WHEELING — The Wheeling Nailers found themselves on thin ice on Tuesday.

Facing a 5-1 deficit in the game and an 0-2 hole in the Central Division Final Series against Toledo, the Nailers rallied to cut the score within one but couldn’t quite pull even as they fell 5-4 in Game 3 inside WesBanco Arena.

Wheeling is now facing elimination down 0-3 in the series with Game 4 slated for Thursday at 7:10 p.m. at WesBanco Arena.

“It’s frustrating,” Wheeling coach Derek Army said.

“We had a good start but if you give them a chance on the power play they are going to score and they did just that. We answered right away in the second and we were feeling pretty good but that’s when the wheels came off.”

We had a couple of bad bounces and looked up at the scoreboard. When it’s 5-1, as a coach things could go one of two ways. We could have easily quit so I’m proud of the guys in that lockeroom for not giving up. I really thought down the stretch we were going to win that game.”

After falling behind 2-0, Cam Hausinger — the team leader in postseason goals who missed Game 2 — lit the lamp from point-blank range after teammate Matt Alfaro stole the puck and provided the assist.

However, Toledo rattled off the next three goals to create a 5-1 cushion.

That’s when Army went to his bench and brought Mitchell Weeks in at goalie.

He was a perfect 16-for-16 the remainder of the game.

“Sometimes, unfortunately a goalie change can do that,” Army said of the spark his team got. “It wakes up the guys on the bench. Some of those goals were clearly on us. LP (Louis-Philip Guindon) paid the price for them unfortunately. But it was a wakeup call for them that it’s not good enough and they just let down one of their teammates. Weeks played really well, though, so that was nice to see.”

That’s when Wheeling began its comeback.

Alfaro got it started as he took control of the puck at center ice and weaved his way through defenders before finding the back of the net.

Hausinger followed with his second goal of the evening, this time on the power play that cut the margin to 5-3 entering the third period.

“Cam has been our guy in the playoffs,” Army said. “We missed him in Game 2 in Toledo. Having him back (Tuesday) was great. He had two goals and he is just involved. He lives around the net and that is what you miss most when you don’t have him. That’s why he is the guy right now for us.”

Sean Josling got his teammates even closer with 13:03 remaining in the game as he launched a shot from near the top of the left circle and into the cage to pull within 5-4.

With under 5 minutes to play, Wheeling had one last chance for a power play goal but the Walleye took care of business to secure a 3-0 series lead.