The Wheeling Nailers' Kelly Cup run ended Thursday in a four-game sweep by the Toldeo Walleye in the second round of the ECHL playoffs.
The Nailers fell 3-1 in the final game, with forward Matt Alfaro scoring the team's lone goal. The first three games of the series were decided by 5-1, 5-2, and 5-4 margins.
The Walleye, ECHL affiliate of the Red Wings, were the league's regular-season champions.
"It's tough," head coach Derek Army said in his postgame press conference. "You look and you see the emotions of those guys, they poured everything into the year, everything into each other. For it to be over, that part sucks. In pro hockey it's not like college where all of a sudden you're back together next year. This group, unfortunately, will never be together again. So it's hard. It's hard for me to look them in the eyes, you just see how much fight they had and the love for each other. That means a lot."
The Nailers had eliminated the defending champion Fort Wayne Komets in Game 7 overtime in the first round, with forward Matthew Quercia scoring the series-clinching goal.
Cam Hausinger, an ECHL-contracted forward out of the WHL, was the Nailers' leading scorer in the postseason with nine goals and an assist in 10 games. NHL-contracted defenseman Josh Manisalco, a Penguins free agent signing out of Arizona State two summers ago, led all Nailers defensemen in scoring with three goals and four assists in 10 games. The only other NHL-contracted player on the team was forward Justin Almeida, a third-year pro who was the Penguins' fifth-round pick in 2018, who recorded two goals and three assists in 11 games.
This was Wheeling's first trip to the postseason since 2016, the year in which the Nailers lost in the Kelly Cup Final. Army, now in his first full season as head coach of the Nailers, was just a second-year pro forward on that Nailers team that came just short of winning a Kelly Cup.
"There's been six Wheeling teams in between that couldn't get a sniff at the playoffs," Army said. "This team, after a last place finish, came in, you had guys who were here last year and you saw a culture change. For us, the message is you should be really proud of what you did, not only to get in the playoffs -- that was our goal from the start -- it was getting the playoffs to win a round. We had to go through the defending champ and then the current league champs, so it's not an easy task. They should be very proud of what they did. I certainly hope they are."
