Photo by Joe Lovell The Wheeling Nailers’ Brent Johnson fires a shot on goal during Wheeling’s home game Sunday against Trois-Rivieres. Wheeling secured a sweep with their 4-2 victory over the Lions.

WHEELING — How sweep it is!

With a chance to earn six points on the weekend, Wheeling knew Trois-Rivieres would come out flying Sunday afternoon. However, the Nailers (25-7-1-0 51) were the team that got off to a fast start as they lit the lamp a mere 12 seconds into the contest en route to a 4-2 victory.

“I think it was big,” Wheeling first-year head coach Ryan Papaioannou said of the early goal. “I know our guys were ready for a physical game and we knew there would be at the one fight, so to score early like we did was huge.”

Team captain Matthew Quercia won the opening faceoff by directing the puck to Brent Johnson. Johnson, the Nailers all star representative, sent the puck ahead to Matty De St. Phalle who carried it into the Lions’ (13-13-0-3 29) zone, but fanned on his shot. The puck rolled onto the stick of Cole Armstrong who deposited it over the left shoulder of goaltender Vincent Duplessis for a 1-0 lead.

The lightning-quick net-finder tied for the third fastest to start a game in team history with Devin Edgerton, who accomplished the feat on Nov. 14, 1992 against the Roanoke Valley Rampage.

Wheeling goaltender Taylor Gauthier made sparkling back-to-back saves to keep the home team ahead midway through the first. He first denied a blast from the left wing and then sprawled out to stop the rebound from the right wing.

With 3:15 on the clock, Wheeling made it 2-0 when Johnson carried the puck from his own end of the ice into the Trois-Rivieres end before sliding the puck across the slot to Randy Hernandez who buried it into the cage.

The Nailers made it 3-0 with their 10th consecutive goal of the weekend.Logan Pietila fed the puck to Emil Pieniniemi on an odd-man rush. Pieniniemi waited patiently before unloading a slap shot that zipped past Duplessis at 14:17. It was the second career goal for Pieniniemi, with his first coming on Saturday night.

The Lions finally broke the scoring drought when Darick Louis-Jean poked a rebound past Gauthier.

Armstrong scored his second goal of the game at the 3:26 mark to make it 4-1. The goal came with the Nailers shorthanded and went into an empty net.

Trois-Rivieres’ Anthony Poulin found the net at 19:58 to cap the scoring.

Gauthier, who improved to 6-1 – including 5-0 at WesBanco Arena – stopped 26 of 28 shots.

“Ouer goaltending has been good all season and I think that is the one big separator with us and the opponents,” Papaioannou said. “More often than not, we’ve had better goaltending. That’s a good formula for success.”

The Lions only had one shot on goal in the first 15 minutes of the final period.

EMPTY NETTERS

– The fastest goal in Wheeling Nailers history – :09 – came on Nov. 11, 1994 by Louis Dumont against the Toledo Storm. The Nailers also have scored with 11 seconds elapsed, that coming by Don Chase versus the Columbus Chill on March 21, 1997.

– Wheeling doesn’t have a player with more than nine goals this season. In fact, all 18 players that dressed Sunday had at least one goal.

– Wheeling improved to

– The ECHL All-Star Game will be played on Monday, Jan. 19 at the Credit Union Of Texas Event Center in Allen, Tex.

– The Nailers are back home next weekend for three games. The first two – Friday and Saturday – as against the Reading Royals, with Sunday’s contest against the Fort Wayne Komets.