is just one point shy of 20 on the season, while two Greenville defensemen are tied for the team lead in plus/minus. Mike Marcou and Steven Delisle are both plus-19 on the season.

Greenville looks to extend a four-game winning streak that dates back to December 11. A 6-0 win over South Carolina was followed by a 3-1 victory over Gwinnett on December 13. The next day, Greenville came out on top of South Carolina 5-4 in the shootout, before defeating Gwinnett again on December 16 by a score of 3-1.

Lee Baldwin, Bretton Cameron and Marc-Olivier Vallerand had the goals for Greenville, and goaltender Jason Missiaen had 38 saves.

Nailers forward Luke Pither leads the team with seven goals – including two from his time with Trenton. Defenseman Cody Wild leads the team in assists (13) and is tied for the points lead (16) with Paul Crowder. Wild and Crowder each carry a .70 points/game average into tonight’s game.

The Wheeling team is coming off to wins to Fort Wayne and Evansville. Eleven skaters had at least a point for the Nailers in the 7-5 win over the IceMen, with six players getting multiple points.

Tonight’s game is the first of six matchups between Greenville and Wheeling. The teams will meet again in Wheeling for an 11 a.m. matchup on Wednesday before meeting twice more on December 27 and 28 and another two games in February.

The teams met twice last season, with Wheeling taking both games of the season series by scores of 6-1 and 5-3.

Wheeling and Greenville will drop the puck for the first of consecutive games at 7 p.m. EST this evening. Ticket information can be found here, with radio and broadcast information (pay to watch) also available.